Chapter 266

Chapter 266

“It’s better enjoyed all at once than sipped and savored,” Lucius had said with that perfect, handsome smile of his.

It had been the final day of the social season. Knowing she might never see him again, Deatrice had etched his face into her memory and, despite how unladylike it felt, had tipped the glass back, emptying it in one go as he instructed.

“How was it?”

Lucius had tilted his head slightly, his expression playful. Deatrice had squinted, feeling the warmth of the drink surge to her face.

“I have no idea,” she admitted.

“Are you drunk?” he whispered, his voice so low it felt almost intimate.

Deatrice hesitated before replying, “You know I can’t be.”

“Why not?”

“Because…”

“Because you need to go back and dance some more?”

Was there a hint of jealousy in his tone, or was she imagining it? Whatever feeling his words carried, Deatrice chose to ignore it. Instead, she took it as a subtle rebuke.

“You think I don’t know how someone like me looks to someone like you? Spending the whole evening dancing and making small talk as if that’s the most important thing in the world. You must think it’s all so trivial. But for some people, whether they want it or not, it’s everything.”

Her voice carried a faint edge of drunkenness, and Lucius fell into a contemplative silence. He suppressed the urge to reach out, to grasp her arm, make her face him, and say, You know that’s not what I meant.

But he couldn’t.

Deatrice had too many suitors already. It was no secret that the duke had been quietly observing, letting her sort through them as she pleased. Lucius couldn’t bring himself to shatter her only escape with confessions of love or promises that might never come true.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I wasn’t thinking. Sitting here, wasting time and drink… I guess it made me cynical. Will you forgive my rudeness?”

He kept his emotions in check, his tone apologetic but warm. Deatrice, after a moment of quiet, lifted her head and replied with a bright tone, “I’ll forgive you if you tell me a funny story.”

“A funny story?” Lucius repeated, sounding a bit at a loss.

“Or,” she added, a playful glint in her eyes, “you could just skip to a heartfelt confession about how beautiful I am.”

Lucius chuckled. “I take it I’m not known for my wit?”

“And if I said you weren’t confident about anything, would that make you feel pitiful?”

“Terribly,” he replied with mock seriousness.

“That’s ridiculous,” Deatrice said with a laugh.

Deatrice firmly denied it. She couldn’t imagine that a man like Lucius would feel such a way. But then he laughed softly, admitting with surprising honesty that it was true. He confessed that he had never truly felt confident about anything in his life.

“In all my years, nothing has ever seemed particularly meaningful to me. Time passes slowly, and I’ve simply filled it with whatever I could to keep going. But this winter… it flew by.”

“Because of me?”

“Yes. Because of you.”

His gaze settled gently on her, and his half-lidded eyes, paired with that subtle smile, sent Deatrice’s heart into a thundering rhythm. Perhaps that’s why she blurted out what came next.

“I feel the same. It’s gone by so fast… too fast, really. I even wish it hadn’t.”

It was the first time she’d spoken so impulsively, without overthinking the meaning behind her words or the vulnerability they might reveal later. It felt like something she’d kept buried in her heart had slipped through a crack. As the realization struck, her cheeks flushed, and she quickly averted her eyes.

But just then, Lucius’s fingertips brushed against hers, resting lightly on the armrest of her chair.

It was barely a touch—just the faintest graze of skin against skin—but it ignited something in her. A warmth spread through her hand and up her neck, an almost unbearable heat. Deatrice kept her gaze lowered, frozen in place, until his fingers inched over hers, softly curling around her pinky.

She couldn’t take it anymore. Abruptly, she stood and fled.

“That was a signal?”

Now, back in the present, Deatrice asked the question aloud after hearing Lucius recount his version of that moment.

Lucius, utterly unfazed, gave her a shamelessly nonchalant look.

“What else would it have been?”

“I thought it was just a fleeting gesture,” she protested, still reeling from the revelation. “But for it to be a deliberate signal…”

The notion shocked her. To her, a “signal” sounded like seduction—a carefully crafted move to lure someone in. Learning that such a deeply emotional moment between them had been a calculated act of seduction left her feeling unsettled, even now.

Lucius, however, responded with a mature smile, as if her reaction amused him.

“I was desperate. Desperate for you not to let me slip away. I needed you to come after me, in any way you could. And later, when I heard you’d gone to the sand hills, that’s when I realized my signal had worked.”

Under the same kind of night sky as before, he gazed at her intently, his eyes filled with emotion. Slowly, he reached up, his hand brushing against her reddened cheek with a tenderness that made her breath catch. As Lucius leaned in and closed his eyes, their lips met.

Deatrice’s eyes fluttered shut, and for a moment, she wondered what kind of yearning was woven into this kiss.

And then she understood.

His longing hadn’t changed. He still wanted her to find him, to come to him, just as he always had.