7. Tôi biết, và tôi biết

7. I Know And, I Know

He tried to eat a roasted carrot for breakfast and cut himself on the same spot as yesterday. He stuck the bleeding finger in his mouth and opened the box Kloff had brought in the early hours. Inside he found white bandages. He cut a strip of the thick fabric and wrapped it around his finger. It stung a little. While he was at it, he bandaged the longer cut from the day before as well. He looked down at both hands and suddenly remembered — a gentle smile, and white bandages touching smiling lips. The vision of two people in love, one kissing the other's wounded fingertips as though that alone could heal them, was still vivid.

*   *   *

"Good day, Count Teiwind."

Rapiel greeted Aeroc with a bright smile at Viscount Derbyshire's tea party. Aeroc had no desire to acknowledge him at all, but the happy omega's half-step behind stood Kloff, watching, so he had no choice but to return the greeting with a polished smile.

"Hello, Rapiel. The weather is very fine today."

"I wish every day could be like this."

A simple enough reply, yet Rapiel clapped his hands with theatrical delight and giggled. Aeroc found the shrill laughter grating but did not let it show. Instead, he looked past the omega to the stiff-faced alpha behind and beamed with a friendly nod. All he received in return was a slight tip of the chin. A flicker of spite rose in him.

There's no need to be this cold.

Aeroc pulled his already-strained smile even tighter, until his cheeks twitched, and looked back down at the omega standing before him. Rapiel had both hands raised, pressed together in front of his mouth in a gesture meant to look endearing. Around his fingers, white bandages were wrapped.

"You've hurt your fingers."

"Ah — I was practicing cooking recently."

"Cooking?"

"I was learning to prepare fish. But I'm clumsy and cut myself."

At that, Aeroc furrowed his brow slightly. For someone destined to become the mistress of an aristocratic household, learning to bake pastries or brew tea as a mark of refinement was one thing. But wielding a kitchen knife to fillet fish was excessive. Now that he looked, Rapiel's hands bore faded scars beyond the bandages, and the skin that should have been soft and smooth had roughened.

"Was the Westport viscounty really in such dire straits? Enough to make the eldest son do the cooking?"

Rapiel, who had been showing his hands without a trace of shame, belatedly flushed and hid them behind his back. Distant though the connection was, he was still a Teiwind cousin. And with their similar looks, talk linking the two houses had been circulating more and more frequently. If word got out that Rapiel was filleting fish and cutting his fingers, Aeroc would be branded either a miserly wretch sitting on a vast fortune while his own kin suffered, or a fool too dense to notice a relative's hardship.

Rapiel's understated clothes — good quality but free of adornment — had made Aeroc assume the man had a measure of aristocratic taste. It seemed even that had been his own projection. No matter how little Aeroc cared for Rapiel, assisting a relative in difficulty was a nobleman's plain duty. Aeroc spoke carefully, keeping the irritation out of his voice as best he could.

"I'll have my butler send over a suitable cook. The ingredients and all costs will be on me. You won't need to handle fish again. I'm sorry I didn't think of it sooner."

"That's not—"

Rapiel tried to refuse with a flustered look, then glanced nervously back at Kloff. Perhaps he had not wanted to be caught out in front of the man he was seeing. Then he should not have come out wearing the bandages so openly.

When Aeroc fixed him with a disapproving gaze, Rapiel could not meet his eyes and lowered them. Poor or not, receiving charity with such cringing meekness was equally disagreeable. Aeroc was about to tell him to raise his head when Kloff stepped forward and stood at Rapiel's side. A large hand reached down and clasped the bandaged fingers firmly. Then, in full view, he turned a cold stare on Aeroc. His voice came clipped and displeased.

"That won't be necessary, Rapiel. You've done nothing wrong — don't bow your head as though you have. If there's any fault, it lies with me for lacking the means to spare my future wife such hardship."

The words caught Aeroc off guard. He had been so consumed by the thought that Rapiel was embarrassing him that he had not anticipated Kloff turning it around. And in strictly literal terms, Kloff's position was hardly one to boast of.

Nobleman's son or not, to let his fiancée handle raw fish with her bare hands. If the faint, barely visible stone in that engagement ring soaked up the smell — what then? If things were that tight, he could have asked for help quietly, or at the very least bought her a pair of gloves.

To Aeroc, every detail of Rapiel's appearance screamed inadequacy — but Kloff apparently did not see it that way. He wrapped his arm around the waist of the flushed, flustered Rapiel for everyone to see.

"If you'll excuse us."

With that curt farewell, the two walked away.

That evening, while waiting for his carriage, Kloff had devoted himself to loving every wound on his fiancée's hands so that Rapiel would not feel an ounce of shame.

*   *   *

Aeroc stood by the table, staring into space. He touched its cold surface with fingertips where a faint pulse still beat. Then he raised his hand to his lips. Would this make the pain go away? It made no difference. Probably because the lips were not his. That day, Rapiel had truly seemed to feel no pain.

The days passed — peaceful, and sometimes a little tedious. In contrast, Aeroc's heart grew more restless by the day. Each passing day felt like a countdown to some promised date. He had no idea when Kloff might appear, but he was certain the man would come at least once. To make sure he did not miss it, he stayed awake as late as he could into the night.

To conserve the lamp oil, he sat in the dark on the bed, forehead resting on his drawn-up knees, and waited. Whenever a sound came from outside, he lit the lamp at once and peered through the window. After staring out for a long while he would extinguish the flame, pull the blanket over himself, and wait again. Night after night. Too sleep-deprived to hold on, he would drift into a half-doze before dawn, only to jolt awake at the chirping of passing birds. Heart pounding, he would whisper "Kloff?" — but only the leaves rustling in the wind answered.

Waiting always brought its reward. One late afternoon, just as he was about to strip off his soot-stained clothes to wash them — the frayed buttonhole had snagged, its weft threads tangling around the button so it would not come free. At first he tried patiently to tease each thread loose, but the half-healed cuts on his fingertips stung, and his temper snapped. The clothes had already been too small and uncomfortable; with rare violence, Aeroc was nearly tearing the shirt off when —

The door swung open.

There had never been a lock, but the door had not moved unless Aeroc touched it. Now it flew wide, and a tall man strode in. Aeroc froze — the half-torn shirt in one hand, the other twisting at the button caught at his throat.

"Kloff?"

He had apparently been out somewhere — coat, hat, and gloves all meticulously in place. Kloff regarded Aeroc with his usual grave expression. Taking in the startled, half-bare man staring at him, the alpha's lip curled with derision — then his gaze dropped to the rags clutched in those thin hands. The confident arc of his mouth flattened and trembled, almost imperceptibly.

"What is this."

"Ah — this wretched shirt was being impossibly difficult."

The shock of the sudden intrusion, combined with not even being properly dressed, had flustered him into blaming the clothes and cursing. The instant it left his mouth he felt vulgar, and Aeroc lowered his gaze slightly. No matter how long he'd rolled in the gutter, there was no need to drag his nature down to gutter level. But it seemed that however hard he tried, the influence of his environment was inescapable. He braced himself for whatever sharp retort would follow.

After a brief silence, Kloff removed his black silk hat, set it on the table, and crossed the room in long strides. He snatched the shirt from Aeroc's hands. When Aeroc looked up in surprise, Kloff pulled off his black leather gloves — and struck him across the face with his bare hand.

Crack.

Aeroc's head snapped to one side. Before he could recover from the stars bursting in his vision, an iron-hard hand seized his narrow jaw, turned his face back, and struck the other cheek. The first blow had undone his body; the second sent him down. Aeroc crumpled to the floor and spat out what had pooled in his mouth. A little blood. Before he could understand what had happened or why he deserved it, Kloff — now removing his coat and draping it over a nearby chair — looked down at him with an expression empty of all feeling, and unfastened his cufflinks.

"Why?"

"Why, he asks. You still don't know your place, and you dare—"

Aeroc had no idea what he had done wrong. By the time his already-swelling cheeks registered heat, Kloff seized a fistful of Aeroc's hair and struck him several more times. His mouth split; the sharp, brackish taste of salt filled it. Blood and saliva mingled and tried to slide down his gasping throat; he coughed reflexively. Something hot ran from his nose. He must have been hit hard enough to rattle his brain — his vision swam and he could not gather his thoughts. He almost wished he'd been struck on the thighs or the back instead.

"...Klof..."

"So you do remember. Of course you do. It belonged to the person who died in unspeakable terror because of you. I gave it to you so you would always remember the sin you committed — and you dare ruin it? Tear it apart? What makes you think this vile body of yours has the right?"

The enraged alpha's voice was terrifying enough to freeze the marrow, and at the same time, a desolate anguish bled through that made the heart seize.

He had thought it was just some castoff, too small because it was a random piece of old clothing. The fabric — plain but good quality, with a restrained, understated style — he had vaguely assumed was something a nobleman had discarded. But it was not.

These were Rapiel's clothes.

He had not known, but he had torn them in front of Kloff. An unforgivable mistake. And one he should not have made in ignorance. Aeroc should have recognized those clothes, and his failure had driven Kloff into another paroxysm of fury and violence that ill suited him. But as always, Aeroc's understanding came too late.

Before the sin he himself had caused, he did what had to be done. Aeroc made no sound at all and received every blow Kloff delivered.