(Jessica’s Point of View)
He left the gallery first, and I followed him. His shoulders were straight, his gait calm. I could still feel the light warmth of his hand where he had touched my forearm. It was just a brush, but it resonated within . No one touched like that, with that precise intention that was neither possession nor roughness.
We walked side by side in a secondary corridor, more silent. The sounds of mourning and politeness seed to belong to another world. Here, there was only the rustling of my dress and the muffled sound of our steps on the carpet.
He told that I mattered.
The words spun in my head, too beautiful to be fully believed, yet so sweet to hear. I knew the danger of fine words. My entire life had been a tragedy of them. But Kaiser... Kaiser was different. He didn’t smile too much. He didn’t promise too much. He said things with a simplicity that made them sound true.
I looked at him from the corner of my eye, his serious profile, his neatly combed hair. He resembled none of the young nobles who had courted or despised . He especially didn’t resemble Hugo, my ex-fiancé, whose complints always rang false and whose eyes shone more for the potential dowry than for .
My life hadn’t been made for receiving sincere attention. I am the daughter of Viscount Karlton, but my mother was a servant. A gentle woman with worn hands, who died of a cough when I was twelve.
I rember the sll of the servants’ infirmary, a sharp odor of disinfectant and fever. I rember her hands, so thin on the coarse sheet, caressing my cheek one last ti. My father ca to see her only once, standing on the threshold, looking as if he were inspecting a sick horse that needed to be gotten rid of.
After that, I was officially recognized, pulled from the servants’ quarters to be installed in a child’s room that was too cold. An illegitimate daughter legitimized out of necessity, since my father then had no other heiress than lissa, born from his deceased wife.
lissa, my half-sister, who hated with a pure and constant fury. To her, I was the filth, the living proof of our father’s weakness, the stain on the Karlton honor.
My father, for his part, tolerated , dressed properly, gave an education sufficient not to sha the family. But his gaze passed through , as if I were transparent. He didn’t see Jessica. He saw the servant’s daughter, a useful accident that could perhaps be married off to an old baron or an ambitious knight to seal a minor alliance.
Then there was Hugo. The engagent was arranged when I was seventeen. Hugo, heir to a declining count family, smooth talker, always laughing a bit too loudly. At first, I wanted to believe in luck. Perhaps it was an escape.
But quickly, I understood. He was only interested in the money he thought he could extract from my father. He would squeeze my waist in public, give morized complints, but his eyes were empty. And when he realized that my father was keeping him at a distance, that he wouldn’t loosen the purse strings so easily, his interest evaporated.
He started criticizing : my reserve was coldness, my caution a lack of wit, my attempts at conversation on serious topics an impropriety. He broke off the engagent six months later, citing insurmountable differences.
I spent the following months in an even thicker shadow.lissa jubilated. My father looked at with irritation, as if I had wasted a worthless but still useful asset.
So, when Kaiser Paragon approached today, in that room full of pitying or indifferent gazes, it was as if a door was cracking open in a very dark wall. He didn’t look at with pity. He didn’t look at as a missed opportunity. He looked at , not the failure that was despised.
"Don’t worry, you have the right to feel weak for a mont, but the important thing is to always get back up... you deserve much better than that, Jessica."
He had uttered those words with such clarity, as if he were reading aloud a text written deep within . It was frightening and exhilarating. No one had ever spoken to like that.
No one had ever attributed that kind of desire, that kind of will to . People assud I had simple desires: a good marriage, jewelry, a stable position. No one imagined that I could want power. Real power. The kind that lets you decide.
"You... do you really like ?" I asked him.
"More than you think."
A light warmth rose to my cheeks. Hearing such sincere words made my heart pound wildly, but I tried to control my emotions.
I stayed one step away, my hands clenched on the fabric of my skirt, my fingers digging into the dark wool.
"Jessica, look at ."
he called to . He wasn’t smiling, but his gaze was so gentle that it took my breath away.
"You’ve spent your life waiting to finally be seen, haven’t you?" he continued, his voice low.
He stepped forward, reducing the space between us to nothing. The warmth of his hand brushed my cheek, with the tips of his fingers.
"You don’t have to be afraid of who you are," he murmured. "Not with ."
My heart was pounding so hard that I thought he could hear it. I was trembling. For the first ti, I wasn’t being asked to make myself smaller, more discreet, to apologize for taking up space. I was being offered, without apparent condition, the possibility of being soone.
"Co," he suggested. "Let’s go sowhere no one can disturb us."
Before my conscience could even analyze the gesture, my hand had already detached from the fabric of my skirt and moved toward his. It was an almost autonomous movent, guided by an impulse deeper than reason. In that precise mont, I desired only one thing: to stay by his side.
"Okay," I breathed, the word barely audible.
Thus, we left the gallery, gradually leaving behind the murmurs of the guests. We walked side by side, and the sound of our steps on the pavent gradually replaced the clamor of my own confusion.
....
The secondary corridor we were advancing in was lined with worn velvet. I let my gaze slide over the delicate moldings of the ceiling.
Next to Kaiser, everything seed different. The air I breathed, usually heavy, had beco lighter. The slight rustling of my mourning clothes, that sound that had always reminded of constraints and appearances to maintain, now blended into the calm rhythm of our steps.
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