47: Invading her room (part 1)

Invading her room (part 1)

Cupping her chin in her hand, Adela sat by the windowpane and let her eyes drift. The first snow did not stick as per usual for this time of the year, what built up got washed away by the pounding rain that poured down endlessly only to stop abruptly an hour ago.  1

Adela had a hard day: the lowest point was when the Archduchess dragged her out of the forest and then stayed very quiet the whole ride back. How Adela wished she had some common ground with the Archduchess, anything similar between them to use as a headstart and ask the questions that were on her mind. 

She sighed heavily. Mother and I are polar opposites. There was no changing this fact.

She glanced up at the magnificent moon, tonight was one of the three nights that it appeared full to the eye. Perhaps on a better day, that sight would have been just the one to take the lady's fatigue away. But certainly not tonight. Tonight, she suffocated. 

Adela opened the window as wide as she could. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she tried not to recall the mesmerizing shift in his eyes, not to remember how sick she felt as she walked away from him. 

She had made a decision that only her father knew of for now. Focus. She commanded. There were more pressing matters at hand right now. 

Who contaminated the water?

But that had also become the easier question to ask tonight.

Her doubts about the von Conradies' affiliation with the rebels had strangely turned into doubts about the rebels' affiliation with the aristocrats who used them much like peasants used scarecrows in the field. Her head throbbed considering the possible identities of the forces that wished to overrule the monarchy, then she hopped to her feet and paced around the room when only the image of her father stayed in her mind.

"Of all the ridiculous things, " she murmured dismissively as she sat on the chair of her vanity desk, grabbed the comb, and started brushing her hair with unnecessary force while looking at herself in the mirror and studying her own eyes, they shone with a silvery gleam reflecting the moonlight and the gray color of her long lace bodice nightgown.

She let out another exasperated sigh when that reminded her of the change in Egon's eyes.

One second, everything around her room was perfectly normal, and the next, a massive dark figure came out of nowhere blocking the window, covering all the light that seeped through it. She stood up and whirled, dropping the comb on the ground, a scream climbing up her chest. But a wet leather-like material covered her opened mouth, and the thud the comb should have made as it hit the ground was never heard.

Her chest went up and down as she looked up into the big predatory eyes of the invader, clear in her view now that the light from the moonlight was back inside. Her traitorous heart calmed down instead of objecting, and her comb was placed neatly on the vanity desk exactly where she usually leaves it.

He only removed his gloved hand when shock receded from her eyes, a slower process than what it should have been.

"How did you come here?" She gasped.

"…You just saw me coming through the window," he replied arrogantly.

"…How?" She ended up repeating herself when he did not give her the correct answer she had in mind. 

"I ran," he said, a few drops sliding down his wet hair and landing on the floor.

"…Right,"

He must mean his instantaneous gliding powers…

Egon smiled in acidic ridicule, "You should not have opened the window. That was your third mistake today,"

Adela was in no mood for his dark riddles, nor did she appreciate that anybody, especially him, was keeping count of the mistakes she was making. Not when his last mistake was taking her falcon away from her forever.

"Are you out of your mind?!" She infused all the hostility she could muster into the question.

"…I warned you; you should have finished the conversation we were having today," 

She had something else on her mind that she was about to leave unfinished.

"You are here to finish our conversation, correct?" She snapped.

"Correct," he snapped back.

"Have a seat then!"

Without moving his head, he eyed her bed with furrowed brows.

She cleared her throat awkwardly, "…The tea table,"

He nodded, visibly relaxing. Uninvited heat crept up her cheek in response. 

"…It is a good thing that you came here," she murmured as she followed him while he walked around in her room as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to do, he pulled out one of the two chairs by the tea table and waited next to it.

Adela walked to the other side of the table and sat on the chair across from him. "I was saying that I had something important to inform you of..."

He half smiled as he shook his face and sat down, mumbling something about mountain goats.

"Would you like me to try to guess then?" He mocked again when she did not continue.

She stared at the rude, handsome man on the other side of the small table, made smaller because of Egon's larger-than-average frame.

"…Why are you looking at me like this?"

She tilted her head, her eyelids dropping a fraction, "Like what?"

The pupils of his dark eyes dilated, and his eyes ever so slowly glided down her nightgown, she instinctively pulled on the sides of her non-existing robe that she had left by her bedside, and her chin dropped as she saw for the first time since he invaded the room exactly how underdressed she was.

Placing one long gloved index finger beneath her chin, Egon slightly pushed her face up. 

She shot him a sharp look that quickly changed into something else when she saw the warmth his eyes regarded her with.

"Don't be afraid of me, I wouldn't harm a hair on your head for the life of me. I can't,"

She gulped.

"...Let us finish that conversation," her tone was too soft for her liking.

His eyes pierced through her as he released her chin, "You go first,"

"Fair enough,"

She took a levelling breath and readied herself.

"I am annulling our agreement,"

pqdm.com