Page 73 of Nikolay

I had already crossed the threshold.

I did not turn back.

Because the joke was monstrous, because it was Bohdan, because he knew exactly what family he belonged to, and because some ancient brutal region of me—one I preferred unconsulted—had understood the sentiment before the words even ended.

I kept walking.

Tilden arrived when summoned, immaculate as always, silver hair in perfect order, gloves spotless, expression arranged in that composure house staff everywhere cultivated as a defense against aristocratic nonsense.

He accepted the box with both hands.

“This is for Miss Baucaum,” I said. “Please have it placed in her room after I have left for the club.”

His eyes did not flicker, but I had known him too long to miss the microscopic increase in attention. “Very good, sir.”

“No announcement. No explanation. Simply leave it where she will find it.”

“Of course.”

He paused a breath, the slightest respectful hesitation.

“Yes?” I said.

“If I may, sir—would you prefer it set on her dresser or desk?”

The question should not have mattered. It did.

“Desk,” I said after a moment. “Near her books.”

Something almost imperceptible softened near his mouth—not amusement precisely, but perhaps the private satisfaction of a steward who had served generations long enough to enjoy the sight of nobility rendered helpless by ordinary human feeling.

“As you wish.”

He withdrew, carrying the box with the solemnity due a state document.

I exhaled once, collected my coat, and went down.

The main foyer of the estate held late afternoon the way cathedrals held incense—with grandeur first, practicality second, and beauty as if it had happened by accident despite generations of deliberate expense. High ceilings arched overhead, their plasterwork catching the descending gold from the tall western windows. The marble floor reflected diluted light in long, pale bars. A runner stretched toward the front doors in deep wine-red, muted under centuries of footsteps. Old portraits watched from paneled walls in frames too elaborate for modern taste and too storied to remove. Somewhere deeper in the house, a door closed softly. From the kitchens drifted warmth: yeast, coffee, butter, and sugar not long out of the oven.

I was halfway across the foyer, coat on, gloves in one hand, when Maddie came dancing around the corner from the back hall and nearly collided with my chest.

I stopped so sharply my heel skidded a fraction on marble.

So did she.

For a suspended second, we stood absurdly close in the middle of all that carved old-world dignity, like the house itself had summoned us there for mockery.

She had earbuds in. That explained the movement first—the little unconscious rhythm still living in her body from whatever she had been listening to, one shoulder having just dipped, one foot half-turned as if she had come around the corner mid-step and mid-song. Her chestnut hair had been dragged into a messy bun high on her head, soft pieces escaping around her temples and nape. Black leggings clung to her legs. An oversized hoodie drowned her smaller frame in cream-colored softness, the front printed with an open book graphic and the outrageous declaration: Spread those pages like a good girl.

I stared at the words for half a beat too long.

Of course she owned such a garment. Of course she wore it in my father’s house while carrying pastry and a private soundtrack as if fate had not already done enough to humble me.

In one hand she held a lemon pastry from Aspen’s bakery, half-eaten and iced generously enough that the citrus-sugar scent reached me before anything else. Then her own scent struck beneath it, warm and female and wolf, and the combination landed under my ribs like a physical blow. Pastry, sugar, skin, Maddie. Domesticity and temptation in one impossible little collision.

She looked up fully then and froze.

So did I.