Page 75 of Nikolay

Mine nearly did as well, though I was fortunate enough to have completed the motion before my own mind caught up and demanded an explanation I could not supply.

I dropped my hand at once, turned with what I hoped resembled dignity, and walked toward the front doors before either of us could say a single word to make the thing worse.

The footman got there just in time to open them.

Cold air met me on the threshold. I descended the first stone step. Then the second.

And stopped.

My expression did not change. Centuries of breeding, court discipline, and predatory self-command held my face in perfect neutrality as the thought surfaced in me with flat, appalled clarity.

Did I just boop her fucking nose? Who have I become?

I stood there exactly two seconds, staring into the middle distance over the estate drive while the early evening light slanted across gravel and dormant hedges and did absolutely nothing to answer the question.

Then I straightened my coat.

And kept walking.

Chapter 12

Maddie

By the time I hit the second-floor landing, I was still blushing like an idiot over a single fingertip tap to my nose. My shoes had gone slow on the stairs without my permission, and as I rounded the banister I touched two fingers to the tip of my nose again, as if checking whether the man had actually done it or whether the whole damned foyer scene had been some ornate vampire hallucination.

He had.

That was the problem.

A prince who could skin a person alive with three well-chosen words had, in fact, booped my damn nose like I was something soft and dear and liable to smile if handled correctly. Which, to be clear, I was not prepared to process at this hour or any other. The memory kept replaying anyway. His thumb at the corner of my mouth. Lemon on his skin. The quiet in his voice when he’d told me to be safe. Then that absurd little touch that had felt somehow more intimate than if he’d kissed me full on the mouth in the middle of the foyer while his dead ancestors looked on.

The estate held night the way it held everything else—with expensive discipline. Lamps had been lowered along the corridor so the old walls glowed honey-soft instead of bright, and the runner beneath my shoes swallowed sound until I felt like I was moving through somebody else’s dream. Dark paneling. Framed landscapes. Gilded mirrors catching small pockets of light. All of it elegant enough to remind a woman she was sleeping in a house built by people who thought grandeur was a birthright.

Tilden appeared from the far end of the hall, carrying a folded linen stack over one arm.

He slowed when he saw me.

I slowed because his face did something deeply suspicious.

The steward inclined his head in that precise, old-world way of his. “Miss Baucaum.”

“Tilden.”

His smile remained perfectly polite for the first second.

Then it stayed just a beat too long.

Not broad. Not rude. Just... pleased. A little too knowing around the edges. The kind of expression a man wore when he had seen enough to enjoy a private conclusion and possessed too much breeding to speak it aloud.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

He did not crack.

“If there is anything you require this evening, please let the staff know,” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

The smile deepened by a hair.