The girl supported Catherine all the way to her bedroom. After helping Catherine sit on the bed, she reached for the hem of her dress, intending to help her change into more comfortable clothes.

“Leave it be.”

Catherine pushed the girl away and leaned her head against the bedpost with a long sigh. She still felt dizzy, but perhaps a bit better than before.

“Should I call the physician?”

The girl asked cautiously, but Catherine waved her hand dismissively. Then, feeling that wasn’t enough, she added, “I’ll be fine after some rest… I must have been tired.”

“Then… shall I prepare your bed?”

Finding even continued conversation tiresome, Catherine waved her hand again. What she needed now was something else entirely.

She exhaled another long breath, needing to push away the thoughts swirling in her mind. Something suddenly occurred to her.

“By the way, what happened with the task I gave you?” she asked the girl.

A few hours earlier, Catherine had made a special request of the girl. Having grown up in Cavendish Castle since childhood, the girl had naturally helped with various chores from a young age and seemed to be well-liked by the staff.

Because of this, Catherine’s request was perfectly suited for her. Knowing this, when the girl first heard Catherine’s request, she had shown great confidence that she could accomplish it without issue.

“I’m sorry. It didn’t work out well.”

But the answer was disappointing. Catherine asked again, “Which one?”

“Both of them…”

Both meant that she had failed to follow both David and Samuel. Having never considered failure a possibility, Catherine unconsciously sighed.

Gone was the girl’s earlier confidence—she lowered her gaze like someone being scolded. Catherine felt sorry seeing her so dejected, clearly feeling guilty for bringing disappointing news.

“Well… I saw both of them heading toward the chapel…”

“I was watching with one of the kitchen girls. We definitely saw them, but they disappeared in the blink of an eye. There’s nowhere else to go in that area. If they’d gone into the forest path, we would have heard something, and I wouldn’t have missed that…” Catherine listened quietly to the girl’s explanatory rambling before gently waving her hand.

“It’s alright. You worked hard.”

“Yes…”

Despite Catherine’s reassurance, the girl’s expression remained downcast. Normally, Catherine would have comforted her more, but she lacked the energy to continue the conversation. She closed her eyes while pressing her throbbing head, feeling she needed to rest before anything else.

* * *

“Cathy.”

The voice was sweet. She had never heard such a call before. The breath that brushed her ear was like melted sugar, thick and sweet.

“Catherine”—each syllable created an exhaled breath that pooled in the curves of her ear. 

“Cathy”—with apparent fear it might fall away, the voice gently caressed her ear.

“My Cat.” That piercing call. Catherine opened her eyes.

For a moment, Catherine could not see clearly what was before her and narrowed her eyes. It felt like facing the midday sun directly through a glass window. The light was intense and stinging, scattering like a broken honeycomb. Catherine closed her eyes, then carefully lifted her eyelids again.

“Never, me…”

She couldn’t open her eyes properly. Through the thinly spreading light, she heard a voice. Unlike before, it was a terribly cracked whisper that faded, gradually dying out.

Though clearly from the same person, it sounded like someone else entirely. And it was a familiar voice.

Saul…? The moment her lips moved to call him, Catherine was startled by a sudden pressure and opened her eyes wide.

Everything was happening too quickly to understand. Her body was falling backward, losing balance. Catherine instinctively stepped back but stumbled, unable to match the speed. She didn’t fall completely—her back hit something protruding sharply.

Ugh. A suppressed groan rose up, but even that wasn’t complete. To cover the end of that sound, cold fingertips pressed down on Catherine’s lips.

Having reflexively closed her eyes from the impact, Catherine slowly opened them. And froze. Those eyes. The red eyes were right in front of her.

His neatly combed black hair was now disheveled, falling over his pale forehead. She could see the flowing hair passing the ends of his dark eyebrows, brushing the corners of his eyes, and nearly touching the prominent cheekbones of his gaunt face.

His parched lips were visible. And through them came a faint breath… falling on Catherine’s nose bridge like early morning mist. It was cold. Catherine blinked in surprise.

“Sa—!”

It was Saul. Why he was up, how this had happened, what he was doing now—she had no chance to ask any of these questions.

The rigid fingertips that had been pressing against her lips immediately pushed between them. Like an unrestrained ruffian, his fingers invaded her mouth. Her shoulders and head were pushed back, hitting against some protruding object. Ugh. It hurt.

But she had no time to properly gauge the pain. As his cold knuckles lightly touched her narrowed teeth—unconsciously tightened from swallowing the pain—his rigid fingertips caught the tip of her tongue.

They slid over it at once, rubbing almost to the root of her tongue. Then pressed down.

Gak. Her breath was blocked. Catherine instinctively grabbed Saul’s hand, but before she could pull it away, his fingertips were already sliding back, gently rubbing over her tongue. Then they brushed past the inside of her molars, digging even deeper.

Her jaw lifted. She could feel her jaw joint being pressed. Catherine grabbed him more forcefully in panic, but he didn’t budge at all. It was like trying to pull a rigid wooden block. Catherine became frightened by Saul’s incomprehensible and sudden behavior. Just as she tried to move her improperly closed lips to call his name with a muffled pronunciation—

Cold lips, as cold as his breath felt, bit Catherine’s plump lower lip. Biting, he pulled slightly while inhaling. He gnawed on that cold flesh, then pressed down.

And then, like completing a perfect puzzle piece, he pushed forward.

A long kiss followed. Unlike his earlier forceful approach, the moment when their breaths fully mingled was very careful. Like stirring sugar with gentle heat to avoid bitterness, he softly stirred, occasionally dropping his breath before surging forward again.

“…Catherine, Cathy, my Cat.”

With each drop of their entangled, sticky breaths, Saul whispered. The temperature that had felt only cold now blurred and soon heated up like shallow boiling water. The heated breath was so hot that it was almost unbearably difficult to breathe.

When Catherine half regained her senses, she was barely maintaining her balance by clutching the protruding part against her back. For a moment, as their pressed lips separated, rapid breaths rose and fell.

Inadvertently lowering her gaze, she glimpsed a familiar pattern beneath her disheveled skirt. The floor was carpeted. Only then did Catherine realize where they were.

It was Saul’s office. They were entangled in the space behind the sofa meant for receiving guests, by the bookshelves.

Catherine felt around with her hand. She felt the hard cover of a book against the edge of her hand. Simultaneously, she felt her waist being grabbed and looked up in surprise.

There was no time to react. The hand gripping her waist tightened, and her feet lifted off the ground. Her body lurched forward. Catherine reached out in panic. As she grabbed something solid, she felt her bottom perching on the narrow gap left in the bookshelf filled with books.

Catherine’s disheveled hair, half flowing down, poured over Saul’s head like a shadow cast by light. Black hair intertwined with black hair. Under that dense shade, Catherine could clearly see Saul’s face looking up at her.

Beneath the disheveled black hair covering almost his entire forehead, she glimpsed cheeks with healthy fullness.

It was an unfamiliar face, yet also familiar. Not the face of Saul that Catherine remembered. It was a beautiful face, healthy and reminiscent of David. A solid and sturdy countenance. Moving his relatively thin lips, Saul spoke.

“Cathy, my Cat…”

With an expression that didn’t hide his ecstasy, he closed his eyes for a moment, seemingly savoring the nickname he had called her.

Silently, his breath slowly surged forward. Whoosh… As the trailing edge of his breath faded after brushing through his teeth, he slowly opened his eyes and whispered once more.

“If you don’t want to fall, hold on tight.”

“Wait, just wait…!”

Catherine, instinctively sensing danger, called out to him, but Saul didn’t answer. Immediately, he dropped the hand that had been supporting Catherine’s body.

Ugh. Catherine swallowed her breath. In that instant, her arms collapsed and her body was about to fall forward. The hand that had dropped now firmly grabbed Catherine’s waist again. He placed her sliding body back on the edge of the bookshelf.

“If you don’t want to fall… understand?”

It felt like her heart was dropping. Catherine, who had been practically lying down and embracing Saul’s neck, finally gasped. She heard Saul’s playfully whispering voice as he tilted his chin over her shoulder.

Playfully…? Catherine blinked, sensing something off. But her thoughts couldn’t continue. There was no time for them to continue.