Reborn as the Villainess's Doomed Maid, I Keep Getting Caught by Her Knight Brother novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Feast

Verena pushed back her chair at the end of the feast and stretched.

The long Sevrin table was a ruin of candles, bones, and sugared pears.

"I am going to bed," she announced, "where I shall read a very long novel, very loudly, with the door shut."

"Verena," said Caspian.

"The walls in this house are two feet thick, brother. I measured them when I was ten."

She kissed Mio on the top of the head.

"Eat the pears," she said. "Tomorrow we hang or we don't, and I prefer to have eaten the pears."

She went out with her four royal guards behind her, and the dining room doors swung shut.

The fire popped.

Eleven days had passed in the house, and the longest night began at tomorrow's dusk.

Mio sat in the carved chair at the head of the table, in the silk dress Verena had lent her.

Caspian stood at her shoulder.

He did not touch her.

He stood so close she felt his heat through the silk, and her skin prickled.

"You have not eaten," he said.

"I wasn't hungry."

"Let me."

He took a pear from the silver dish, cut a slice with his small knife, and held it to her mouth.

She took it from his fingers.

It was sweet and cold, and juice ran down her chin.

He caught it with his thumb, and put the thumb in his own mouth.

"Another," Mio said.

He fed her another, and another.

Between each slice, his fingers lingered on her lip, until she was biting at them, and he was breathing unevenly above her.

"Caspian."

"Yes."

"Clear the table."

His hand stopped.

"I want you to clear the table. Put it all on the floor."

He did not ask why.

He swept the dishes aside with one arm.

The silver rang, the pears rolled, and a goblet bounced on the carpet.

He left the honey pot, the wine, and a bowl of grapes, and the candles.

The oak was bare and dark and shining.

Mio stood up from the chair.

She was twenty-two, and her heart pounded in her throat.

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