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Of course he did not! He was sitting! Her livid mind was still trying to push her fury onward and out of her mouth, fighting against the constriction in her throat and the tangle of her tongue.

He towered above her, broad-shouldered and magnificent, his figure like that of the fearsome knights in her favorite stories: strong, muscular, capable, honed for battle.

True, he was wearing the fine garments of a gentleman, rather than a suit of armor, but it did not take much for her imagination to flit between one and the other.

After all, his garments were a little too tight for his frame, allowing her that luxury.

A lion…

Her gaze lifted to his beautiful mask, where a bronze, feline face gave way to golden leaves, impeccably crafted, that moved in different directions to create the mane, two pointed ears hidden among it.

Rather than blend into golden locks, the mane flowed seamlessly into the black waves of the man’s own hair, the stark contrast pleasing to Teresa’s eye, who liked it when things went against expectation.

The ‘face’ of the mask stopped just below his nose, though two golden fangs pointed downward. It should have appeared menacing, but one look at the striking, dark eyes that peered out at her, and she forgot to be afraid, her breath stolen away by their glittering beauty.

Yes, hair and eyes as dark as the ink he just struck through your name! Her mind kicked her soundly out of her admiring trance, severing the restraints around her tongue.

“J-Just who d-do you think you are?” she stuttered, jabbing him in the chest with a shaky finger…

and almost breaking that finger against hard muscle.

“What great authority are you to be… judging ladies as if we were… p-pigs at a summer fair? T-Tail not curly enough, snout too long, ears too floppy—no reward for you. It is… it is… it is appalling, frankly!”

The man’s dark eyes, their color indiscernible in the low light of the room, continued to glitter like freshly polished jewels. His mouth remained in a grim line, unaffected by her words or the press of her accusatory finger on his sternum.

“And who are you to eavesdrop?” he said in a cold voice that sent her nerves into a jittering frenzy. “Who are you to involve yourself in the private endeavors of a gentleman?”

“I was not eavesdropping!” she countered, her own voice trembling. “I was…”

How on earth do I explain this?

“Be gone from my sight,” he growled, though he did not avert his gaze, those intense eyes seeming to bore into Teresa’s soul.

“You are not my captain,” she retorted, blushing as a vision of this man and her beloved Captain Frostheart clashed together in her mind. “You… do not get to order me around.”

His lip curled. “I am not a captain, but I assure you, I outrank you. Do as you are told, and I shall say nothing of the fact that you have been hiding in the walls.”

“I was not hiding! And I was not eavesdropping,” she insisted in frustration. “Hearing you, seeing this despicable thing you are doing, was an accident. But I am not sorry that I saw it. I am not sorry that I can… chastise you.”

A frosty smirk appeared on his lips. “Chastise me? Is that what this is supposed to be—a telling off?”

“Well…” She floundered for the right words, surprised that she had already said so much.

“Well?” he prompted, when she did not continue.

“Yes. Yes, it is a telling off,” she said, rallying. “I suspect you are the very sort of gentleman who is in dire need of a chiding. And if no one else will do it, I suppose it must be me.”

He remained unmoved. “Tell me, what sort of gentleman am I?”

“A… very rude one,” she retorted.

“You do not know me.”

“I have seen and heard enough to…”

Peering up at him, that vision of him as Captain Frostheart refusing to leave her mind, Teresa’s mind flitted back to Beatrice’s mischievous advice. She could not remember the exact words, just the essence: Kiss a man and get it out of your mind, see if reality is better than daydreams.

As her imagination and the reality before her were already colliding, perhaps fate was offering her up an opportunity.

More to the point, it would be the perfect revenge for him striking out her name as if she was nothing.

He would not soon forget the woman who came out of the walls, shouted at him, and kissed him.

With the door to the room closed, what was the worst that could happen? He’d reject her and push her away? It was not as if she was unaccustomed to rejection; it would barely scratch her threadbare pride.

“This ought to teach you a lesson,” she said.

Before she lost her nerve altogether, she grasped the man by the lapels of his tailcoat.

He did not attempt to move away or push her from him, though his shoulders stiffened.

Clearly, he was someone who was not used to retreating from anything, especially considering he had not flinched when she had burst out of the hidden servants’ door.

Mustering all of her courage, Teresa pulled herself up on her tiptoes until the balls of her feet ached, tilted her head up until she could almost reach his lips, and…

The main door opened with a loud creak of old hinges, laughter and chatter spilling into the room. Noise that stopped dead in an instant.

Oh… Oh no…

What was the worst that could happen? Being caught in a compromising situation with a man, that Teresa had brought upon herself, that no amount of explaining would be able to get her out of.

Even her mask would not be able to protect her, for who else would choose to be a bear among rabbits and birds?

Indeed, that precious mask had undoubtedly just sealed her fate.