Sword Master, Now Serving as a Nanny
Seven years after he walked out of the castle, the news catches up with Keith: his half-brother is dead. He goes back for the funeral and comes face to face with a will nobody saw coming.
"Further, from this hour I confer upon Keith Paragon the title of Regent Duke."
Then he meets Pai.
"Have we met somewhere befo—"
"We might have. Or we might not."
He means to refuse the whole thing. She talks him out of it, and by the time she is done he has decided to protect Ardine, the only niece he has.
"I've decided to try trusting you."
So he keeps her close — nanny to his niece, and lover to him.
For a woman who insists she is nothing but a maid, though, she is far too good at far too much. Eighty-seven ways to tie a knot. Aura at her fingertips, when only a Sword Master should be able to touch it. And she will even trade her own life for his.
"I find myself wondering whether I've walked into a net."
"Then are you a butterfly caught in a spider's web, Keith?"
"And if I'm the butterfly, does that make you the spider, Pai?"
"That depends on how you care to think of it."
Well. Who's to say.
"And how do you think I will choose to think of it?"
When I have already gone and fallen in love with you.
