Page 39 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

“Rest,” she says.

“It’s the middle of the day.”

“Yes,” she says, as if that means nothing at all. “Rest anyway.”

After she leaves, I tell myself this is hormones, nerves, bad sleep, all the stupid physical business I’m still trying to manage without letting anyone notice. The excuse barely matters. My eyes grow heavy anyway.

I mean to lie there for a minute.

Instead, I drift off with my dress still on and my face turned toward the wall.

A dull thud jerks me awake. Then another.

Something heavier hits wood outside my room, followed by a broken cry and the scrape of shoes on polished floor. I sit up too fast, head swimming, and stumble to the door. I pull it open to find two members of house staff frozen at the far end of the corridor and a maid with both hands clamped over her mouth.

The guard from the drive is on all fours outside my door. Blood runs from his mouth onto the runner. One of his front teeth is gone. Maybe two. Tears stream down his face, not from shame. From pain. His hands shake so badly he can barely hold himself up.

Maksim stands over him in shirtsleeves, breathing hard, one hand flexing at his side like he’s deciding whether to hit him again.

“Beg your pardon,” he says.

The man spits blood onto the carpet. “Pakhan, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Maksim steps closer. The guard folds in before he even touches him.

His molars set. “Then get your act together and learn faster,” he says. “You do not speak to her that way. You do not weigh her up. One outing does not make you familiar.”

The guard nods too fast. Maksim grabs his jaw, hard enough to make him choke.

“Beg your pardon,” he says again.

The words come out wet and ruined. “Beg your pardon, Miss.”

I stand there gripping the door so hard my fingers hurt.

It isn’t the blood that gets to me. It’s how clean he is with it. How close this sits to the surface. How fast he goes from controlled to this without losing his footing once.

For the next week, I shut down.

I eat because food gets put in front of me. I drink because Mrs. Wentworth gives me that look until I do. I sleep badly, talk less, and move through the house by habit more than will. If I hear Maksim in the corridor, I take another route. If he sends for me to work, I go, sit, do what needs doing, and leave without looking at him longer than I have to. Even Leonid notices. Mrs. Wentworth hears me sigh by the window often enough to know something is wrong, but she’s too English to pry when I give her nothing to work with.

A week passes. Nothing changes. Everything does.

Then there’s a knock.

“Yes?”

Maksim steps in with a tray balanced in both hands. He shuts the door with his foot, crosses to the sitting area, and places the tray on the table by the sofa, careful not to disturb anything on it. Then he lifts the silver covers one at a time.

Clear broth with dill, still steaming. Toast buttered edge to edge and cut into neat fingers. A baked apple split open and glazed with honey. Plain rice, soft and warm, the kind meant to settle more than satisfy.

It’s not grand. It’s exactly the kind of food I’ve been able to keep down lately, which means he noticed and remembered without saying a word.

“You brought dinner.”

“You weren’t coming down.”

I look at him, then at the tray again, and something in my chest goes unsteady for a reason that has nothing to do with nausea.