Ginny felt like she was being tested, there was no way, someone would randomly summon her in the middle of the night and look as unapologetic as the Duke. She wished she could just drop her, ' I am mute' persona and give him an earful for pushing her to the edge.
How can he even think about calling her out of nowhere without giving her any warning what if she was bathing or doing something that required privacy from a strange male? As she stared at the Duke she was reminded of the words that her mother often used to say ' chivalry is dead,' and though there wasn't a lot of things—— no, there was not a single thing she agreed with her mother but now because of the Duke, there was one thing that she now agreed with her mother and that was ——- chivalry was indeed dead.
" Oh, you are here?" said the Duke, as he stood up from the sofa recliner where he was sitting and Ginny felt her face heat up as her gaze fell on the duke who was clad in a transparent laced-up shirt. "It's a good thing that the summoning spell seems to be working."
Ginny raised a brow as if asking whether he called her here just to check whether to check the summoning spell was working or not.
" I did not call you here just to check the efficiency of the summoning spell," said duke Terranova as if reading her mind. " I called you here because I need you to do something for me."
Of course, he did.
Ginny rolled her eyes inwardly, if she could she would have gone on strike against this tyranny. Calling their worker in the middle of the night just because of a small clause that he sneaked in the contract and in fact she was a bit suspicious that the Duke had an inkling that she needed this job that was why he snuck that clause in the contract knowing fully well that she would sign it anyway.
" Come with me," said the Duke as he motioned her to follow him, she did as he ordered trying to act as polite as she could with an empty stomach and a heart full of anger. The duke stopped in front of his work table and pointed at the stack of paper that was piled at the edge of the tabletop. " I need you to rearrange these papers accordingly, the ones that belongs to the magic tower, separate them in another pile and those that belongs to the duchy separate them in another. As for the ones that do not belong to either of them, put them in here." He patted an old paper file. " place those papers in there."
Ginny nodded as she picked up the dusty file and tugged a chair next to the table and sat down as she carefully started to read the documents, she could feel the cold gaze that was locked on top of her head and tried her best to remain calm.
There was nothing to be anxious about, it was just a pile of papers that needed to be separated, that was what she thought until her gaze fell on the third document in the stack and her eyes widened as the papers slipped from her hands and fell on the table.
Horrified, she looked up at Duke Terranova who was leaning against the table with an extremely calm face. In fact, after seeing her reaction, he didn't even flinch and just calmly picked up all the documents and handed the stack again to her. " What's wrong? What scared you?"
She didn't dare to ask anything, no she couldn't ask anything. She was worried that if she were to even so much as raise her eyes and take a look at the documents in her hands again, her death will approach even more quickly than it should.
The Duke walked around her chair and came to stand behind her, she smelled his slightly citrusy scent that was a lot fresher and milder than his personality as he swooped closer to her and pointed at the document at the top of the stack. " Did this scare you?"
Scared her? It downright terrified her!
And why wouldn't it, the document didn't have any official information written on it but it was a very well-detailed plan of the assassination of the Crown Prince.
Even just a single glimpse of it was enough to make her terrified. Now she understood why the Duke called her in the middle of the night—— he was testing her.
"Ah this, it's such a small a thing and it scared you?" said the Duke with a slight chuckle as he snatched the paper with the Crown Prince's assassination plan and tilted his head slightly in her direction. " Your guts are sure small."
She snuck in a breath, not daring to lift her head and just silently listened as the Duke flicked the paper with his forefinger and continued, " My dear brother sent me such a wonderful gift this morning, do you know that if I drank that poisoned tea then I would have died before I could even for help. It was that much deadly poison, isn't he a nice man? Giving me such a painless death?"
Then he placed his hands on her shoulder and pressed down on her shoulders so hard, that Ginny had to grit her teeth or else she would have gasped out loud.
" Such a wonderful gift, shouldn't I send him a return gift as well?" he asked so softly that for a second Ginny thought that she was hearing things. "Let's say if someone was to spoil my little surprise, tell me what shall I do with them?"
As he said that the group of wolves hiding in the dark corner prowled out of the corner and circled around them. " Shall I let them have a taste of my little surprise or shall I feed them to my wolves?"