Warning: Un-beta'd.





“The messenger was murdered before our men could even reach his tail!” Signor Lee proclaims. He turns to the Count of Aquitaine and narrows his eyes. “It was an arrow, shot by far distance. How many knights do we know of under our King’s rule with such acute sense of archery?”

The Count shakes his head with his eyes closed. “Signor, you are implying that it must be one of my very own men?”

“You share privilege over the town’s largest shooting ranch, do you not?” The Count of Haute-Normandie questions rather harshly.

“Your Excellency,” Kris steps forward, “I can assure you that although my father shares stock to one of the largest shooting ranches in town, we have trained no men to shoot with bow and arrow.”

“Proof?” The King asks.

“We are only licensed under pistols,” Kris supplies.

Signor Lee snickers. “Licenses have never stopped cartel dealers from their profession.”

“Signor!” Count Wu grunts.

“All I am saying, milord, is that various Counts, as well as myself, have come to the conclusion that the Count of Aquitaine should meet the end of his reign and pass on his torch.” Signor Lee continues. “We hope your Majesty will see to it that the issues are resolved before these… unlawful and chaotic exchanges between our country and the southern rule run too out of hand.”

The King hesitates before nodding and excusing all Counts from his presence.

After Kris and his father return home, they hurry into his father’s study.

“How are they aware about my hold of share in the shooting ranch?!” His father demands. “Any amount of business invested in without the acknowledgment of the King is personal and must be kept to ourselves in case of potential accusation of manipulation of stock holding and corruption. How could they have possibly found out about it?”

Kris shakes his head. “Father, you are well aware of how tricky the Count of Haute-Normandie tends to be. Is it truly so surprising that he is able to learn of such information? All it takes is a little investigation—“

“At this rate, they’ll have us wrapped around their fingers to answer to their every beckon and whim,” Count Wu groans. He falls into his seat, face buried in both palms. “This is truly the end…”

“Father…”

“You are dismissed, Kris,” his father waves a hand at him. “I need some time alone. Perhaps I truly am too old to continue holding on to the title of a count…”

Leaving his father to his ramblings, Kris closes the door with a heavy heart. Just as scars do heal, this will pass with time as well. All they needed was to wait, and an answer will eventually come. If only time could run a little faster, so that the ending would be in near sighting.





The more Kris thinks it over, the more anxious he becomes. He casts his eyes down to the ground, slender fingers tapping at his lips. Despite the many approaches he tries to take on the matter, it just feels wrong.

“If you would just come home,” Kris tries to ask of her, stealthily working his way to her side amidst the growing crowd.

Victoria slants him a look—was that a hint of regret in her eyes? What a good actor her husband is— and wordlessly continues walking.

He takes his wife by the wrist and holds her still, catching the eyes of the strangers around them. None of them were foreign to Kris; however, not many were familiar with Victoria. Therefore, such behaviors in the middle of the streets were found rash and unacceptable.

However, it would not have been acceptable even if the general public were aware of their relationship.

“I won’t turn back, no matter how much you plead or ask me to,” Victoria tells him, prying his hand off of hers. “Returning to that place you call home is no different from walking me to my own prison cell. I’ve had enough of your mother and your aunt; I’ve had enough of your abuse and degrading remarks towards me.”

Kris chews down on his lip. “It’s different this time, Victoria. I promise you, none of us will mistreat you again. We’re losing everything now—the King’s trust, our possessions, my sanity—I can’t lose you and our child, too.”

Yet, even as he implores into her eyes, it doesn’t seem as though Victoria wavers for even the slightest bit. The way she stares at him, pupils empty, as though telling him this is what he deserves, sends a shiver rolling down the spines of the audience.

“Please,” he sputters. “Just, please.”

Without so much as a goodbye Victoria turns on her heel and steps away from him. The soles of her shoes clatter on the ground, but in the eyes of the people watching it is not nearly as heavy as the impact his heart experiences as it shatters in his chest.

Just this once they’ve seen a nobleman break down before their eyes; just this once is all it takes for the word to spread like a wildfire, fusing all gossip to be carried on from mouth to dirty mouth.





“You’re cold,” Signor Lee laughs as Victoria walks into the room, closing the window that allowed him access to the show he had just witnessed below them.

Victoria does not so much as meets his eyes as she finds a seat beside Suho. “If he had not exploited me twice and given me a retched child the last he had his way with me, perhaps I wouldn’t be so unfeeling towards him. He is my husband, after all.”

Signor Lee snickers, “When women speak of , it almost sounds ironic to my ears.”

His words pierce her like frozen daggers but Suho places a hand over hers to ensure that she is calm. Victoria shakes her head at him, dismissing his worry.

“As I was saying, before Madame Wu decided to join us today,” he smirks, tossing a look towards the woman over his shoulder, “we are gathered here this afternoon to discuss the new batch of slaves currently being imported from the Africa’s,” Signor Lee states. The several Count’s present redirect their attention to the man sitting at the front end of the table, attentive to his words.

Suho leans in towards her, whispering against her ear. “Sir Huang wants me to relay this message to you. You need not wait much longer.”

It is then that Victoria finally smiles, the foreign language seeming to ease whatever worry it was plaguing her thoughts. Suho relaxes then, too, knowing that this woman whom he had accepted as a great friend was comforted by his deliverance.

After the meeting concludes—details settled, papers burned before they step outside the door—Suho treats Victoria to an early dinner.

“How did you meet the Count of Rhone-Alpes anyhow?” He wonders aloud.

Victoria smiles secretively, gladly but properly knifing away at the food on her plate. They are situated in a special room, given superfluous service, and so they are at ease to speak of anything without a worry. She wipes her lips with her napkin, placing it into her lap.

“Tao is my cousin,” she informs the man, rather stoutly. “His parents migrated to another province during our earlier childhood years, but we’ve remained close tact with one another ever since.”

“Thereby providing a solid reason as to why this man, whom is apparently so infatuated and mesmerized by your outstanding looks, is willing to reach such lengths for you without so much as a single question in tow,” Suho adds.

She nods, brushing the fringes away from her eyes. “He owes me a favor, anyhow.”

“What kind of favor?” Suho wants to know.

Hiding a chuckle behind the back of her hand, Victoria takes a drink out of her glass of water. “I’m sure you’ve noticed his obnoxiously flirtatious ways with women when I am absent. Truth be told, Tao favors men over women; this is why we got along so well as children.”

“You’ve helped him hide his little secret, I’m assuming,” Suho accuses.

“Not only on one occasion,” Victoria admits, “However, I require only one favor of him.”

Suho smiles and says with a hint of a tease, “how awfully kind of you.”

And Victoria laughs more openly then, eyes crowned and lips stretched from ear to ear. Perhaps it was the knowledge of knowing that everything would be over soon, but she was much less stressed than before. Even when she drinks, there is no longer a sigh of exhaustion.

In his eyes, every little detail about her seems to magnify.

Suddenly, she collects her laughs and her expression straightens out into a plain across her jewel like face. Suho meets eyes with her then; his own laughs dying out as well.

“Yes?” He croaks.

Victoria thins her lips. “We owe too much to you, though, Suho,” she mutters, “more than we can ever repay.”

“You owe me nothing,” Suho excuses. “I benefit from this as well, remember?”

“But you have put so much at stake for us,” Victoria insists.

Suho smiles weakly at her words. True, there has been a lot Suho once put at jeopardy to take Victoria’s side, however, over time he’s come to realized that it hadn’t always been for her; it was because of her.

When she smiled, Suho felt comforted. Knowing she was safe kept him at ease.

Therefore, she owed him nothing. In accepting his kindness, she was giving as well.

“Our titles are often seen as a monopoly and our work are looked upon as some kind of conspiracy,” Suho explains. “On the battlefield, I was a pawn they were going to sacrifice, being controlled and manipulated, but because of you—because of everything we are doing now—I am fighting my way back to power. Don’t concern yourself with me, Victoria; just worry about yourself and your child.”

And Suho meant it, he meant every single word. For all that he had, he was thankful. Even if this was the last he would see of her, it was enough.





Women, as defined by law, owe obedience to their husband, just as their husband owes protection to their wife. Women may not buy, sell, trade, or mortgage property. Women are to remain under the control of men, whether it be their father, their eldest brother, or their husband.

In the words of Napoleon, Women ought to obey us. Nature has made women our slaves!

Where, then, does this leave Victoria?

“It’s been hard on you, Tori,” Tao tells her, with an arm draped around her shoulder.

The two of them are sitting on his living room couch, waiting for night to fall. “Kris is my husband after all,” she answers, “these are my obligations.”

“Only an obligation?” The boy laughs. “The people will spread rumors about you—they will gossip, bad mouth you, curse you into the dirt. Is it worth it, my beloved cousin?”

“You ought not to forget that you planned a majority of this act,” Victoria scowls at him, eyes narrowed venomously. “Therefore, you are responsible for any insults or suffering I am to experience within due time.”

Tao can feel the muscles in his cheek growing sour from laughing. After a while, he schools his expression, genuine curiosity in his fox like eyes. “Is it not love? Not the least bit, Tori?”

She quiets down, hands resting gently over her pregnant stomach. “It must be,” she tells him, “otherwise, I don’t know how else to explain this feeling—this need to protect him and his family name.”

“Could it not be greed?” Tao asks.

His game of toss and throw begins to irritate her. “Are you or are you not trying to indirectly insult me?”

“I am simply listing the possibilities,” her cousin chuckles in response. “In any case, I wouldn’t believe you to be that kind of person anyhow. I’ve met with Kris a few times and he seems a proper man; you’ve chosen well.”

“He is most probably just as into men as you are,” Victoria teases.

Tao smirks. “Are you suggesting me to play my cards against you now?”

“Would you dare?” Victoria retaliates.

“Never,” Tao chortles, “how would I ever?”

Just as many other women in her time have, Victoria learned to play the role of a wife well. She obeys her husband’s beckons and answers to her husband’s calls. When he asks her to turn a blind eye, she closes both without question. When Kris wants her to walk away, she will run on both feet. And when Kris tells her to return, she will go racing towards his arms.

Is it not because his embrace is the one that keeps her safest?

“Speak of the devil,” Tao muses.

Victoria raises her eyes to the set of footsteps approaching them from a hidden entrance. There stands Kris, charismatic and charming, with a big smile and coat in his arms.

“You did well today,” Kris compliments her, and Victoria can feel tears beginning to collect in her large, watery eyes. “I couldn’t have been more convinced by your performance.”

Rooted to her seat, Victoria opts not to run into his arms this time. This time, she wants Kris to come to her.

“Are you crying, my dear?”

“No,” Victoria denies, turning her face away from her husband. Kris smiles helplessly and joins her on the couch, lifting her face by the chin and dabbing away at the streaks that now stain her flawless cheeks.

“Sir Tao and I have relayed the notices of which the three of you have gathered to our informant,” Kris grins her way, eyes gentle and calm. “Once the boat arrives, we’ll be able to intercept the underground traffickers and reveal Signor Lee’s deeds to the King.”

Victoria then turns to Tao, eyes filled with gratitude, and whispers a soft, “thank you, Tao. I’m sorry I involved you into this mess.”

The boy just smiles at his cousin and reaches a hand to her hair, patting her head. “Don’t worry about it, Tori. We’re cousins, we’re siblings; you were the sister I never had. I would do anything for you. This title of Count has to do me some kind of good, does it not?”

“You’ve done a lot for your province,” Victoria says, assuring her cousin that she knows of his capabilities. “Your intelligence and your courage have made your peers believe in you deeply.”

“A leader is an easy role,” Tao replies, yet, it is not Victoria he hopes hears his words. “However, to be a good leader is not easy.”

“I will remember that,” Kris ensures.

Tao nods, raising his arms over his head and yawning loudly. “I suppose it’s time for me to dismiss myself. So long.”

“Good night, Tao,” Victoria greets him.

“Good night,” Kris echoes.

As soon as Tao is gone, Kris pulls Victoria into his arms. “There is much I have to thank you for, Victoria,” he reminds her, “for you have done so much for my family and I.”

“Our maid once told me,” Victoria sighs into his shoulder, “she said you stood up for me and protected my name before your mother and your aunt; although that is nothing significant, for you are a man and you are the eldest son, granting you more power than either of them or combined, I was still astounded. Then she asked me, should that not also be what a wife does for her husband?”

Kris laughs, tapping his pointer finger under her chin. “What you owe me is obedience, not courage. A woman should have no need for courage.”

“Are they not the same?” She asks him in turn. “It takes courage for a woman to obey her husband’s every will, for it means she must reject the wills of her own.”

Her words bring upon a new perspective for Kris, who has never taken much thought in ideas such as these. “I suppose you make a good point.”

It is easy to obey, obeying has never been the issue. The true conflict is obeying when her heart tells her otherwise. Thus, when Victoria wills herself to turn a blind eye to her husband who is swarmed in danger from the light of day to the dark of night, it takes a lot more strength than anyone can imagine.

For whom would rejoice while knowing all but too well that the only way they can offer help is by turning their back to the ones they love most? No one; that is Victoria’s answer.

-----

A/N: Only two more chapters left! Almost there! I'm starting to feel a little sad because this story is coming to an end :(