He takes a long moment to watch her bare back as she walks away - what has he done in his life to deserve such a sweet and pliant beauty as her? - before trotting on his sharp heels to his own room. He’s careful to take a separate route to her, just to resist the temptation to catch her again and cradle her sweetly.

There he fetched the bolt of fabric she most deserved, the shimmering silver organza. It would have been lovelier if it had been pure silk rather than polyester, but what he had would have to do.

And then, in his rush to his sewing machine to begin working on her train, his heel slips out from under his, wrenching all of a sudden to one side sending him tumbling to the floor. He lies there, breathing heavily and waiting for the pain to pass -

And the pain passes

And the bubbling warm glee filling him passes

And he realises he’d been drugged with something so much more insidious than the usual lust drugs.

He lies there for a while, face pressing into the floor as he groans at how fucked the whole situation is. Is the poison meant to be short-acting or long-term? Is it permanent? If he breaks Annie’s heart by refusing marriage, will that pain remain once the poison wears off?

One thing he knows is that there’s no way he can marry her. Sleep with her, yes, romance her and call her his concubine, yes, but to make a formal promise would be a betrayal of C.C.

He needs to play this smart. He levers himself off his floor and grabs his design book, slipping out to the common room to await Annie’s arrival.