I stared at Duke Tristan with a mix of awkwardness, a lack of self-confidence, and one hundred percent panic.
"Duke... you want to join us? You mean, come along with us? To wander around a market full of the aroma of cheese, the sweat of commoners, and uh, sometimes children running around carrying raw fish?"
"Must I repeat myself twice, Lady Liliane?"
His tone was flat. But beneath the polite sentence, I could hear a subtle tremor of a gentle threat.
I let out a forced laugh. "Ahaha, of course not! I was just making sure. So that there won't be rumors later that a high-class Duke was... bargaining for onions with me."
Tristan's gaze remained the same, as still as water, as cold as snow, and as hard as marble. A look like that could make an adult cry, a baby stop screaming, and a chicken stop laying eggs. But me? I found myself thinking, Ugh, why does he get even handsomer when he's quiet like that?!
