"Air."
The word was a soft, disbelieving exhale. He leaned closer, his gaze piercing through her, stripping the last fragile pretense away. The lie hung between them, sour and palpable. "You needed air."
His voice did not rise. It dropped lower, becoming intimate and venomous. "You are a profoundly disobedient creature. It is only the second day, and I feel I already know you… disobedient." Each syllable was a whisper that seared like a brand.
"No," she breathed, a thread of defiance weaving through the dense fabric of her terror. She stared at the hard line of his jaw. "I speak only truth. You are at fault. You simply cannot bear to hear it."
"I am at fault." He tasted the words, a humorless smile touching his lips. "Amazing." He shifted, his mouth so near her ear she felt the unsettling warmth of his breath. "I was considering a punishment for you. But I find I will not choose it."
A dizzying rush of relief flooded her, so potent it threatened her knees. He was letting it go.
It lasted less than a heartbeat.
"You will tell me," he murmured, his voice dropping to a glacial register that froze the blood in her limbs. "You will decide what your punishment is to be."
"Pun…ishment?" The word cracked in her dry throat.
"Or do you dislike that I've given you the privilege of choice?" He drew back, his expression one of pure, unadulterated disgust. "Does the power offend you?"
"No, I… I would…" The sentence shattered. She could not form the thought. To name her own punishment was a deeper violation—it was complicity. Madness.
He watched her struggle, the disgust cooling into clinical disappointment. He had offered the semblance of control only to watch her fail to grasp it. The silence stretched, and in it, she was laid bare—not just disobedient, but weak. Incapable of even owning her rebellion.
He waited, a king before a supplicant who had forgotten her plea. The only sound was the ragged, shameful rhythm of her breath.
"I will not go against you again," she whispered, the promise thin and frayed. "I give you my word. Please."
"I did not ask for your word." His voice was flat stone. "I asked for a punishment."
He considered her—the quick fear in her eyes, the frantic pulse at her throat. His anger settled into something colder. "You are a curious creature. Defiant, yet unprepared for the consequences."
He lifted her chin with two fingers, forcing her to look up. She felt minuscule before him.
"Since you lack the imagination," he said, releasing her, "I will provide one."
He turned to a writing desk. From a drawer, he drew out a bottle of dark ink, a fine brush, and a large book of blank, cream-colored pages. He placed them on a table with deliberate calm.
Gisela watched, bewildered. Was this a scholar's correction?
"I have some skill with lines and form," Henry remarked, a faint, cold smile on his lips. It never reached his eyes. "You will remove your garments. Every piece. And I will draw you."
The command did not echo. It hung in the quiet room, intimate and severe. It was not a threat of violence, but something quieter, more psychologically annihilating. Gisela stood frozen, the meaning settling over her like a slow, cold weight.
"What?"
The word broke from her, sharp and too loud, as the full horror of it finally shattered her daze.
"Are you going to disobey me again?" Henry's voice hardened, tempered to steel. "Strip. Now."
Her mind screamed no, but her body understood the unyielding law of his will. A violent tremor took hold of her hands as she raised them. She willed them steady, to project a defiance she did not feel, but they shook like leaves in a storm.
With clumsy, faltering motions, she began. The heavy outer gown first, its ornate ties yielding with soft, sighing releases. It slid from her shoulders, a collapse of embroidered splendor at her feet. Next, the simpler under-dress, its laces tangling in her unsteady fingers before it, too, joined the heap on the floor.
She stood then in only her final layers: a thin chemise that fell to mid-thigh and the slender, delicate silhouette beneath. The cool air raised gooseflesh on her bare arms and legs. She stopped, her arms crossing tightly over her chest, a last, instinctive barricade.
"I said remove all." His voice held no patience, only the cold expectation of total obedience.
"But…" she stammered, the protest a weak, dying sound.
His silence was more commanding than any shout.
A choked breath hitched in her throat. Her gaze, glistening, fixed blankly on the wall behind him. Her trembling hands drifted down. They hovered at her hips, where the fine edge of her last garment met her skin. With a shudder that ran through her entire frame, her fingers hooked into the fragile fabric. In one agonizingly slow motion, she drew it down and stepped unsteadily out of it.
She stood utterly exposed. The firelight painted her nakedness in warm gold and long, vulnerable shadows, catching the delicate ridge of her collarbone, the subtle curve of her waist, the frantic tremor she could not suppress. Every instinct screamed to cover, to fold, to disappear. Instead, she remained rigid, a statue of shame, offering him only the stark, silent truth of her surrender.
He did not speak. The only sound that followed was the soft, wet scratch of the brush, beginning its work.
"Wait."
The single word stopped her. She stood frozen, more vulnerable in the pause than in the motion. His eyes travelled over her, not with desire, but with the cold assessment of a sculptor viewing raw marble.
"I prefer a woman's hair unbound. Do it. Now."
His voice held no emotion—no warmth, no disgust, only an expectation of efficiency. It was not a request for beauty, but a specification for his work.
"Do not let it ruin the lines," he added, his tone flat. "This is a study of form, not a portrait of modesty."
Her hands, which had been clutching her own arms, lifted slowly. With trembling fingers, she reached for the pins securing the intricate braids that had been woven in the morning . One by one, they slipped free, clinking softly as they fell to the floor. Then the final tie came loose.
A cascade of vibrant, coppery hair tumbled over her shoulders and down her back, a sudden wave of fire against her pale skin. The thick curls fell forward, cloaking her upper body, accidentally veiling her breasts and the peaks of her nipples from view. For a fleeting second, the curtain of hair provided a desperate, fragile sense of cover. Her hands instinctively crossed over it, holding the strands against her as if they were a shield.
"Bring your hands down." Henry's command was immediate, icy. "The hair is for my preference, not your comfort. Do not use it to hide."
A hot tear escaped, tracing a silent path down her cheek. The small, accidental reprieve was over. With a shuddering breath, she forced her arms to her sides once more. The heavy hair parted, falling beside her breasts, leaving her completely exposed again to his unflinching gaze and the patient, waiting tip of his brush.