Page 44 of Gumiho Kiss
His friend beamed at the praise, then his forehead creased.“I hope Lady Lee is pleased with it.I haven’t been a very attentive fiancé.As soon as I left the two of you the other day, I regretted not escorting her home myself.Was she out of sorts after the attack?”
Hyun Soo took a seat next to his friend.“Not at all.She handled it all so calmly, one might think she was a soldier herself, ready to take on Gwishin single-handedly.”
The words sounded funny on his tongue, but they rang with truth.Lady Lee may be a woman, but she bore the heart of a warrior.There weren’t many with the courage to stand against a goblin.And the way she’d fought that day—he’d never seen a woman so fierce.
Dol Sam pursed his lips.“My bride to be?Take on Gwishin?”He clapped his friend on the back with a laugh.“You never cease to amuse me, my friend.”
Hyun Soo chuckled along with him, but his smile was thin.If Dol Sam had seen how well Lady Lee could fight, he wouldn’t find it amusing at all.Hyun Soo considered telling him what had really happened at the school, but if Lady Lee had wanted Dol Sam to know about her sword skills, she would have told him herself.
Besides, he wasn’t sure how his friend would react if he knew Hyun Soo had offered to train her.He might think it indecent.
Would that be a false assumption though?an annoying voice in his head asked.You’ve certainly been having indecent thoughts about her.
Not that Hyun Soo could help it, given the circumstances.Being in such close proximity to a beautiful woman would be challenging for any man, not just him.
In a few days, he’d be over it.He’d forget how good it had felt to hold her, how perfectly she’d fit in his arms.
Probably.
“I hope you’ve not lost your perception since leaving the military,” Dol Sam continued, “You always were so good at noticing the things other people didn’t.Like that time when we were sparring and I sprained my ankle, but I didn’t want you to know.Do you remember?”
Sprained ankle?
Something materialized at the edge of Hyun Soo’s consciousness, something he couldn’t quite grab hold of.Not about Dol Sam, but about Lady Lee.What was it?
He replayed the moment she’d fallen for the hundredth time.He’d caught her between his hands.One hand had gone to her back, and the other had pressed into her abdomen, somewhere close to her ribcage.
He hadn’t paid attention to it at the time, but when he’d grabbed her, she’d let out a sharp breath and glanced down at her chest.
Almost as if she were injured.Right below her ribcage on the left side.Exactly where?—
An impossible thought shot through Hyun Soo’s mind, like a flaming arrow illuminating the night.
No.It couldn’t be.She couldn’t be Gwishin.
Images flooded him in quick succession: her lack of fear with the bandits in the alley, her skill with a hwando, her open hostility toward him when they’d first met.Behaviors that were strange on their own, but when put together ...
He called to mind his run-in with the vigilante, hoping to find something dissimilar between them, something with which he could cast out this suspicion for the absurdity it was.
He’d fought Gwishin under cover of darkness, unable to make out much beyond his opponent’s basic shape.How tall had he been?Too tall to be Lady Lee?
But his mind betrayed him, conjuring a figure smaller than himself.Small enough to be a woman in disguise.
But that voice.It had clearly been male.Hadn’t it?
The memory of the vigilante’s sharp cry of pain filled Hyun Soo’s ears, high-pitched and feminine.
“They don’t call me the Ghost for nothing.But I’m more curious about you.Did Hong send you?He must be desperate if he’s hiring common thugs now.”
He’d found the vigilante unbearably cocky, someone who’d needed to be put in his place.But everything changed if he imagined Lady Lee behind the mask.He thought back to the way she’d responded to his taunt during their training session.
“You call this poor technique?”
Her outrage had been so adorable he hadn’t been able to hold back a laugh.Now he assessed her words more critically.
Though the pitch had been higher than Gwishin’s, the fire had been the same.A bold self-assurance bordering on brazen, especially for a noblewoman.
And then she’d shown him she hadplentyof reason to be confident in her sword skills.
