Cherion cleared his throat, the sound echoing a bit too sharply in the silence of the Duke's bedchamber. He felt the heat crawling up his neck, that traitorous, creeping flush that always betrayed him when he was flustered.
"Please," he began, his voice wavering only a fraction before he steadied it with a dose of his old hospitality-manager steel. "Don't flatter yourself too much, Your Grace. I'll admit you've got a... decent enough face, I suppose. Admirable. But that's hardly the reason I was looking at you like that."
He prayed to whatever gods governed this ridiculous world that Zarius hadn't caught his muddled mumblings from moments ago. Something about eyelashes? God, he hoped not.
"I was merely... assessing," Cherion added quickly, his hands fluttering in a vague, clinical gesture. "Gathering data. A professional diagnostic, if you will. I needed to see if the overnight contact had produced any tangible physiological shifts."
