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Why was he getting the impression that she wasn’t being entirely honest with him here?

He supposed he was putting too much thought into it at this point. Better to let it go. “It’s okay, Ms. Rogers. I might’ve, uh... er... I think I might’ve been at fault, too.”

Her gaze twitched. “In what way?”

“By not being clearer from the start, I... put you in a bit of an awkward position, didn’t I?”

“No, lord, you did nothing wrong.”

“That’s kind of you to say, Ms. Rogers, but you don’t need to sugarcoat things for me. I’d rather you spoke your mind. I’m still new to this lording business, after all.”

At that, the Stewardess of Warrenhold was quiet.

Hector, finding that curious, decided to just wait for her. Perhaps she was thinking about what to say.

And indeed, that appeared to be so. “...In that case, lord, please forgive me if what I am about to say comes off as rude. I do not mean it that way.”

Aha. He braced himself.

“It seems to me,” she went on, “that, occasionally, you do not quite realize just how much more valuable your time is, compared to that of other people. I suspect this is because you are... humble in the extreme, to say the least. Which is an admirable thing, by and large, but there are also certainly realities of your station that should not be ignored, both in terms of your own scheduling and in terms how others are to perceive you.”

That was a lot to take in. Hector chose not to say anything right away, instead just mulling her words over. On impulse, he wanted to disagree, but this was someone whose opinion he held in high regard, so he didn’t want to discard her thoughts here too quickly.

She returned the favor of giving him time to think. But after a while, she decided to say a bit more. “But to be clear, lord, I do indeed think that you did nothing wrong in this particular instance, especially now that I have have given it more thought. This was clearly a more important matter to you than I at first realized. I will be more careful in the future.”

Hmm. Hector was starting to feel like an asshole. But he didn’t quite know how, why, or what he might say or do to counteract that feeling, so he merely remained silent. Backpedaling didn’t seem like the right call here, either.

Man.

He’d thought he was getting a little better at being a lord, but maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he barely knew anything.