Frollo didn't show up for lunch. When Esmeralda arrived at the dining room, she was disappointed to see that his chair was empty, and the table was set just for one.
- Won't Minister Frollo be joining us? - she asked one of the servants.
- No, miss. - he replied timidly, not used to being spoken to.
- Why?
- I… - the servant cleared his throat, visibly nervous, not sure how much information he was allowed to reveal. - I believe he had matters to attend in the city, miss. Sometimes when his work takes longer than expected, he will eat outside the palace, miss.
- I see. Thank you – she said kindly, and with a quick relieved nod, the servant poured water on her glass and left swiftly.
She wasn't sure she believed that explanation, anyway. Their encounter at the stables had been weird and unexpected, and she had been able to see the discomfort this had caused him. Maybe he was avoiding her.
Or maybe he was just actually busy. She didn't know, and it bothered her not to know.
She was so used to reading people like an open book. She usually could tell what everyone was feeling, sometimes even accurately guess their thoughts. She could see people's intentions from a mile away, and she was almost never caught off guard. She was also able to tell when someone was lying, or hiding something.
All of this gave her an upper hand when dealing with people, either friends or enemies, and she had learned to trust her intuition and let it become her guiding light.
But Frollo was dark as midnight at the forest, and her usual lantern was completely swallowed by the uncertainty of what would be waiting behind the next tree. She still hadn't been able to figure out what exactly it was that he wanted from her.
When she had agreed to their deal, she had picture torture and punishment, him releasing his violent sadistic urges rampantly upon her, making her pay for her defiance and mockery, restoring himself to a position of power and control. And though this unknowing was, indeed, torture for her... She didn't believe he meant it to be so. He had actually tried to make her comfortable there. He had even made sure her goat was comfortable, for God's sake!
Which took her to her second guess. If Frollo didn't want her there because he yearned to restore his wounded ego… maybe he wanted to quench a different kind of thirst at her expense. Though he didn't act like any other man she knew, Esmeralda recalled their encounter at the cathedral, right after the festival, when Phoebus had made her claim sanctuary in order to protect her.
While the archdeacon was distracted escorting the soldiers out, Frollo had stayed behind, hiding under a pillar. When he was sure no one was looking, he had crept on her from behind and grabbed her arm, twisting it backwards.
He had intended to intimidate her, making feel claustrophobic at the cathedral in order to lure her outside.
But then the weirdest thing had happened. He had sniffed her hair. And feeling that, hearing that, Esmeralda had felt an electric shock through her entire body, a shock that she translated as terror. For it was in that moment that she realized there was something else going on, besides the Judge's anger towards her disobedience. He was drawn to her.
Right afterwards he had accused her of planting unholy thoughts in his mind, which she secretly feared was a rightful accusation. In all truth, she had been the one to purposefully jump onto his lap in the middle of her seductive dance. Though nothing she had done justified the man's following madness, of that she was certain.
An imperceptible cough took her out of her thoughts. The servant was standing beside her, as if waiting for an answer to a question she hadn't even heard.
- I'm sorry, what? - she said, shaking her head.
- Are you done, miss? - he repeated, pointing to her empty plate.
- Oh! Yes. Yes, thank you. - she answered, picking up the napkin from her lap and softly laying it on the table.
She went up to her chambers, where she started pacing restlessly as her thoughts started to flood her mind again.
The thing was, since she had arrived at the Palace, the man hadn't shown any signs of attraction again. He had kept his distance, barely looked at her in the face unless he was upset about something, seemed visibly uncomfortable in her proximity and avoided her company entirely for most of the day.
He didn't seem to have the slightest intention to increase their personal intimacy, let alone their physical one.
Which was a relief.
Right?
Right.
...Was it though?
Esmeralda felt as if the room had started spinning around her. She felt dizzy, and walked to the ceramic basin, pouring some water on it and refreshing her heated face. She looked up to the mirror, and watched herself, the hair at the edge of her face still dripping.
- What the hell is wrong with you!? - she scolded herself, hiding her face between her hands, and turning around to sit on the bed's edge.
So far she had been focusing on trying to figure out Frollo's intentions. But she knew that the actual source of her anxiety laid on what she had been focusing not to think about. Her own feelings.
She didn't even want to consider it for a moment. She felt that if she did, she would be opening the door for all kinds of dark, terrifying realizations about herself that she wasn't ready to face.
She had always supported herself on her values. Her moral. That's what gave her strength and courage to do the right thing. That's what made her who she was.
And her moral told her that Frollo was a ruthless, corrupted man who had terrified her city for years only to end up setting fire to it in a murderous search for her and everyone she loved.
But he had eventually let them go without harm. And he was trying to rebuild what had been burned…
That voice! Where did that inner, annoying voice come from? Needed she remind herself that the only reason he had let the gypsies go was that she had pledged him her own freedom? That wasn't compassion, that was blackmail.
The inner advocate of the devil shut its mouth. There was no defending Frollo. Even if he possessed hidden facets of himself, like the one she had witnessed that morning at the stables, that didn't change the other parts of him, the ones displayed at plain sight for everyone to behold and fear.
Which made it even worse that she didn't just feel despise towards the man.
What did it say about herself that she had been disappointed when he didn't show up at lunch? What did it say about herself that she had dwelled on the sound of his voice when he was soothing his horse, secretly craving to hear that voice directed at her own ears? What did it say about herself that, whenever he was close, her heart started pounding in her chest, pumping adrenaline to her veins, but also heat to her lower regions? She realized then that the electric shock she had felt when he smelled her hair hadn't been one of fear, at all.
Was she utterly insane? Feeling that way about the cruelest man in Paris? The one that had stolen her life away?
Who was she? Wasn't it worse, being attracted to a monster, than being the monster itself?
Didn't that turned her into the same kind of evil he was?
She didn't understand her own heart, her own traitorous body.
She felt she was losing herself.
But the scariest part of all was that, deep down… she also felt she was, for the first time in her life, truly finding herself.
A/N: thank you for your kind reviews! they encourage me to keep writing ;) I'm glad you also enjoy the slow build-up (not that I don't appreciate a good one-shot now and then, but I rather see how things unfold ;) )