‘You’re not disappointed we didn’t see or do anything else?’ he asked, smoothing one of those rambunctious curls from her forehead; just an excuse to touch her really. ‘We’ll have some time in the morning, but not much.’
‘I’m not disappointed at all.’
The way she looked at him then, honey-green eyes so full of joy and light; if he hadn’t already been in love with her, he would’ve fallen for her then.
No one wouldn’t have.
He might’ve told her, found that moment to be the perfect one to say as much, yet something stopped him, and he simply leaned down instead, and kissed her, with a slow, languorous, and profound depth that made everything within him calm, still, and settle.
After a moment, or perhaps a hundred, they broke apart, and he smiled.
‘We should get cleaned up, and in more comfortable attire.’
Hypatia nodded, and he released her, so they could go about doing just that.
Seizing the opportunity while she was busy behind another screen, he placed his other gift on her pillow; the bed by the window of course, which he suspected would be open the night through, despite any noise of nighttime revellers below, to allow the briny air and seagulls’ cries in. Settling on top of his own bed once properly refreshed and changed, he laid back, and stared at the mouldings on the ceiling, remembering the day, and every day which had led up to it, wondering how he’d gotten here, how extraordinary life was, to have conspired by myriad events, choices, and chances, to bring him to this.
To a wife so extraordinary, to love, to—
‘Oh, Thorn…’
He grinned, hearing admiration and pleasure in her voice, and seeing it a moment later when she came around the screento stand beside him, cradling the iron rose in her hands like some fragile treasure, eyes darting along every millimetre.
‘You like it?’
‘It’s incredible,’ she smiled, and he didn’t take her surprise at him being capable of such work badly; rather, it filled his heart with pride. Thorn shifted, sitting up, and making room for her beside his legs if she wished to join him, which she did. ‘It looks as though you’ve plucked it from the garden, and dipped it in metal. I mean look at this,’ she breathed, running her fingers over it now, along every thin petal, every leaf, every move and wave and twist of the metal. ‘This must’ve taken you days…’
‘Only a couple,’ he shrugged, blushing slightly.
‘I don’t mean… This isn’t to say you’re not good at doing what you are, but Thorn, this is artistry.’
‘Do you know, I think I enjoy it more now that it isn’t my profession. I used to count the hours, rage sometimes at the time it would take to make such intricate, lifelike pieces for some gentleman’s gate, or lady’s fireplace shield, whereas making this…’
Was a labour of love.
He didn’t say that, and wondered why his lips and tongue refused so to speak such a confession, even in a sideways manner, smiling softly as if to merely say:you understand.
‘I understand,’ Hypatia said, with a mirroring smile. ‘Can I ask you a strange question?’
‘Lord, you do frighten me at times, Hypatia,’ he chuckled. ‘Go on, then.’
‘That first day, when you arrived at Gamin Hall, and I saw you after my confrontation with Warren, and just now, when I told you this rose was incredible, what were you feeling?’
Frowning slightly, he thought back, not truly being one to catalogue his feelings as they passed through him; recognisingthem, yes, however, the practice of storing away a notation of their arrival and departure not being something he typically did.
He wasn’t entirely surewhyHypatia was asking, or if he wanted to know, but he would answer, regardless, as she had asked, and that was reason enough for him.
‘Pride,’ he told her finally, meeting her gaze, troubled and searching now. ‘Of my work, and that day, of you. Beyond how I’d ever felt it before, in truth.’
‘Hm,’ she nodded, turning to look back down at the rose and biting her lip.
Ask her.
‘Thank you,’ she said after a long while, rising. ‘For that, for the rose, for everything, Thorn. Good night.’
A swift but sweet kiss, and she was gone to the other side of the screen.
Ask her.
