Thalia snorted. “I best be careful, lest he see us speaking.”
“It is fine for now,” Seraphine assured her. “He is in the washroom, which should give us a few minutes.”
It was as the young woman said this that Caspian spied none other than Lord Donmere coming their way. He looked furious too, his face flushed red, his eyes wide and rueful.
“Thalia…” Caspian spoke up. “We best be –”
“Seraphine!” Lord Donmere descended upon them. He did not look at Caspian or Ironvale or even Thalia. He simply snatched his daughter by the hand and yanked her away. “What did we speak of?”
“I am sorry, Father, I was just –”
“Enough,” he hissed. “Come now, it is time we leave.” Without another word, or a glance at any of them, he dragged his daughter back through the crowd.
“What was that about?” Ironvale asked.
“He is competing, it would seem,” Thalia said dryly.
“Competing?” Ironvale looked at her.
“The speed at which he moved,” Thalia confirmed. “He must be trying to set a record for the one-hundred-yard dash. Perhaps I should have brought a ribbon to gift him as a prize?”
Caspian could not say why he found the comment so funny. Was it Thalia’s dry wit that did it? Was it Ironvale’s surprise? Or maybe it was the effect of the day itself, how bad his mood had been, how annoyed he was at the way that his wife was behaving?
Whatever the reason, Caspian burst into laughter. And typically, such a reaction caused alarm in both Ironvale and Thalia.
“Do my ears deceive me?” Ironvale asked as he turned and frowned at Caspian. “Did you just… laugh?”
Caspian did his best to smother it. “I chuckled, Ironvale. Do not act so surprised.”
“I would not, had I ever heard such a thing before.” His eyes lit up with curiosity, and he glanced between Caspian and Thalia. “Again, Your Grace,” he said to Thalia. “You will have to teach me your secret.”
Thalia’s reaction was similar to Ironvale’s, in how surprised she was. She looked curiously at Caspian, the first time all day that her stare did not hold a level of antipathy and annoyance for him. If anything, she almost appeared amused.
“I wish I could tell you,” she said, still eyeing Caspian. “But that would require me to know how exactly I did it.”
“Whatever it is, I commend you.” Ironvale held up his glass as if in a toast. “It takes much to elicit a reaction of any type out of Caspian, and that you seem to do so with such ease…” He shrugged. “I suppose that’s why you’re married.”
Thalia maintained a calm expression, but Ironvale focused on him with unnerving intensity. Caspian’s cheeks flushed red at the scrutiny.
Ironvale’s stare was mocking, and curious, because he rarely saw Caspian laugh like that and was no doubt intrigued by the notion.
Thalia’s stare was also curious, but there was a smile behind her eyes. Caspian looked ahead, refusing to meet her eyes, but he could see her watching, and he could feel the tension between them starting to melt. The first time it had done so all day.
She is still angry with me. But for some reason, that single moment shook something awake inside of her… perhaps a reminder that she does not need to hate me.
It was a strange circumstance, and Caspian did not fully understand it – he always did struggle when it came to the complexities of human emotion. Then again, everything about this marriage was strange, so what was one more instance?
The simple fact was that his marriage was not as it had been. It could no longer be taken for granted. It could no longer be treated as a mere business contract. Changes were occurring between himself and his wife, and while Caspian had always hated change, in this single instance it wasn’t nearly as bad as he had spent his entire life convinced that it would be.
Chapter Sixteen
“Oh! Look who it is! I must say, I did not expect to see you here again. Dare I be so bold as to think you came all this way because you enjoy the pleasure of my company?”
Octavia Finch was not who Thalia was looking for, but she was excited to bump into her again, nonetheless. The librarian had an infectious energy that was hard to ignore, while having the remarkable effect of swatting away any negative thoughts that existed because such things could not possibly survive in the light that exuded from her.
“That is entirely too bold of you,” Thalia said with a warm smile. “As much as I enjoyed drinking tea with you last week, it was notthatenjoyable that I would trip all the way into London again for such a thing.”
“Hush now,” Octavia said, waving her down. “No need to try and humble me. I will not think it strange if you did come all thisway just to bask in my presence. I have been told that I make for rather enjoyable company.”
