"Why?"
"It is not proper for you to call me Henry."
"But ain't that yer name?" Belle blinked, confused. Why would she call him by his familial name? Surely, he had a family; parents or siblings? If she called them all Munro, how would they know to whom she spoke? Henry was solelyhisname.
"It is. But you are a lady of distinction now. You should not call a man by his first name."
Belle could not make heads or tails of this but accepted it without comment. It did her little good to become embroiled in an argument with a man she would not see again soon. She had only to arrive at the castle, meet her father for the first and last time, and then return home. Whether she did so in the “proper” way did not matter to her. So, if it made him happy...
"Munro, then."
There was a flicker of movement as the figure across from her nodded his head in agreement. Belle's lips twisted in thought.
"What's my father like?" she asked.
"What specifically do you mean?"
Belle frowned. She did not think it to be a confusing question.
She decided that the man was focused on the details of the bark that he missed the dang forest. Just how did he ever manage to have a conversation with someone?
"Ah mean, what is helike?Is Laird Henderson nice?"
Despite living in his province and seeing his castle on the horizon every day, Belle knew little to nothing of the man that ruled over her and her neighbors. She had never seen him, never witnessed a carriage of his carousing the streets. She had never heard something spoken of him in a personal sense. Only rumors of the “laird,” not of “Alasdair Henderson” himself.
"He is...well-liked," Munro finally answered, apparently choosing his words with care. "He is a skilled laird, wealthy and wise in his trade. He maintains good relations with the rest of the nobility, including a powerful alliance with the laird of my home. Laird Henderson's lands are some of the most vast in the area, and he has a well-afforded militia and merchant guild. He is a good laird."
Belle took a moment to absorb this.
She attempted to picture the kind of man that Henry Munro was describing and failed. She understood politics and trade as much as she did Latin, hereby meaning not at all. She had no comprehension of the compliments Munro was offering, nor of how these lairdship qualities related to the man himself.
"But, is he agoodperson?" Belle tried again. "Is he kind to people?"
Munro seemed to stumble over this question.
He went still on the other side of the carriage, one long leg moving to cross over the other and his arms folding over his chest. As if he were defensive for not having the answer.
Belle wished, for a moment, that she could see his face more clearly. It had been cast in darkness at the door and now again in the carriage, and while he had been inside her home, Belle's surprise had ruled her senses, robbing her of truly reading his features. She had been given only the swiftest impression of brown hair, towering height, and fine features. Little more about him had stuck.
Only his voice was now familiar to her. Deep with authority but pleasant in tone, the man spoke with a soothing clarity, like spring water bubbling over the rocks of a creek. There was no pretense, no accent. Just clear, punctuated words that were all the more natural for their purity.
If this man's voice had a taste,Belle thought,it would be naturally sweet.
And yet, the words he spoke were often blunt and controlled.
As if the pretty, falling water had been contained in a glass jar. Never to be allowed its natural course.
"I believe so."
Three simple and clipped words. A sweet and pleasant voice that had been taught to be proper.
Belle felt the itchiness of that confinement and rolled her shoulders. When the gesture caught the back of her dress against the seat, she wriggled to free the fabric and then adjusted her skirts. Her boots made a soft shuffle against the bottom of the carriage.
"You should stop fidgeting."
"Huh?"
"And you should stop saying ‘huh,’" the man added. "A lady is not inelegant in either her mannerisms or her words. ‘Huh’ is inelegant. As is fidgeting."
