“Is accompanying me really necessa—”
Constantine cut off into a growl of annoyance as Elara shoved a biscuit into his mouth. Not hard, though she thought aboutsmashing it into his face after the annoyance he had caused her, but just enough that he was forced to take the bite and stop whatever it was he was about to say.
“I am going with you to the track tomorrow. Best to just resign yourself to the fact.”
Constantine glared at her as he grabbed the biscuit from his mouth and chewed on the bit that was forced there. Then his green eyes lit up as he looked at the treat in his hand.
“These are not bad. Not as good as my cook’s, but not bad.”
Elara rolled her eyes.
“Do you complain about everything?”
Constantine swallowed his bite with narrowed eyes.
“I do not...” he started to say. Then, as if struck with self-realization, he sighed before taking another bite of the biscuit. “I suppose I have been doing that quite a bit as of late, have I not?” he asked a moment later.
Elara smirked and nodded her head.
“Then I apologize,” he huffed, then took the last bite of biscuit. With his mouth still full, he added, “I have not been myself as of late.”
“I shall forgive you,” she replied, albeit a little begrudgingly. “For now.”
Constantine smirked.
“So you say you finally got William settled?” he asked, changing the subject.
“Yes, but only a little while ago, so please continue to keep your voice down,” she replied.
Constantine nodded. Then a moment later something shifted in his eyes.
“I remember when Augustus was that small,” he mused. “He was quite fussy then, too. Like father, like son, I suppose.”
“From all of the complaining you have done this evening, I suspect you were a fussy child as well,” Elara could not help but retort.
Constantine’s gaze flicked to her. She saw the tiredness in his eyes, the tightness around them from the stress, and she held up her hands; a silent symbol of surrender and apology.
“Actually, I was quite the solemn child,” Constantine confessed, surprising Elara. “I do not believe I was ever given the opportunitytobefussy or discontented. My parents and nannies were constant with their reminders that I had to be the head of the family and the title, whether I liked it or not.”
Elara’s heart softened as she heard the emotionless, matter-of-fact way Constantine described his childhood.
“That sounds so very lonely and miserable,” she confessed.
Constantine’s lips twitched.
“It is a childhood all first-born sons are familiar with, I am sure,” he replied, waving a dismissive hand in the air. “I have no doubt that Evander was raised in the same fashion.”
Elara was quick to shake her head.
“No. Well, by my father, perhaps. I do not rightly know, and I myself do not remember much about him,” she confessed. “Butmy mother? She showed us all affection.Greataffection all of our lives until...”
She stopped, a pain twinging in her heart as she swallowed a sudden lump in her throat and looked to the floor.
“Until Evander’s death announcement,” she whispered. “She did not take his absence well. Her mental state suffered. She is better now, but still, every so often I can see her slip back into that dark place.”
For a moment, there was no sound but the soft crackling of the fire behind them, and Elara began to feel self-conscious and embarrassed for sharing such an intimate fact of her family.
“I believe that your mother was the only person I ever met that showed me true kindness,” Constantine said, his deep but quiet tone breaking the silence.
