Page 26 of Noble Charms

Noble snorted. “Oh, I'm sure.” Then he was wrong. It hadn't been Ellor. Perhaps Noble saw his elder brother—he'd the same red hair.

“It's true. He's incredibly generous.” Aria sat straight, and pointed down his hand in a list. “He singlehandedly funds the children's theater league in New Hieroph. He supplies housing to any youths aspiring for bardic careers, if they've been orphaned. He's an avid supporter of the arts. He's the highest-paying patron of my guild, The Bardic Post. And he does employ me, yes, but he loves me, too.”

“He's such a giver,” Noble said, and he did his best to keep the sarcasm from his voice. He must be wrong about them, about Ellor. Aria seemed so sure.

Aria's blush deepened as he said, “He cares for me. I wouldn't be riding in this car if he'd not bought this ticket.”

“That is a kindness.” The train wasn't cheap—not in this particular car, anyway.

“We're in love,” Aria said, a little more quietly, looking down at his hands. A small smile teased his mouth.

“In love? This early on?”

“How long before you said 'I love you' to Virginia?” Aria folded his hands together and returned his pretty blue eyes to Noble's face.

Noble realized he'd walked into a trap of his own making. “Well, that's a little different.”

“Oh? How long?”

Noble bit his lip, trying to withhold a grin, and failed. “Our second date.”

Aria threw up his hands. “See.”

“I said, it's different.”

“In what way?”

“We were making love, and she did this thing⁠—"

Aria put both hands over his ears, and closed his eyes tightly, and said, “No.”

Noble burst into laughter loud enough that the other patrons in the car turned to look. “Sorry. Sorry.” Perhaps some things would never change. Noble delighted in Aria’s red-flushed face. “What I mean is that I didn't mean it when I said it then. But I meant it maybe six months later. I proposed.”

Aria lowered his hands and sighed. “Well. Good for you.”

Noble let it go. Aria would know better than him if Ellor’s feelings were true.

The countryside outside the train window shifted to a smaller village—one of the hamlets outside Sallansa he'd visited as a kid.

Noble sank comfortably into his seat, drinking in the view. “The train is quite the work of magic, isn't it? So fast.”

Aria looked out the same window, and placed his chin upon his hand as he stared into the autumnal red-orange-brown of the hamlet's trees. “It's nice. But I did think about requesting a carriage. My old one. I've seen it sitting in the back of the livery I sold it to all those years ago. I thought maybe…” Aria trailed off.

Noble raised an eyebrow. “You didn't want to take the train?” A carriage would take an entire day to reach Sallansa. The train could do it in hours.

“Oh, no. I like the train. What's there to not like?” Aria swept a hand around them, and Noble had to agree. Black velvet covered every surface of the interior except for the tray tables resting before each seat, which were made of gleaming dark oak. The car itself moved smoothly, swaying only around the turns, and the oval windows revealed the rapidly passing kingdom like unique, framed art.

“Then why fund your coach down to Sallansa?”

“I sort of hoped I could see the girls again. The mares?” Aria's face reflected in the window, a lovely and sad ghost. “I've not seen them since I sold them, but I assumed the attendant has them at a ranch outside the city, and could bring them into the city for this trek. Do you remember them?”

Noble blinked a few times. “Of course I remember them. Lima. Pinto.”

“Beans,” Aria chuckled. “Well, you forgot me. It's not unreasonable to think you'd forget them.”

“I've not forgotten them, Aria. I see them every time I visit my family's estate.” Noble shrugged and said, “I bought them. From the livery. About a week after we arrived.”

Aria turned to Noble, a polite smile frozen upon his face. The shock was evident in the pinching of his brows, the tight line of his lips. He finally said, “What?”