It was absolutely the right choice, something that was about closeness and touch. Vitus had expected it to be quiet, but it turned out he wanted to whisper a lot into her ear or her shoulder or her hair. About how she felt against him, about how he was enjoying this, about how he wanted all of this to delight her. And then, once he was more active, about what he was going to do, how he would slide into her, fill her again.
The words were nearly as provocative as the touches. By the time he pushed inside her, she was quivering with desire. He could take his time with it, though. The earlier bout had taken the sharper edge off. That meant they could rock and move and tangle for quite a while before he finally shifted how he was using his fingers. Those touches teased her to her climax and brought his. He fell asleep with his face buried in her hair, and he’d never been happier.
When he woke again, it was sunny out, through the window, a clear winter sunlight. Thessaly was no longer in the bed, and he looked around, blinking. The door to the sitting room wasopen, and he could hear quiet noises out there. He got up, using the facilities again and washing his face, before tentatively emerging. Thessaly was sitting on the floor, wearing a flowing gown in a deep green that was pooling around her, several piles of paper out. “Good morning!” She sounded bright and cheerful.
He smiled at her, gesturing. “May I?” She patted the floor near her, and he sat down, careful not to kick any of the papers or make them move. “I thought about a dozen Solstice gifts for you, but I thought, in the end, you might like a say in it. I brought some stones and some sketches. It doesn’t make something pretty to unwrap, but?— “
Before he could finish, her arms were around his neck, and she was kissing his cheek. “I’d like that very much. I have one for you, but Collins can arrange for someone to deliver it to your workroom.” That made him curious, and she slid a rather large and solid package over to him with a bit of effort. He unwrapped it to find a desk set, the sort intended for magical researchers. There was a stand for a book that would keep pages open, or, he found when he read the attached information, turn them with a word. The inkstand was charmed against spills and stains. There were little boxes for small items, a tray to contain things, and she’d added a shallow tray with different hollows. “I thought one might work for stones better than most things.”
“It is splendid. I would think of you often anyway, but this just means I will think of you even more so. I’ll be back at work for at least part of the day come the twenty-seventh.” There were other obligations between now and then.
From there, the conversation devolved into a pleasant discussion about the stones he’d brought, their particular properties, and his ideas for what could be done with them. He’d brought a larger piece of obsidian, good against nightmares and protective, and then three smaller stones. The garnet would match the pendant she had from her aunt, andwhile he wished her all the protection and joy, that maybe wasn’t the right stone for this. Niobe had a piece of lapis lazuli, a little oddly shaped and small, but her fingers lingered on that one. It had particularly vivid veining, the kind they’d been discussing from the start. And there was a small topaz, with an inclusion, but the sunny golden light of it brought joy and peace and all the blessings of the sun.
Of course, he also thought about the emerald, tucked away in Niobe’s protective storage. It was still there. He had visited it every week or two, when doing other work in the shelving. But equally, he could not offer it to Thessaly, not until they were more settled about what they were doing. Until she could be clear she was promised elsewhere. He managed, in the course of the conversation, to determine she liked them as a stone, though they weren’t one favoured in her family overall.
She did not decide immediately, and he could tell that the choice was about whether she was going to make whatever she selected public or not. That affected both design and purpose, naturally. He left the notes with her, or rather, he’d made copies for the purpose. By the time he set off for the Council rites a bit after noon, he felt like he was on top of the world.
The rites themselves were, well, the same and also different. There was no Metaia, dancing with Owain Powell. He was partnered by his sister, or at least Vitus was fairly sure that was his sister. They certainly looked closely related, the length of their faces and the shape of their eyes and their noses.
Council Head Rowan seemed to be everywhere at once, even more so than usual. Cyrus Smythe-Clive was a tad solemn for a festive occasion, paired in the formal dances by his own sister. Vitus circulated, chatting here and there with various people. Some of them wished to arrange a consultation early in the new year. Two of those who’d commissioned talismans against lightning wanted to check all was still well. The factthat lightning, in specific, kept coming up made him think of Thessaly’s dream, and he wondered again why Philip Landry might be relevant. He’d have thought that lightning would be about Childeric, if anyone, and Childeric was firmly dead and buried. Of course, so was Philip.
He saw Lord Clovis and Sigbert. They’d come in a hair late, looking flustered, before taking up their places in line to make their offerings. Later, he saw them amongst the guests, along with Lady Maylis and the Dowager Lady Chrodechildis. There was no sign of Laudine or Dagobert, and Vitus would not have approached them here. It was too public. Vitus was getting punch from the refreshments table when he heard what he was fairly sure was Sigbert’s voice, behind him, a few feet away.
“So curious, but that’s why we were late. We got the news just as we were leaving. Her maid found her dead when she went to bring the luncheon in. Of course, she wasn’t coming today.” The antecedent wasn’t clear to Vitus, until the person Sigbert was talking to mentioned the name. Magistra Landry.
That was a shock. Vitus thought back to when he’d last seen her. Shaken, of course, by Philip’s death, as any reasonable person would expect. And then at Childeric’s funeral, she’d been veiled, which obscured a lot. But she had not seemed feeble or in ill health in other ways. Certainly, she’d seemed more robust than either Dagobert or Laudine that day. Entirely in control of herself, her magic, and her place in the world, that was the way to put it.
It wasn’t as if he could ask, of course. He stayed where he was for another minute, appearing very indecisive about whether to select the shrimp paste or the cheese, and then dithering over which wine. He only made his choices once he could hear that the people behind him had moved away. Fortunately, the footman tending the table was used to that sortof oddity from guests here, and certainly well-trained enough not to comment, even by a shift of his expression.
Vitus retreated with his refreshments to a quiet corner to contemplate, and to see who else might be interested in a conversation in due course.
19
December 23rd
Thessaly had been making the best of the event. They were in the liminal space between Solstice and Christmas. She knew the Fortier tradition had a great bit of feasting on Christmas Eve, various expected events on the day, and the extended family gathering on Boxing Day. Those weren’t the rituals that mattered in the magical sense, but they had become custom long ago, and custom they remained.
She had not been invited last year. She was not yet betrothed. And she was not invited this year, as she was not betrothed again. She gathered the festive part was smaller, understandably, since this was still a house with parents in mourning, a brother, aunts and uncles and cousins. But she had been invited today, on the twenty-third, when there was no standing custom, encouraged to spend the afternoon.
Thessaly had, of course, permitted Sigbert to escort her to the orangerie again. He’d kept up his end of the conversation, congenial and pleasant, even focusing more on her interests than his own. However, he mentioned something he needed to check on, elsewhere on the estate, and so he’d gone off to do that, leaving her sitting on her own. She’drather be in the orangerie than inside the house, with the repressive expectations of Lady Maylis and the Dowager Lady Chrodechildis.
She startled when she heard the doors to her right creak, and then the sound of footsteps. No, footsteps and a cane. There was a murmur and a set of footsteps going in the other direction, the others coming toward her. Thessaly figured out who it was by outline, the sun was behind them, before she could see them well. “Laudine, Dagobert.” She considered for a moment. “And Garin, off to play at the far end.”
“To read, probably, but yes. We needed a brief break from the rest of the house. May we join you? Did Sigbert leave you on your own?”
“He said he had something he needed to check on before tea. His father had asked. I’ve no idea what. He was very polite about it.” Thessaly gestured. “Please sit.” She and Sigbert had been sitting on the wicker bench. There was a separate chair. Laudine claimed the other seat on the bench, and Dagobert the chair, settling down with a soft grunt.
There was a silence, an increasingly awkward one. Thessaly was certain they were here with some purpose, but she wasn’t sure what it was. They were careful not to leave their son in the house, even, presumably, up in the nursery or their own rooms, and that was telling, actually, in a dozen ways. But it wasn’t anything she could ask about.
After perhaps a minute, Dagobert cleared his throat. “I beg pardon, I must ask something delicate. Well, more than one thing. First, I do not know if you had heard the news, but someone should make sure you knew. Henut Landry died sometime over the night of the twentieth, or early on Solstice day.”
Vitus had told her by note, but since he’d overheard it from Sigbert, she didn’t feel she could entirely admit to that source.“Oh, no. Alexander will be heartbroken, I’m sure. Was it an illness of some kind?”
Dagobert had the good grace to look embarrassed. “We’re not sure. We called for the undertaker; her man of business had all the necessary documents, since Alexander is abroad. But once her body was removed, the gatehouse wards sealed behind her, and we can’t get in. No investigation.”
That was— well, that was the sort of problem that estates like this didn’t admit to. Thessaly considered her options, then raised one eyebrow inquiringly. “I hope you might let me know when the funeral is?”
The two looked at each other, but it was Laudine who spoke. “I beg pardon, were you closer than I thought?” Was it a personal grief, to add to the others, or was it something else? That was what she meant.
