It felt like an anchor in the middle of this swell of such impossible choice. She would cling to it, and she would smile her gratitude. If she did, then perhaps the choice would be taken out of her hands.
It always had been before.
Chapter 7 - Ewan
The parlor he brought her to was in the private part of the castle. It was a few hallways down from the workshop and was a space he enjoyed spending time in. The wooden walls had been carved flat and painted white before being decorated with a pale watercolor pattern of lilies. They looked more like ghostlike apparitions, their grey shaded areas the only thing that alerted the eye that they were there. The furniture was lithely carved out of cedar and dressed in silver velvet that was getting worn. He should change it, but it had been his mother’s favorite.
“It might be I love this space so because she did,” he commented, telling Shannon about the afternoons he’d spent in the room with his mother.
“What was her name?” Shannon asked.
“Eartha,” he said, a broad smile splitting his face. “My father always teased her that her name was too on the nose for the queen of Rogoros. It was one of their favorite jokes. Every time my father shared it with others, she laughed as though she’d heard it for the first time as well.”
Shannon smiled then.
“It sounds like your parents loved each other very much,” she said.
“They did,” he agreed. “Didn’t yours?”
She paused, a pained expression crossing her face though she got rid of it quickly enough. She clearly did not wish to speak about it.
“Where do we begin?” he changed the subject.
“It’s difficult to tell you what you need to work on without first having seen you in a room with others,” she commented.
“There’s no way of remedying that before tonight,” he commented.
“Obviously,” she said. “But I suppose it’s the one-on-one chatter that oppresses you.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Ask questions,” she instructed. “Isn’t that quite easy?”
“Not in the moment,” he shook said.
“I never found you uneasy,” she remarked.
“Because you made sure I wasn’t,” he stated meaningfully.
He thought he caught her gaze lingering on his for a moment longer than was necessary. Was she thinking about their morning together?
He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it.
He had told himself, time and time again, that there was no more to it than him wanting to show her the Pavilion, but he had not gone to her rooms that morning with that in mind. Nor had he gone with hunting in mind. He barely knew why he had gone.
Except he also kept thinking of water dripping, her back and neck bent forward, her slip almost see-through. He should not desire to lift that slip over her head to gaze upon her fully. This was not why he wanted a mating bond secured between them. Only, his motivations had been jumbling ever since the luncheon and now she was not helping matters at all when she instructed him to sit down on the sofa and casually took the seat next to him. She did not look at him, eyes drifting to the ceiling, waiting for him to start the conversation.
Lessons had begun.
“How do you like this room?” he asked.
“It’s serene,” she replied, gaze meeting his. “I appreciate that.”
“Yes, that’s the word for it,” he agreed. He paused, then commented, “You can be quite serene.”
“How so?”
“You seem so collected, always,” he remarked.
