The silence that dropped over the room was total.
Her mother’s face, behind Kazrian’s shoulder where he could not see it, performed a small, silent apocalypse. Her eyes found Charlotte’s across the room and delivered a message of such comprehensive fury that it was a wonder Charlotte did not simply combust on the spot.
Charlotte gazed pleasantly back, radiant with innocence, entirely and deliberately blind to it.
Kazrian hesitated. Lucie saw him do it—saw him register, however faintly, the sudden change in the air, saw the good manners in him reach for the graceful exit. “That is very kind,” he said, “but I have imposed a great deal already, and I would not wish to?—”
“Nonsense, there is more than enough,” said Charlotte, “and it would be a shame to send you off into the cold with an empty stomach when it is right here, would it not, Mother?”
And there it was—the trap, sprung and perfect—because now the only thing more improper than inviting him would be for her mother toretractthe invitation to his face, and her mother knew it, and Charlotte knew her mother knew it.
Everyone looked at Mrs Fields.
“Of course,” she said, in a voice of flawless, strangled courtesy. “You would be most welcome, Lord Kazrian. Though I fear it is very plain fare.”
Kazrian paused for one final moment, his eyes meeting Lucie’s before returning to her mother. “Plain fare shared with good company is the finest sort there is,” he said with a smile. “Thank you. I would be honored.”
And so Kazrian Rowanwood sat down to dinner at the Fields family table.
He was placed—by Charlotte, naturally—directly across from Lucie. Charlotte installed herself at Lucie’s side. Which meant that for the whole of the meal Lucie had her sister’s pointed elbow within easy range on the one hand, and on the other, across the narrow table, close enough that she could not possibly avoid it, the steady warm regard of the last person on earth she could afford to look at.
It was excruciating.
It was also, and this was the unbearable part,wonderful.
The stew was served. Bread was passed. Robbie required his cut into small squares. Belle required hers with the crust removed, a task she assigned to Kazrian by the simple expedient of pushing her plate toward him and saying, “Off.”
“I beg your pardon?” Kazrian said.
“Manners, Belle!” Mrs Fields said.
“Please?”
“I’ll do it,” Charlotte said with a sigh, holding her hand out for the plate.
“She means the crust,” Lucie explained. “She does not eat it.”
“Ah. Not to worry then. I can manage that.” Kazrian picked up the bread and carefully tore the crust away in a single piece. Belle watched him with narrowed eyes throughout, and when the task was complete, she accepted her plate in silence.
“Belle,” Theo said in a warning tone.
And Belle, who had clearly been given precise instructions after they had all left the parlor earlier, said, with near perfect enunciation, “Thank you, Lord Rowanwood.”
Kazrian gave her a smile. “You are most welcome.” Then his gaze shifted and found Lucie’s across the table, and she held it for several beats longer than she should have.
She was aware of everything. The modest size of the kitchen, the plainness of the crockery, the chip in the jug that held the water, the darned patch on the tablecloth. She had never been inside Rowanwood House, but did not need to in order to know that it was grander than this by an order of magnitude she could not even imagine. The thought of Kazrian—who dined at tables set with crystal, who had spent three years in a palace—sitting in this kitchen on a mismatched chair eating stew from a bowl with a hairline crack in the rim made her want to slide quietly under the table and never resurface.
But Kazrian did not seem to notice any of it. Or if he had, it did not seem to matter to him. And when she took a moment to think about it, she realized that of course it did not. Because he was Kazrian.
Instead, he was talking to her father about wood. He had been talking to her father about wood since the workshop, and the conversation had apparently not exhausted itself, because they had moved on from ash to silver wood.
“—somewhat rare in these parts,” Kazrian was saying, “but I had the opportunity to work with it in the Shaded Lands. It holds enchantment remarkably well. I used it for the framework I constructed for Lucie—for her confectionery demonstration tomorrow.”
Miss Fields, Lucie thought, even as she tried to hide her smile.You are supposed to call me Miss Fields.
“I’ve seen a few pieces crafted from silver wood,” Lucie’s father said. “Never had the chance to work with it myself, mind you. It does sound fascinating.”
“I could bring you some,” Kazrian said at once. “I would be delighted to see what a craftsman of your skill might do with them. Oh—” He caught himself, as though realizing belatedly that the offer might seem presumptuous. “That is, if you would want them. Please do not feel obliged to accept.”
