Page 45 of Noble Charms

The Aria from long ago had been so…hard. Proper. This one was soft. Perhaps problematically so. Ellor had really done a number on him.

Not that Aria realized. Every day he said that he felt fine, really, and Noble just let him go on thinking as much. Tonight, at least, he’d forcibly pull Aria into his true, strait-laced self. “We’re going out this evening. Properly.”

Aria placed his cup on the bistro table and slowly blinked, like sleep continued to chase him. Poor fellow hadn’t adapted to daytime hours now that he wasn’t working long nights. “It’s tonight?”

“Mmhmm.” Noble grabbed his own steaming mug off one of the kitchen counters and joined Aria at the bistro table. “A gallery opening for an artist making wooden wall art.” He offered the letter for Aria to take. “It’s not a huge event, but it’ll get us out of the house and brushing shoulders with some wealthy folks.”

Aria yawned as he unfolded the letter. He scanned it, hummed as if pleased, and then returned to his tea. “I’ve heard of her. A half-elf, half-orc. Willa Brown. She’s supposedly the hottest new thing in town. Everyone who’s anyone has a piece of hers in their home.”

Noble raised a brow. “Ellor?”

Aria nodded. “He got outbid on a bust of the Moon Goddess and pouted for days.”

“He would.” Noble looked out the mahogany-framed window at the glittering morning waters of the river. An elven man in a rough-hewn canoe paddled by, a net of fish in a pile at the front. He was talking to himself and smiling, and though Noble couldn’t make out the words, he nonetheless found himself inspired by his good mood. “That’s even better, then. I should buy a piece from her tonight. It’ll show me supporting the arts, and it’ll show how little my coin has been affected by Virginia’s loss. It’s what a proper nobleman would do.”

Aria chuckled as he polished off his tea. “Sure.”

“Why do you laugh?” Noble relaxed his chin into his hand, propped upon the table. “How are you not continually impressed at my ability to come up with these ploys that will save us both?”

Aria’s grin shined like the sun upon the water. “The purpose of buying art is to enjoy the art. But nobles, like you—even like Ellor—don’t even care what it looks like, in the end. What if you get there and it’s all hideous stuff?”

Noble narrowed his eyes in thought. “I suppose that doesn’t matter as much.”

“Willa’s art is not made to show off your wealth or connections or anything else. She doesn’t make these things for the money behind it—she does it because she’s got inspiration. Because she loves to do it.”

Noble watched Aria’s blue stare flash in passion. “You know, when we first met, you were adamant you’d never work as an adame, and only as a bard.”

Aria placed his hands before himself on the table. “Yes, I remember. My plans changed when I met Ellor.”

“But that’s still what you want, right? To be an artist. A bard.” Noble smiled as Aria’s face pinched in thought. The Aria that valued his craft—that Aria was still accounted for, even after all this loss.

“It’s what calls to me. Bardic magic. The same way a wife calls to you, I suspect.”

“Perhaps so.” His singular goal was to return to the way things were. If he married again, he’d be given a new plot of land from The Crown, and he’d be back where he belonged. “That’s all that’s ever been expected of me. Wife, land, children. It carries a lot of weight, this role.”

That weight was why he’d avoided the title earl previously. Young Noble, naive Noble, loved being unattached. But Noble now would have given anything to be married to Virginia again. To go back to the best of his days, when they were newly wed, and could barely leave the bed, and were showered with attention whenever they left their home.

Aria picked up his mug and moved to the kitchen sink. He did that a lot—washed his own dishes. Noble paid Karle, a half-orc cleaner, a significant wage to come in and tidy his home every other day.

Noble got up and prepared to follow Aria’s lead. He could tidy after himself.

“I like your name,” said Aria, eventually. “Earl doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily. Remember?”

Noble barked a single laugh. “I do. I always thought it sounded unnatural to say. Earl Yves St. Clair.”

“What changed?”

Noble stepped beside Aria, and dipped his empty cup into the hot, soapy water he’d poured into the sink. “I did, I guess.” He met Virginia. He wanted to have Virginia. That meant changing his name. That meant changing his priorities. The way his parents looked as he placed the ring on Virginia’s hand, at the altar—so proud. So pleased.

Virginia divorced him nearly two weeks ago, and neither of his parents, nor any of his aunts and uncles, had deigned to visit. Busy season down in Sallansa, he reasoned. He was barely one of them, he knew. But the first several days after Virginia left… The silence around Noble was cavernous.

Aria placed his teacup on a rack beside the sink, and relaxed against the cabinets while Noble washed his. “Sometimes I’ve wondered what our younger selves would think of us now. My younger self would be ashamed I’d become some lord’s plaything. An adame without any of the respect the title carried.”

Not for the first time, Noble wanted to wring Ellor’s neck. In lieu of violence, he sighed, and spoke lightly. “My younger self would hate my haircut. I know that for certain.”

Aria’s responding laugh did the job, filling the empty space of Noble’s home, suffusing the tension in his heart.

ARIA