Page 51

He looked at Norden. Not at her.

“She is human.”

Three words, flat, the weight of a man stating what he considered an obvious and sufficient objection, requiring no further elaboration because the category itself was the argument. A cold, possessive readiness uncoiled low in Norden’s chest, older than centuries, and his palm settled flat against Romily’s spine before he’d consciously decided to move it there, a claim placed in full view of his father, no apology attached to it. He’d spent a lifetime learning how much restraint a moment like this required. His hand staying exactly where he’d put it was the closest he intended to come to honoring any of it.

Romily answered instead, pleasant, visibly unruffled. “And still standing.”

Magnus turned his full attention on her for the first time since they’d walked in.

She didn’t flinch under it, and she didn’t lean into the hand at her back either — a distinction he caught clearly: she didn’t need the support. She’d simply allow him to offer it. She didn’t perform courage or soften the line to make it more palatable, didn’t shrink her posture the way most people did automatically in this hall, in front of this man, under several centuries of accumulated authority aimed directly at her. She simply stood there, on her own terms, in his house, declining — politely, completely — to find the room as threatening as it had clearly been built to be.

The silence that followed had texture to it, a room recalibrating its own expectations in real time. Somewhere behind them, a member of the household staff had gone very still in a doorway, clearly unaccustomed to witnessing anyone survive this exact moment without flinching.

The house had never encountered this problem before. Norden watched his father recalibrate in real time, hand still steady against Romily’s back, and found he was, against every instinct toward caution all those centuries ought to have taught him, enjoying this a great deal more than the moment called for.

Romily glanced up at him then, one second, maybe two, a private current unrelated to Magnus passing between them — heat, plain and steady, a woman who’d won a fight she hadn’t technically started and knew exactly whose hand was still spread warm against her spine because of it. He didn’t move it. He had no intention of moving it for the remainder of the visit, regardless of his father’s opinion on the optics.

“You have opinions,” Magnus said finally, to Romily, the closest thing to acknowledgment he was apparently prepared to offer on a first meeting.

“I have several. Most of them are about structural integrity, which I understand is a topic close to your family’s business interests.”

“My family’s business interests span far more than architecture.”

“So do mine, as it happens. I’ve just found that most disagreements come down to load-bearing questions eventually, whatever the subject started out being about.” She said it without any real edge to it, an observation rather than a challenge, though the distinction seemed to cost Magnus a visible effort to register.

A flicker that wasn’t quite amusement crossed his father’s face and vanished before it could commit to becoming an actual expression. He turned without another word and retreated toward the study, leaving the hall less oppressive in his absence than it had been thirty seconds earlier.

Darius found them within minutes of Magnus retiring to the study, drink already in hand, grin already in place, a man who’d heard the commotion from two rooms away and refused to miss the aftermath.

“That was magnificent.” He said it low, delighted, angling himself between Romily and the nearest doorway like he intended to personally guard the moment from interruption, indefinitely, on principle. “I’ve been waiting eight hundred years for someone to answer him in that tone. In this house. Near the good china.”

“I didn’t plan it, for the record.”

“That’s what makes it magnificent.” Darius toasted her with a glass he hadn’t touched yet, too pleased with the whole situation. “Most people spend a week rehearsing what they’d say to Magnus Sharpe if they ever got the nerve. You just said the truest possible thing and moved on to appetizers.”

“There are appetizers?” Romily’s whole posture shifted toward real interest, immediate and unguarded.

“There are appetizers. Follow me. I’ll show you where the actually edible ones are hiding, as opposed to the ones my father’s chef makes to look impressive and taste like ceremony.” He glanced at Norden, delight undimmed. “I need to memorize her exact wording before I forget it. I intend to quote it back to him at every family function for the rest of his natural life.”

“He’s not going to find that as funny as you do.”

“He’s going to find it exactly as funny as I do, eventually, once enough decades have passed that he can pretend he always did.” Darius steered Romily toward the dining room with the easy authority of someone who’d been navigating this house since before it had indoor plumbing. “I’ve watched you be managed by that man for eight hundred consecutive years. Watching someone hand it back to him, politely, over appetizers, is the best thing that’s happened to this family in longer than I can accurately calculate.”

“You say ‘that man’ like he’s not your host currently feeding you appetizers.”

“He’s both. I’m fairly complicated myself, you’ll find, though nowhere near as much as your dragon over there.” Darius popped a canapé into his mouth without breaking stride. “I’ve decided I like you. Fair warning — I like very few people, and the ones I like tend to get stuck with me indefinitely. You’re not getting rid of me now.”

“I wasn’t planning to try.”

“Wise. Most people learn that the hard way, usually around year two hundred.” Darius steered her past a suit of armor without a glance, the casual disregard of someone who’d walked by it ten thousand times. “I’m writing my memoirs, incidentally. Today’s chapter title is ‘The Day the Human Woman Ruined Christmas for Magnus Sharpe, and I Was There.’”

“It’s not Christmas.”

“It will be, by the time I’ve finished telling this story at every holiday between now and the actual one. I intend to age it like wine.” He glanced at her sideways, delight undimmed. “You should know I’ve been trying to get someone to stand up to that man since before your grandmother was born. I’d started to think it was structurally impossible.”

“Everything’s structurally possible if you’re willing to accept the consequences.”

“I’m framing that. I’m having it embroidered on something.”