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Diane wondered how she couldn’t have seen it before, then realizing it had been on Liam’s side the whole ride. A number of people they had passed on the road must have seen it.
“Thank you,” Diane nodded to her, her cheeks heating enough to combust.
The girl smiled and wished them happiness for their honeymoon in Scotland, before leaving them alone. Finally, Diane’s eyes turned to her treat.
The slice of sponge cake was lighter, fluffier than her wedding cake would have been, not weighed down with dried fruit bits or soaked with rum. It looked like a bite of it could melt in her mouth, the sweetness of the frosting fragrant with lemon and lavender.
She had in fact, fainted once while tasting such a sweet piece of cake. She’d inhaled a bit of its precarious fluffiness, choked, coughed, breathing erratically a few moments until it happened. Such confectionary treats had been thusly banished from her life.
Diane scooped up a forkful and held it out to him, hovering the bite a few inches from his mouth.
Liam’s eyes flicked from her, to the cake. “What is this?”
“A peace offering.”
He eyed the bite again. “I meant what flavor.”
Tempting his mouth with it, she rested her elbow on the table.
“Smiles, sunshine, a sweet early morning with a glimmer of summertime. My appeasement,” she listed out, watching his face, hoping he might crack a smile.
He didn’t, but he did seem willing to try the slice. He leaned forward, opening his mouth willingly.
“But first,” Diane said, pulling the fork out of his reach. “I’m due an apology.”
A bit of the frosting had smeared from the fork at his chin in her theatrically pulling the fork away. She watched as he swept a finger over his chin to lick it from his hand.
She watched his tongue a little too closely, suddenly all care for the delicious bite of cake gone out of her for the way he licked his lips.
Diane cleared her throat, realizing she’d been staring.
“We may have gotten to know each other rather well during my courtship, yet I’m still confounded by the peculiar chivalry of you coming along. Grateful for the impromptu driving lessons, yes. But you wrong me to suggest that I am lesser than who you thought me to be. I don’t deserve this newfound scorn, when I have been the same person this entire time.”
Liam leaned back in his seat, regarding her. He chewed his tongue thoughtfully for a long moment, before he nodded.
“Forgive me. I did not mean to imply you are lesser in my eyes for your revelations, only... that I had my own notion that I knew you completely. Misguided, it appears. This morning painted a picture so starkly contrasted with my understanding of you that it could only mean I had never understood you as much as I thought I did. Any feelings of blame from that revelation are for myself.”
Diane frowned, but after a moment she deemed it satisfactory. She held out the bite of cake.
Liam caught her gaze, arching an eyebrow. Slowly, as if not trusting that she would not suddenly pull the bite away again, he opened his mouth and leaned towards it. She steadied herself and held still, watching more intently by the second as he took the cake into his mouth, his teeth dragging along the fork tines.
She had the sudden thought that she wanted his teeth to drag over a few different places on her.
A smirk hooked at the corner of his mouth as he chewed, making a pleased expression at the cake’s flavors, and then, - her heart - the way his tongue ran over his canines, to clear every last bit of frosting.
Diane watched his mouth a little too rapt, wondering if it was always that mesmerizing a movement, quite lost in thought.
Damn him.
She still held the fork outstretched to him, frozen, when he had dug the other fork into the cake and asked, “Were you ever going to tell Martin about your collection?”
Her cheeks burned as she set her fork down. “Likely not. It was not a union in which we intended to know one another in any meaningful way. I doubt he would let me continue to draw if he ever knew the contents of my sketchbook.”
That was the reason she had bundled them all up in her trousseau in the first place. She didn’t know if she would have the time, liberty or privacy to create anything new once she had moved into Martin’s estate. It was possible her existing illustrations were all she would ever have now.
She thought for a moment, pushing a bit of icing around with her fork. “I suppose it does paint a disappointing picture of me, that I never intended my heart to be faithful to him, rather my art. That a bit of paper and charcoal would usurp the role of my husband.”
Liam closed his eyes and sighed. “Dirty drawings are not the same as unfaithfulness,” he said, shaking his head.
