Chapter 277: Chapter 277: Idle conversation

The wine helped.

Not in the grand, poetic way court poets liked to describe wine, with softened edges and loosened tongues and moonlight becoming romantic over crystal. It helped because Sylvia had enough energy to be ridiculous, Thomas had enough discipline to let himself be ridiculous in controlled portions, and the blue parlor was private enough that no one immediately came to investigate when Sylvia declared that imperial decorative fountains were ’a water-based aristocratic ambush.’

Thomas, who had spent the last hour learning that Sylvia’s mind moved like a car with one wheel on fire, considered the statement with grave seriousness.

"I believe fountains are generally stationary," he said.

"That’s what they want you to think."

"They."

"The fountains."

Thomas looked into his glass. "I see."

"You don’t, but I appreciate the effort."

He smiled then, the softer one that made his eyes warm and his whole face shift from battlefield restraint into something dangerously human.

Sylvia looked away immediately and reached for the wine bottle.

Thomas moved it out of reach without even looking.

She froze, fingers closing over empty air. "That was rude."

"You’ve had enough."

"I have had one glass and a half."

"You tried to negotiate with a chair five minutes ago."

"It looked judgmental."

"It was a chair."

"Yes, and you don’t know its life."

Thomas’s mouth curved again. "You are not getting anything stronger."

Sylvia narrowed her eyes. "I did not ask for anything stronger."

"You looked toward the cabinet."

"I was admiring furniture."

"You were calculating."

"Fine. I was considering brandy."

"No."

"You are very bossy for someone I rescued emotionally."

"You tried to walk into a fountain."

"And you physically rescued me. We are even."

Thomas picked up his glass and took a slow sip, looking entirely too composed for a man who had just been accused of wine tyranny. "You are still not getting brandy."

Sylvia leaned back in her chair with an offended sigh. "Dominants are exhausting."

"You keep adding them as friends, apparently."

"That is because all of you look tragic and then turn out to be funny when mildly pressured."

"I was mildly pressured?"

"I’m being generous. You were emotionally bullied into drinking."

Thomas laughed again, and Sylvia, unfortunately, had to suffer through the sight of it a second time.

It was worse now.

The first time had surprised her. This time, she knew it was coming and still failed to protect herself.

The laugh softened the heavy set of his shoulders. It brought warmth back into his tired eyes. It made him look less like a doomed portrait and more like a man who had once been allowed to be happy before politics, biology, and a beautiful red-haired disaster convinced him that waiting was a form of love.

Sylvia took a long drink of wine to avoid staring.

Thomas noticed anyway.

Of course he did.

"You are doing that again," he said.

"Doing what?"

"Assessing my face."

"I am not assessing your face."

"You said earlier that my face may require legislation."

"That was a policy concern."

His smile deepened. "Should I be worried?"

"Yes. But not about the legislation."

The words left her mouth before she could stop them.

Sylvia stared at her glass.

Thomas went quiet.

The silence that followed was not the earlier heavy kind. It was lighter, warmer, threaded with something that had no business appearing in a room where both of them were supposed to be recovering from other people’s disasters.

Sylvia cleared her throat. "Anyway, Dean once tried to fake a fever to avoid a public speaking event, except he did it so badly Lucas immediately made him drink tea and give the speech anyway."

Thomas blinked, apparently accepting the escape route because he was either kind or equally startled. "Did it work?"

"The tea? Yes. The lie? Absolutely not. Lucas said he admired the effort, which made Dean suffer more than punishment would have."

"I can imagine."

"You cannot. Dean looked like he had been sentenced to emotional literacy."

Thomas’s shoulders shook again.

Sylvia decided, with great internal dignity, that she was allowed to enjoy this because she had nearly been killed by landscaping and deserved compensation.

They spoke of increasingly stupid things after that. Sylvia told him about the time Dean lost a formal shoe before an event and accused an innocent Sebastian of theft. Thomas told her about Arion as a teenager, cold-faced and terrifying even then, standing in the rain after a failed training simulation and telling a general that the exercise parameters had been ’optimistic nonsense disguised as discipline.’ Sylvia laughed so hard she had to put her glass down.

"Of course he did," she said. "He was born looking like he disapproved of weather."

"He was worse at fifteen."

"I doubt that."

"He once corrected a royal tutor’s military history notes in red ink."

Sylvia’s eyes widened. "That is monstrous."

"The tutor cried."

"I like him more now."

Thomas looked offended on behalf of academic order. "The notes were wrong."

"Do not defend him. He has enough dignity."

"He does not think so."

"That is because Dean keeps stealing it."

Thomas laughed again, and for one ridiculous, impossible moment, the blue parlor seemed like the safest place in the palace.

Then the door opened, and Andrea stood there on the threshold with his long, fiery red hair falling in flawless waves over his shoulders and his dark blue eyes taking in the scene with one cold, precise sweep.

Sylvia felt the room change before anyone spoke.

Thomas did not rise at once. That, somehow, said more than if he had. He only turned his head, glass still in hand, the warmth from a moment earlier settling behind a calm so deep it looked almost gentle.

Andrea’s gaze moved from Thomas to Sylvia, then to the wine, then back to Thomas.

"How touching," Andrea said softly. "You work quickly."

Sylvia’s brows lifted.

Thomas set his glass down very carefully. "Andrea."

Andrea’s smile was beautiful and cruel enough to look practiced in the mirror. "No, please, don’t let me interrupt. I assumed you were devastated. I should have known you would find comfort in the nearest available distraction."

Sylvia went still.

She was tired. Slightly tipsy. Emotionally sanded down by Dean Fitzgeralt’s wedding panic. But she was not stupid, and she recognized venom when someone poured it into a crystal glass and called it conversation.

Thomas’s voice remained calm. "Do you have anything to say other than spew venom?"

Andrea’s smile faltered for a moment.

Then his eyes sharpened. "You let him threaten me."

"I let Arion hold you accountable."

"You let him humiliate me."

Thomas’s expression did not change. "You knocked down his chair and yelled at him. I doubt humiliation needed help."

Sylvia pressed her lips together.

Wrong moment to laugh.

Very wrong.

Andrea’s gaze snapped to her. "And you find this amusing?"