Page 100 of Tempests & Tea Leaves
“I …” Iris glanced at Jasvian, then looked away before he could meet her gaze. “Yes, my lady.” She dropped into a swift curtsy before hurrying past the older woman.
Just before she reached the door, she heard Lady Rivenna’s voice again, somehow even more forbidding than before: “Now then, grandson. Shall we discuss your deplorable lack of judgment?”
Mere moments after Iris vanished back into the tea house, another door shimmered into existence beside the first. It swung silently open of its own accord, revealing a narrow staircase Jasvian had never seen before. With an icy gesture, his grandmother indicated he should precede her up the unfamiliar steps, which emerged, he discovered, directly into the study, providing a discreet route that bypassed the kitchen and main floor of the tea house.
This magical second door into the study slammed shut behind Jasvian and his grandmother with enough force to send several books tumbling from the shelf—and then promptly vanished with barely a whisper. Jasvian stalked toward his desk, his heart still thundering from Iris’s nearness, the almost-kiss burning like amberberry wine in his blood. He ran trembling fingers through his wet hair, further destroying whatever remained of its proper arrangement, while behind him, his grandmother’s boots clicked against the wooden floor with measured precision.
“I cannot decide,” she said into the charged silence, “whether to be furious at your behavior or devastated by your timing.”
He turned. “I beg your pardon?”
“Lord Hadrian Blackbriar is your closest friend.” Each word fell like ice. “The woman he intends to marry was just in your arms. And you were about to compromise her reputation beyond repair.”
“Nothing happened?—”
“Because I interrupted you. Tell me, what might I have found had I arrived a few moments later?”
Jasvian dragged a hand through his hair once more. “I was merely …”
“Yes?” His grandmother’s eyebrow arched. “Do enlighten me. What were you ‘merely’ doing with your lips so close to hers?”
“I was—trying to find my self control.”
“And where, pray tell, were you hoping to locate this ‘self-control’?” His grandmother’s voice could have stripped paint. “Down Lady Iris’s throat?”
“Grandmother!”
“Jasvian!”
“I thought … I believed you would approve of this match. You’ve always seemed to …” He broke off, frustrated, and began to pace the length of the study. “You like her.”
“Of course I like her. And I do indeed approve of a match between the two of you. You may recall that I conveniently placed herright here, in this very room, where you would be forced to acknowledge her existence.” Rivenna gestured to the desk where Iris usually sat, before letting her hand fall to her side.
Jasvian froze mid-stride. “You … you placed her here with meintentionally?”
“My dear boy.” His grandmother’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling with such force he feared they might become stuck there. “I doeverythingintentionally. Though I must say, you made it extraordinarily difficult. Most young men, when presented with a beautiful, intelligent woman, would not continue to antagonize her day after day.”
“I …” He trailed off, unsure what to say to that. “Did you …” He blinked and shook his head. “Did you see this in your tea leaves? Lady Iris and me?”
Rivenna arched a brow. “I see many things, none of which are set in stone. This, you know.”
Her words reminded him of Iris’s breathy whisper in the garden.It was only a possibility. One of many.He ached with the thought that if he had not been such a stubborn fool—if he’d questioned his long-held beliefs about duty at the expense of happiness sooner—that the future Iris had seen might still have been possible for them now.
“Why did you not say something?” he asked quietly.
“Would it have mattered?” Rivenna flicked her hand at the books that had fallen to the floor, and they promptly returned to their positions on the shelf. “You were so determined to see her as beneath your notice. A half-blood upstart who dared to debut with magic you deemed inferior. You failed to see the truth that was immediately evident to me the very first night the two of you met.”
Jasvian frowned. “That first night? At the Opening Ball? Grandmother, it was a near-disaster.”
A familiar sparkle danced in Rivenna’s eyes. “It was magnificent. My dear boy, I watched you retreat further into yourself each day following your father’s death, keeping everyone at arm’s left, determined to make no true connection with anyone. Then Lady Iris arrived and quite simply marched straight past your defenses and provoked a reaction in you I had not seen in years—she made youfeelsomething once more.”
Jasvian’s gaze slid past his grandmother’s. “And now she is engaged to Hadrian,” he murmured. He raked his hands over his face and groaned. “How am I to endure it? Witnessing her build a life with him? Seeing her at social gatherings, watching herbear his children, knowing she might have been …” He couldn’t finish. Couldn’t bring himself to utter the wordmine.
“You’ll endure it because you must.” Rivenna’s voice was gentle now. “And because you love her enough to want her happiness, even if it is not with you.”
“I don’t …” But he couldn’t complete the lie. He turned back toward the window where Iris’s desk stood. A few sprigs of dried herbs and something that appeared to be an intricately folded paper chandelier lay on the surface. He swallowed. “What do I do now?”
“You do what any gentleman would do.” His grandmother’s voice was firm but kind as she crossed the room and stood beside him. “You wish them joy, you maintain your friendship with Lord Blackbriar—even if from a distance—and you learn to live with your regret.”
