“Not at all.” He retrieves the carefully folded suit jacket slung over the back of his chair, pulling it on. His posture is stiff. “Please forgive me. I have …” He casts his gaze across his paper-strewn desk. “I was deeply focused, and …”
More disappointment etches its way through me at his formal tone. A silly, irrational reaction. We’re not friends or lovers, after all. We barely know each other.
I take a few more steps into the office until I’m standing before the desk. I fold my hands together around my sunglasses, ever so politely. My backpack, the marble urn within it, is oddlyheavy across my shoulders, even though the urn is two handfuls lighter than it had been.
Elias straightens his tie, then taps the screen of his phone to check for recent messages.
Such as the one I should have sent before assuming I could just pop in. I … I should have expected that he’d be in his own office. But I hadn’t.
After another glance at the piles of paperwork on his desk, his fingers twitching as if he wants to tidy them, he finally raises his gaze to meet mine.
Light-blue eyes to violet.
The tips of his ears are slightly pink.
I’ve misunderstood his reaction to my arrival. He’s … embarrassed? Under all the composure, all the formality. But why would me showing up unannounced be embarrassing?
Roz’s comment about Lia still sniffing around comes back to me. And I click it all together, though perhaps a little haphazardly.
I really have interrupted Elias. Or caught him in the middle of doing something he … something private? Maybe his state of undress wasn’t just the earl making himself comfortable? Maybe Lia’s presence … was …
“I’m sorry, my lord,” I say, my own cheeks flaming. “I should have known these were your offices now that you’re occupying your familial council seat. I truly didn’t mean to interrupt. I thought I could slip in and out.”
Elias blinks rapidly. “You aren’t here to see me? Ah, I mean, you could never be an interruption, Your Highness. It’s always a pleasure …”
He swallows.
Possibly because I’m just staring at him. My odd sense of disappointment is now all riled up and warring with the embarrassment. I pointedly don’t glance down at the papers.Just in case it’s whatever he’s working on, and not just Lia’s presence, that he’s embarrassed for me to witness. I would have thought the guard on the main doors would have announced us … perhaps that was why Lia was in the outer hall? Answering the phone?
No. She seemed genuinely shocked by my presence.
Elias tries again. “I was hoping that I could meet you for … lunch sometime this week, Your Highness.”
“Lunch, my lord?” My voice is more thin than politely reserved.
Elias glances down at his phone again.
I’m not certain if he’s checking the time or expecting a message. But either way, I’m obviously truly interrupting him. And truly unwanted. Though I’ve stumbled into this situation, and I really should have no expectations of my reception, I feel just a little … dejected … rejected?
Sully has led me to believe that —
Elias shifts slightly, clearly waiting on me to continue the stilted conversation. That’s protocol.
Because I haven’t properly responded to his lunch request. Another flash of pure disappointment runs through me, visceral and sharp. I thought we had dispensed with all the stupid protocol and …
The urn is heavy on my back. The backpack straps dig into my shoulders. I need to just get through this awkwardness. I need to set aside whatever expectations I had and keep moving forward.
Hands still clasped before me, I paste on a perfect-princess smile, imbuing my voice with a lightness I don’t feel. “We used to come here, Armin and I.” My tone is once again liltingly pleasant. “Mostly on school breaks, around visits with our father. I think it must have been something Anne tried to enforcefor a few years. Bonding time. He’d get called away … and we’d be …” I shrug and tilt my head, perfectly prettily.
Elias is just staring at me now, his expression on the cool edge of refined. His light-blue eyes are sharp. And slightly darkened with some emotion. It looks a little like anger, but could also just be a product of the windows being at his back, not perfectly illuminating his face.
“Your father likely regretted showing us something this intriguing …” I continue with my little story, stepping to the side as I speak until I can rest my hand on one of the bare dark-wood bookshelves. “Because every time we visited the council offices afterward, we always pestered him to …”
I press a touch of my essence to the switch hidden underneath the shelf nearest my shoulder. I’d been too short to reach it the first time the former Lord Hereford had shown us the secret door and the staircase beyond it, hidden behind his bookshelves.
The latch clicks under my fingers. Released from the essence holding it in place, the entire bookshelf slides a few centimeters forward, hinged on one side. I glance at Elias.
His shoulders have slumped, expression fallen. Or maybe it’s opened up? Either way, and somewhat oddly, it doesn’t soften the carved lines of his face in the least. No, his sadness or … grief makes him seem older. Possibly exhausted.
