Behind the Curtain (The Worlds Behind Book 4) by W.R. Gingell

Author:W.R. Gingell [Gingell, W.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

There was peace and quiet in Athelas’ room that night. He didn’t notice it until the early morning was approaching, and the fact that he had noticed it seemed to press on his mind more strongly how very noisy the house had been of late—since, in fact, the house master breached it.

He took a moment to soak in the peaceful, heavy silence that was undisturbed by traffic noise in streets beyond or passing pedestrians below, and then allowed himself to think on the whys and the wherefores of the situation.

At length, he said, “You may come in,” aloud.

His door opened, and there was Camellia in the doorway, her hand just leaving the doorknob. Athelas rose and gestured her toward his chair, but she closed the door behind her and sat on the end of his bed instead. He returned to his seat, watching her curiously.

Like the house, Camellia tonight showed no signs of being less put together or colourful; she wore her usual colourful clothes—a deep teal cardigan over a soft, knitted shift dress of muted gold—and even at what Athelas suspected was two in the morning, had on two rings and wore a pair of gold pompoms as earrings.

“Harrow is…doing well today,” she said to him.

“I received your message of thanks,” he said, crossing one ankle over the other. So that was what had given her more strength today: Harrow doing well. That was something to remember.

Camellia’s eyes met his; to his surprise, she laughed. “I thought I’d got the timing right,” she said. “It was all I could do earlier. Thank you for taking care of him for me.”

“The house master,” said Athelas, testingly, “told you that you weren’t to spend so much time with me. Are you rebelling?”

He did not wish to pretend that he hadn’t heard anything; he did not wish to play games at such a time.

“He asked me to spend less of my day with you,” Camellia said, with the ghost of a smile. “I’m sure you, at least, appreciate how extremely literally I’m taking that request.”

Athelas felt a breath of laughter pass between his lips, startling him. He protested, “If you could not get around it that way, I’m sure you noticed the freedom of that small word man.”

“I did,” Camellia said, inclining her head. “But it makes me…”

“Uneasy,” he agreed. Fae thought very similarly: there was always a way to get around even the clearest of instructions, but the more disingenuous—or perhaps, the slenderer the difference in—the interpretation, the more uncomfortable it became to act against the clear instructions. “As much as I appreciate the literal manner in which you are interpreting the instructions, I must confess that reason for the necessity of doing so quite escapes me. I cannot conceive why you should have such trouble disregarding the wishes of a man who quite obviously broke his wedding vows in the way he treated you.”

“This is only the beginning,” she said, serious again at once. “I can’t…avoid obeying him. Not for very long.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.