Chapter 15 #2
“I will have to ask you for advice,” Ironvale was chuckling as he spoke to Thalia and Caspian toward the end of the evening.
“Advice on what, exactly?” Thalia asked him.
Ironvale winked. “How you managed to convince this one –” He indicated at Caspian. “—to leave the manor without being dragged in chains. Tell me, are you a witch?”
Thalia rolled her eyes. “It is not a great trick, Lord Ironvale.”
“Pray do tell.”
“Are you familiar with bribery?” she said with a coy smile. “It works a treat.”
Ironvale burst into laughter. “Good show! Although now you need to tell me what it is that you bribed Caspian with. And whether I might be able to do the same.”
Caspian watched the conversation unfold in silence as his frustration steadily mounted.
The evening had been a long and drawn-out affair, and he was just about ready to insist that they head home.
Friends were spoken to. Business partners were placated.
And enough people saw the two of them together that whispers were quietened.
Then Ironvale appeared and pulled them into conversation.
As had been the case all evening, Thalia was perfectly happy to engage in said conversation… so long as Caspian did not get involved. She laughed when Ironvale made jokes, she scoffed and joked herself, and it looked a perfectly pleasant experience.
But she also stood just a little away from Caspian, with her body turned so that her back was to him and positioned in a way that cut him out entirely.
Caspian stood there, glaring at the back of his wife’s head, getting more annoyed by the second. It was a type of annoyance that he refused to give in to, as Caspian had never been the type to allow such emotions to be shown. Especially in company.
“Sadly, I cannot help you there,” Thalia sighed.
“And why not?” Ironvale grumbled.
“Perhaps I can,” she said with a grin. “But only if you would consider marrying him. Just how desperate are you?”
Again, Ironvale burst into laughter. Thalia chuckled along, only to catch sight of Caspian watching her, at which point her face dropped and she went back to being her so-very serious self.
“Are you quite done?” Caspian said to Ironvale.
Ironvale scoffed. “Ah yes, my mistake. I forgot how the sound of laughter physically pains you, my friend. I am so sorry.”
Caspian was about to tell his friend off… politely, of course. Before he got the chance to do so, a voice cried out from their right.
“Thalia!”
All three of them turned together to see a young woman rushing through the crowd toward them. She had big eyes and wore a gay smile, and the way she dodged around the other guests, caring not for them, might have suggested that Thalia was the most important person in the whole world.
“Seraphine!” Thalia beamed and went to her. “I did not think you were here tonight.”
“I have been all evening,” Seraphine said as they hugged. “But my father…” She curled her lip in distaste.
Thalia snorted. “I best be careful, lest he see us speaking.”
“It is fine for now,” Seraphine assured her. “He is in the washroom, which should give us a few minutes.”
It was as the young woman said this that Caspian spied none other than Lord Donmere coming their way. He looked furious too, his face flushed red, his eyes wide and rueful.
“Thalia…” Caspian spoke up. “We best be –”
“Seraphine!” Lord Donmere descended upon them. He did not look at Caspian or Ironvale or even Thalia. He simply snatched his daughter by the hand and yanked her away. “What did we speak of?”
“I am sorry, Father, I was just –”
“Enough,” he hissed. “Come now, it is time we leave.” Without another word, or a glance at any of them, he dragged his daughter back through the crowd.
“What was that about?” Ironvale asked.
“He is competing, it would seem,” Thalia said dryly.
“Competing?” Ironvale looked at her.
“The speed at which he moved,” Thalia confirmed. “He must be trying to set a record for the one-hundred-yard dash. Perhaps I should have brought a ribbon to gift him as a prize?”
Caspian could not say why he found the comment so funny. Was it Thalia’s dry wit that did it? Was it Ironvale’s surprise? Or maybe it was the effect of the day itself, how bad his mood had been, how annoyed he was at the way that his wife was behaving?
Whatever the reason, Caspian burst into laughter. And typically, such a reaction caused alarm in both Ironvale and Thalia.
“Do my ears deceive me?” Ironvale asked as he turned and frowned at Caspian. “Did you just… laugh?”
Caspian did his best to smother it. “I chuckled, Ironvale. Do not act so surprised.”
“I would not, had I ever heard such a thing before.” His eyes lit up with curiosity, and he glanced between Caspian and Thalia. “Again, Your Grace,” he said to Thalia. “You will have to teach me your secret.”
Thalia’s reaction was similar to Ironvale’s, in how surprised she was. She looked curiously at Caspian, the first time all day that her stare did not hold a level of antipathy and annoyance for him. If anything, she almost appeared amused.
“I wish I could tell you,” she said, still eyeing Caspian. “But that would require me to know how exactly I did it.”
“Whatever it is, I commend you.” Ironvale held up his glass as if in a toast. “It takes much to elicit a reaction of any type out of Caspian, and that you seem to do so with such ease…” He shrugged. “I suppose that’s why you’re married.”
Thalia maintained a calm expression, but Ironvale focused on him with unnerving intensity. Caspian’s cheeks flushed red at the scrutiny.
Ironvale’s stare was mocking, and curious, because he rarely saw Caspian laugh like that and was no doubt intrigued by the notion.
Thalia’s stare was also curious, but there was a smile behind her eyes. Caspian looked ahead, refusing to meet her eyes, but he could see her watching, and he could feel the tension between them starting to melt. The first time it had done so all day.
She is still angry with me. But for some reason, that single moment shook something awake inside of her… perhaps a reminder that she does not need to hate me.
It was a strange circumstance, and Caspian did not fully understand it – he always did struggle when it came to the complexities of human emotion. Then again, everything about this marriage was strange, so what was one more instance?
The simple fact was that his marriage was not as it had been.
It could no longer be taken for granted.
It could no longer be treated as a mere business contract.
Changes were occurring between himself and his wife, and while Caspian had always hated change, in this single instance it wasn’t nearly as bad as he had spent his entire life convinced that it would be.