A Night In

[Existentially Odd]

Captain Wilson couldn\'t even be bothered wrestling her house key from beneath her filthy armour by the time she got home.  It was dark - which said a lot, considering the moon they were in and the heat of the air around her - and she\'d had a gruelling afternoon preparing new guards who\'d never worked a Tournament of the Corn, followed by a training session with Prince Franz and then a personal session against Freddy because she\'d felt her swordplay was a little lacking.  He\'d seated her - on her ass in the dirt at his feet - twice as many times as she\'d rattled him, confirming her theory and making her so angry that she worked herself doubly as hard.  Too hard.

She rested her weary forehead against the door after thumping soundly on it and closed her eyes, familiarising herself with every ache and twinge that was likely to be amplified by the time she awoke tomorrow.  Thankfully, she had a day off; that was partly the reason she\'d pushed herself so forcefully.  She listened for Matthew\'s quiet footsteps approaching and heartily prayed that he would have sensed her need for a hot, relaxing bath and already have it drawn.  The door fell away even as she dreamed about immersing herself in scalding water and she had to consciously stop herself from falling forward against him.

He gave her a reproachful look but had the grace - or was it good training? - to say nothing as she stumbled past him.  Knowing the routine, he closed the door and followed her upstairs to the spare room.  There, he helped her remove her plate armour - taking care to lay every piece on its stand or table so that the chainmail links stayed taut - followed by the padded shirt and longpants she wore beneath.  Once she stood before him in her purpose-built underclothes - she had many pairs of very thin short shortpants to cover her lower half and a few lengths of fabric as wide as her stretched hand that wound around her upper body several times to hold her breasts in place beneath her armour (all designed by her family to meet the unique needs of female guards) - her serving man spoke.

"Food\'s in the oven - I\'ll draw a bath," he told her, watching her pull on a dressing gown and tie it securely about her waist.  She looked far more human (almost vulnerable) in her bare feet and dark green silk robe.

She gave him a worshipful look and squeezed his upper arm gratefully with her right hand.  Her left was busy pulling her hair out of its bun, removing the couple of pins she used to hold it in place.  "Thank you," she breathed and headed downstairs - dropping the pins off in the dish she used to hold them, in the bathing room, as she passed it.  With a remarkably lighter step, she travelled down the stairs, thinking only of the meal she was about to consume and the bath she would enjoy after it.

Unfortunately, a knock at her door sounded - eerily, just as she\'d rounded the newel post - and she faltered.  Sighing, she spun on the balls of her feet, a frown creasing her forehead as she surrendered to the inevitable and went to answer it - it was either that or disturb Matthew\'s preparation of her bath and she certainly preferred getting rid of annoying visitors over delaying that reward.  She had no idea who it could be, she rarely entertained visitors and very few people came to call on her; none of which had been scheduled to happen tonight.  She surmised that it could only be Freddy but as she turned the knob and pulled the door back to see, she made certain not to lean herself into complete view, just in case.

[Trillian]

Lord Dagger stood on her doorstep, his hat in hand and a sword strapped to his side for walking in the early evening, to dissuade potential theives.
 
Since retrieving his daughter Keely from her lowly position as serving wench at the Black Falcon, he\'d been avoiding the captain.  He\'d been so busy building a new life for his newfound daughter that he barely saw her - rather there were passing visits in between tutors and bestowing gifts upon her.  There had been the odd loose woman in his bed, but his conquests had been nowhere near the norm.  He certainly hadn\'t visited his regular lover - discreet as they were he still often found excuses to come round to her place.
 
Upon seeing her looking more of a lady than of a soldier, his smile broadened, though he recognised how tired she looked.  She would have little patience with him tonight if he teased her in any way.  He knew he would have to treat her politely, and apologise quickly if he was to gain entry.
 
"I apologise for the surprise visit, Lam," he said quietly, stepping towards her and the door even though she hadn\'t yet invited him in nor held it open enough for him to gain entry.  "I should\'ve come here long ago.  Would you honour me some time now?"  He spoke like a gentleman, though his tone was one that knew her well.

[Existentially Odd]

Her expression - so ready to smile had it been her second in command upon her landing - soured immediately.  She took a deep breath in an effort to steady her suddenly-racing pulse and calm herself; it wouldn\'t do to spit obscenities at him in the middle of the street.  That didn\'t mean she would invite him in without a second thought, however; she held the door firmly in place, despite his confident step towards it.

"Balthus," she breathed with the same veneer of politeness, "I\'m afraid I\'ve only just returned home and have yet to take my evening meal.  Matthew\'s drawing me a bath as we speak; I\'m afraid I cannot dally.  Pray, what brings you here to beg an audience after such an extended while?  Surely we have little of importance to say to one another at this hour?" she sneered, her wounded pride getting the better of her.

She hated him.  He stood there looking so cocky, so ready to stroll back into her life like he hadn\'t turned it on its head with the discovery and coddling of a daughter - however many weeks ago it had been.  He acted like she would open her door and her legs within a heartbeat of one another, simply because he\'d deigned to come and explain himself.  Well, she knew enough; she knew too much.  Some questions hadn\'t been answered but she\'d come to the conclusion it was probably for the best.  She\'d had her fill of him treating her like a rug beneath his soiled feet, of being the one who always had to wait for his attention.  She despised him... well, she was trying her damndest to, at any rate.

Looking at him - taking in his achingly handsome features and arrogant air - she knew that she simply had to keep telling herself that she hated him

Hate him, yes, yes I do.  have to keep him out of my home, prevent him intruding on my life

and keep on saying it until she believed it.  Eventually, she had to hope that it would become real... because at that moment, she knew she loved him so much that she would forgive him anything.  Anything!  It was exactly the last thing an ass like him deserved.

[Trillian]

She was angry with him, he\'d known it would be so. Blinking slowly, once, in the face of her spat words he didn\'t remove his stare from her face, intensity within his eyes burning into her own, hoping to penetrate her harsh veneer with just a look.
 
Softly, he uttered: "I knew it would be wrong for me to allow yet another day to pass without seeking you out." He let his expression speak volumes for him, letting a sad hope creep into his eyes. Despite not paying her attention for so long, he didn\'t want to lose her and would sorely regret if she slammed the door in his face and kept it closed to him until the end of time.
 
He let a pause grow between them, a chirruping insect nearby breaking the pregnant silence a moment before he did. "Do you prefer I leave you?" He was very careful at his phrasing, hoping to worry her into accepting his presence.  He knew he would not be turned away.

[Existentially Odd]

His grey eyes bored into hers and her resolve weakened marginally.  When his words snaked between them, her heart fluttered and she could feel her expression faltering.  As much as she told herself she should, she didn\'t want him to leave her - he was all she had!  Well, he was the closest thing she had to... to a relationship, as twisted as it might be.  Still, she couldn\'t completely lose face.  Her mind scrambled to find an acceptable manner of keeping him there.

"No," she said gruffly, casting about for something more to say.  When everything dignified eluded her, she was left with only one option - keep her mouth shut and simply step back, opening the door for him.  She kept herself behind it, though, in case someone else was strolling the streets and happened to look into her mutely-lit entrance.

[Trillian]

Dagger was intelligent enough to be discreet when he knocked on her door.  At this hour, there were few walking the streets, and he had waited for those few who were walking by to pass before he\'d rapped for her attention.  Also, not everyone knew who it was that lived here and he intended to keep it that way.  He wasn\'t ashamed of her - far from it, but she would lose face if she had an affair with a womaniser, and he was smart enough to know his reputation was how everyone viewed him.  Even her, at times.
 
He stepped in without wasting a moment.  As soon as she moved back allowing him entry, he entered.  The cloak was off his back and hanging at the door even as he held out a hand to help her push it shut, keeping them both inside.  Cool eyes regarded her openly, seeing how affected she would be at his proximity after so long.  She was stronger willed than most women and she was one he kept coming back to.  The problem was if she felt like she was being used for her position rather than him enjoying the time spent with her, alone.
 
"I have some news," he said, wanting to come clean with information she no doubt knew by now.  She would\'ve got it through the gossip ring rather than his side of the story.  He could only hope that she hadn\'t made her mind up about it yet.

[Existentially Odd]

"Oh?" she said airily, folding her arms beneath her breasts and lowering her gaze - though it touched his briefly - to examine the carpeting to her right.  She was having difficulty thinking with him so close to her, feeling crowded and awkward... defenceless in barely any clothes.  Realising the robe had pulled taut across her ample chest, her left hand exited its niche in the crook of her elbow and clutched the lapels nervously, her eyes flicking in his direction as she anticipated his explanation.

She had no idea how to react to him; no idea what to say to the news that he had another woman in his life now.  One that was lauded and cossetted, who would be treated like the nobility she\'d not been brought up amongst and who had  a right to be seen at his side.  To be recognised as a permanent part of his life by everyone.

She told herself that she should listen and decide how to react based on how he did the telling.  It would be for the best.  She might get her questions asked and find out how old Keely was, who her mother was and if he had plans with said mother after all this time; she might even explain that she and his daughter had met in a truly embarrassing (for Wilson, anyway) incident at the stables not too long ago and what her impresson of the young lady had been, but she simply couldn\'t volunteer anything because he might already know all that.  If she started in, telling him what she already knew rather than merely confirming her knowledge after he spoke, she would no doubt demonstrate how exposed and heartbroken it had made her feel.

He wouldn\'t tolerate her jealousy; he probably wouldn\'t even understand it, when a lover and a daughter were two entirely separate commodities to a man like Dagger.  So she resolved to let him say his piece and then she would show him the door.

[Trillian]

As she floundered and maintained her reservations about him, his gaze dropped to the hand that sealed the robe tighter about her throat, before raising back to her face and studying her rather intently. Her reaction was a little different than expected, for usually she behaved in much the manner of which her firey-red hair touted - passionate and temperamental. For her to act in such a way put him on edge. The news he had for her wasn\'t exactly run-of-the-mill either.

Instead of betraying his own reservations, he took charge of their placement and of her, to a degree.

"Let\'s retire to the sitting room," he suggested while stepping forward towards her. She would know that he was crowding her in an attempt to herd her into the more comfortable room rather than standing here in this foyer, which seemed detached. He didn\'t want to be detached, he wanted her to see he was settled in her home.

[Existentially Odd]

Setting her jaw, she took a mulish step back and was dismayed to bump up against the wall behind her, realising she had nowhere else to go.  "I\'d rather not," she said, lifting her chin ever-so-slightly, "I\'m really very hungry and Matthew\'s already had my meal in the oven long enough for it to be drying out."

She had no idea if this was true or not - her serving man was usually fairly good at predicting when she\'d return for her meals or at least keeping a dish of water in the oven with them if he couldn\'t - but Dagger didn\'t need to know that.  She was in no mood to sit down in in her parlour and pretend they were still on friendly terms.  She was hurt and mad at him; he could share his story where she dictated, by Talon!

"I\'d prefer it if you just said what you came to say and then left," she told him through thin lips.

[Trillian]

When she refused to be ushered, Dagger found himself once again at a loss.  Initially she\'d been easy to control (well, much easier than now) because of her infatuation with him, and whenever they\'d been alone the sparks would fly.  Now it was like trying to light a fire with a wet rag.
 
"Then you shall have your meal and I will sit with you," he replied when she explained that she\'d been waiting for her supper.  Her next words had an almost physical impact, it would be plain to see in the surprise and initial hurt in his eyes before it clouded over and once more he was cool and collected.
 
"As you wish," he said, but his gaze drifted off her and down the corridor in the direction she said she was going to go, and waited for her to take the lead.  If, after a long moment she didn\'t, he would look back at her.

[Existentially Odd]

Flustered by the hurt she\'d seen flash across his features - and chagrined to recognise herself instantly weakened by it - she turned on her heel and strode down to the kitchen as he\'d instructed her to do.  Once inside, she grabbed a cloth and extricated her trencher from the oven, placing it on the table and then closing the oven door.

By the time she\'d collected cutlery, Dagger had seated himself at the head of the table; she tightened the sash on her robe, then sat primly to his left.  She took a mouthful before saying anything, needing to fight both the nerves fluttering around her stomach at having him so close, and the waterfall of saliva that was invading her mouth as the aroma of delicious food permeated the kitchen.  Her bare knee contacted his clothed leg beneath the table as she leaned back to swallow and shifted position slightly, but though her heart leapt with awareness, she didn\'t want to concede any reaction to him and left it there, as if it made no difference to her in the slightest.

"What is this news you need to tell me so desperately, after such an extended absence?" she asked as smoothly as she could, looking up at him through her lashes as she leaned down to take another bite of rich meat and vegetables.  It was so tender that she didn\'t need to cut the lamb, she was able to separate mouthsful out using just her fork, and leave her left hand in her lap, as any lady should, though she stayed down low out of habit - to stop juices splashing.

[Trillian]

"I\'d rather not tell you in the middle of your supper," he replied.  He\'d told her he would sit with her as she ate, and so he would, but it meant that he would wait until she was finished and free.  He didn\'t particularly wish to confess he had a daughter when she had a mouthful of food.  He wanted to see her reaction and how long her silence might last without the excuse of eating.  "Enjoy your meal," he insisted, seeing that she very obviously was.

[Existentially Odd]

She was torn between deliberately dropping Keely\'s name - to force the confession out of him - and doing what he said.  She knew what he would say, did he honestly think she was so naive, so sheltered that she wouldn\'t?  Why else would she be treating him so coldly, by Talon?  Certainly, he\'d been absent from her life for rather a long time, but such things had happened before - usually he eventually found his way to her again, she slapped him over the sluts he\'d bedded, he confessed that they\'d meant nothing compared to what she meant, apologising profusely and then... they made up.  Surely he could sense an entirely different vibe this time, a deeper hurt?

Perhaps she really was fooling herself in thinking he cared enough to know her that much.  Resignedly, she ate her food, not giving it nearly the amount of time for appreciation that it deserved, but it served both her hunger and his purposes if she shovelled it in (as neatly as possible, of course).  When she was done she sat back, wiping her mouth with a napkin before placing it on the table and meeting his gaze with all the calm she\'d managed to muster through the delay of eating.

"There," she said.  Instead of waxing lyrical in the declaration that her meal was ended, she merely folded her hands in her lap and looked expectantly at him.

[Trillian]

He looked at her for a long moment, then sighed and tilted his head back to wonder at the rafters of her ceiling before meeting her gaze again.
 
"One mistake in my past has led me to make a mistake in my present," he began, then decided the story would best be told from the beginning. "I was young, Lam, you can do the arithmatic in your head well enough to know that it was long before you." He didn\'t confirm what she knew, in fact, it seemed he assumed she\'d heard. "I was young and foolish and didn\'t take as much care with my seed, so I fathered a babe who I discovered working as a serving wench in a low-life tavern."
 
He wondered if she would interrupt his story to comment on his slumming, but rather than give her a large pause, he continued quickly, so he could get it all out before she could say a word.
 
"I found myself a daughter, sired long ago. I took her in to undo the wrongs that she\'d had in her life to give her something right, by way of apologising for my absence and also to give her a life that my child should have.. I didn\'t know about her, you see, for fear of past... frivolities... catching up with me and making accusations, I tended to become unreachable. I cut her out of my life by removing ties with her mother."
 
He took a breath and gave Lam a warning look not to interrupt, whether it looked like she would or wouldn\'t.
 
"I showered her with gifts and education, buying her respect I suppose for all the time I hadn\'t shared with her. She didn\'t share the same vision of opportunity I had for her though, her upbringing fought my discipline - which was in the form of private tutors. She fell in love, apparently, with one of your guards, and stole from my safe as well as taking one of my horses to make good her escape." He smiled a bitter smile at Lam. "And so I find myself confessing an old sin to you. You, who I ignored in favour of trying to restore myself a family, only to be taken for and abandoned because she didn\'t want an education, she only wanted a fistful of my coin and a means to escape the castle with the first man to become her lover."
 
He waited for Lam to make comment, to either pass judgment on him or forgive him.  As it was, he wasn\'t sure which would come and looked at her like he expected the former while hoping for the latter.

[Existentially Odd]

By the time his tale had finished, Wilson\'s eyebrows were nearly as high as the rafters he\'d looked at, her eyes impossibly wide in her shock.

"Keely\'s gone?" she asked, dumbfounded.  Despite her brain\'s momentary stutter, she soon began to put pieces together.  "She was who left with Recruit Chisolm last week?  But... I mean, I heard there was a scandalous woman involved in his sudden departure but I... I had no idea!" she stammered, blinking incredulously at him.

A great wash of pity entered her heart as she regarded her love, for she truly did understand what had driven his attempts at giving Keely the home she deserved and, once she\'d overcome the idea that the girl was his lover, Lam had actually quite liked the notion that Dagger would have a family (despite her jealousy that she would never be involved).  She reached out and gripped his forearm compassionately.  "Balthus... I\'m sorry."