Chapter 74: AFTER THE KISS

DIANA’S POV

Alma looked at Raigoro’s cloak, then at Diana, and said nothing. Diana would have preferred a question.

Diana crossed the room, removed the black wool from her shoulders, and folded it over the back of a chair. Alma continued watching until Diana finally reached for her slate.

DO NOT.

"I have not said anything."

Diana underlined the words.

DO NOT.

Alma’s mouth moved.

That was worse.

Diana had left the lower cavern shortly after dawn. Vharos was stable. Raigoro was tired. Diana was tired.

Those were useful facts. So were her heel catching the cloak and Raigoro catching her before she struck the floor. Her mouth meeting his was harder to file anywhere useful. The kiss had been an accident, which should have simplified the matter.

Unfortunately, Diana had spent the walk upstairs remembering the warmth of his mouth with enough precision to make the accident itself feel almost irrelevant.

Alma finally crossed toward the wardrobe.

"Would you like the gray dress or the dark green one?"

Diana pointed to the gray.

"Good."

Alma took it out.

No mention of the cloak.

Suspiciously good.

Diana washed, changed, and sat at the writing table while Alma pinned her hair. She had slept very little, although whether the blame belonged to Vharos’s illness or Raigoro’s mouth had become difficult to divide honestly.

A household servant arrived before breakfast with two messages.

The first came from Master Clair.

Vharos remained stable. He had eaten after Diana left and settled without another pain episode. His breathing had returned to the better range Healer Lou had recorded earlier in the week.

Healer Lou’s note added that he had eaten more consistently after waking and had stood without assistance for several minutes before the keepers made him rest.

Stable remained a better word than recovered.

Diana accepted it anyway.

He was sleeping now. Diana was not required below unless his condition changed or the scheduled observation resumed.

Good.

The second message came from Raigoro.

His Grace requested to know whether the Duchess would take breakfast in the small family dining room.

Diana read it twice.

Alma leaned over her shoulder.

"That seems normal."

Diana turned to find Alma wearing an innocence Diana did not believe for a moment.

Diana wrote: YOU ARE ENJOYING THIS.

"Only because you told me not to."

Diana considered replacing Alma.

Unfortunately, competence remained difficult to find.

Diana wrote YES beneath Raigoro’s invitation.

The small family dining room occupied a quiet corner of the Inner Keep between Raigoro’s private study and the household terrace. Diana had eaten there with him only a few times, usually because their work had collided with the same meal.

This morning, two place settings waited.

Raigoro was already seated.

He had changed from the clothes he had slept in. His hair was in order. The exhaustion around his eyes had not disappeared, but nothing else about him suggested that Diana had landed half across his chair earlier that morning.

He looked up.

"Good morning."

Diana stopped beside her chair.

Good morning?

Raigoro indicated the seat.

Diana sat.

A household servant poured tea.

Raigoro opened a folded report.

"Vharos slept another hour after you left."

Apparently they were beginning with the dragon. Fine.

She wrote: CLAIR SENT WORD.

"Healer Lou expects to examine him after he wakes."

Diana nodded.

Raigoro turned one page.

"His breathing remained within the lower range."

Diana reached for the bread.

Reports.

Of course.

He asked whether Master Clair had scheduled her next observation.

Diana wrote NO.

Raigoro nodded.

Then he asked whether Household Works had sent the revised Winter Court shelter estimate.

YES.

"Any problem?"

DRAINAGE AT THE SOUTH ENTRANCE.

"The repair that was supposed to be finished?"

Diana nodded.

Raigoro took a piece of bread.

"Send it back."

ALREADY DID.

"Good."

He ate.

Diana stared at him.

He noticed.

"What?"

She looked toward his mouth.

Bad decision.

Diana returned her attention to her plate.

Raigoro poured more tea as though nothing about the movement of his hand had become newly distracting.

The man was being offensively normal.

Diana attacked the frostberry preserve with enough force to make breakfast unnecessarily hostile.

Raigoro glanced at the knife.

"Has the preserve offended you?"

Diana put the knife down.

Then picked up her slate.

ARE WE NOT GOING TO DISCUSS WHAT HAPPENED?

Raigoro read it.

"The fall was an accident."

YES.

He put down his cup.

"And I am not going to treat accidental contact as permission for anything else."

Diana looked at him.

Reasonable.

Unfortunately, reasonable had not been the part keeping her awake.

She wrote: GOOD.

Then, before caution could improve her judgment: YOU DO NOT NEED TO APOLOGIZE.

Raigoro did not answer immediately.

"I know."

His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth before returning to her eyes.

"But I’m glad you don’t want one."

That had answered far more than she had intended to ask.

Then there was Selena. The marriage record and the covenant still carried her name, and every person in the Citadel believed Raigoro had married Selena Valence.

Whatever attraction existed between them had developed while Raigoro was still trying to understand who Odran had placed beneath the veil.

Diana knew the answer.

Raigoro did not.

The accident had not created that problem.

It had simply made the cost of it easier to imagine.

A servant entered with another pot of tea and interrupted the silence before Diana had to decide whether she wanted it interrupted.

Raigoro returned to the Vharos report as if breakfast still had ordinary subjects available. He did not try to decide what the kiss meant for both of them. Worse, he left the possibility of another one completely alone, which gave Diana entirely too much room to think.

By the time breakfast ended, Raigoro had reviewed one Vharos report, Diana had approved a revised household work order, and neither of them had touched the other.

Diana noticed every inch between their hands when they reached for the same document anyway.

Raigoro stopped first.

Diana took the page.

Neither commented.

A knock came at the dining-room door.

Mistress Hale entered with the senior relief clerk Diana had met after Rellan. Two junior clerks followed.

Each carried files.

Too many files.

Diana took in all three stacks.

Mistress Hale said, "Your Grace, the first cases requiring cross-office review have been prepared."

Diana looked toward Raigoro.

He was reading the quantity with suspicious calm.

She wrote: HOW MANY?

The senior clerk answered.

"Seventeen to begin with."

To begin with.

Diana looked at the stacks again.

Raigoro stood.

"You wanted work."

She turned the slate toward him. THIS IS YOUR FAULT.

"I believe the ledgers started it."

Then he left before she could find an appropriate reply.

Diana looked at the first file.

A soldier missing for four months.

The second concerned a widow whose dependent-payment record did not match the military casualty archive.

The third had already been returned twice between two offices.

Diana forgot about Raigoro’s mouth for almost three minutes.

That was probably progress.