Chapter 158 - Telling Her Parents

Chapter 158: 158 - Telling Her Parents

The second dance lasted longer than the first. By the time the musicians brought it to a close the hall had grown warmer and louder, most of the tables abandoned for smaller circles of conversation.

Amelia stepped away only when the final notes thinned out, though her hand stayed in his a moment longer than the dance required.

"I’ve had enough people watching me for one evening. Half the women at that table taught me how to hold a cup when I was nine, and they all have opinions about who I dance with."

Adrien looked around the hall, where several nobles still lingered within earshot.

"I was about to suggest somewhere quieter. Give me a minute to find us a drink, since leaving with empty hands invites more questions than it answers."

He took two glasses of pale wine from a serving table, and Amelia led him through a side door near the eastern end of the hall.

The corridor beyond ran cooler and darker, the music reduced to a pulse through the stone. After two turns Amelia opened a narrow door Adrien would have walked past, and a private terrace opened above one of the palace gardens.

"You really do know this place."

"I used to hide out here when lessons ran long. The larger terraces sit closer to the hall, so everyone crowds those and forgets this one exists."

"Then it’s what tonight needed. I’ve answered more questions in two hours than I did on the whole journey here."

They moved to the balustrade and drank slowly while the palace carried on behind them. Somewhere between Thornwood, Greymoor, Elyndor and the long road to Sylvamir the border between friendship and something larger had moved without either of them naming it, and tonight they had stopped pretending otherwise.

Amelia rested her forearms against the stone. "How long do you think you’ll stay in Sylvamir?"

"I’m not certain. I still need to see Orven about the staff, and Laurent wants other things dealt with while I’m here, which could mean two days or two weeks."

"You’ve already been away longer than you expected. When we left Elyndor you were talking about a short trip."

"My mother knew better than I did. She told me to pack as though I’d be gone a season, and now I’m on a terrace in Sylvarin wearing a coat somebody else chose."

Adrien looked toward the river through the trees. Greymoor had recovered enough that he could leave it without expecting it to come apart, though it remained his burden.

Amelia turned her glass between her fingers before she answered.

"I’ll come back with you for part of the journey at least, though whether I go straight on to Greymoor depends on my grandfather."

"I wasn’t expecting you to disappear. I’d still rather hear it from you than assume it."

"Then hear it. We both have places that need us, and deciding what we are doesn’t mean standing in the same room every hour."

No hesitation weighted the answer, only practicality, and Adrien preferred it that way. He set his glass on the balustrade and rested one hand at her waist.

"Come here."

Amelia closed the distance herself, and he kissed her. It carried none of the urgency of the night they had spent together, since no question lay underneath it now, and it lasted until the cool air off the river reminded them both where they were standing.

"I should probably tell my parents before somebody else does it for me."

Adrien looked at her. "You haven’t told them anything at all?"

"Not directly. My mother almost certainly suspects, because she notices everything and says nothing until she’s sure. My father has no idea, or he’s pretending remarkably well."

Caelan was Seven Stars, a detail that had seemed merely interesting at the station and weighed far more out here.

"Telling him before he works it out himself is the sensible course. I’d rather he heard it from us than from a noble who watched us dance."

"Tomorrow, then. Somewhere without three hundred guests and a quartet in the corner."

The terrace door opened behind them. Selene stood with one hand on the handle, her attention travelling from Adrien to Amelia and then to the distance between them.

"I was looking for you. Your father has been working through the hall asking where you went, and he is not being subtle about it."

Amelia straightened a little. "We only came out for some air. It was loud in there."

"Amelia. Is there something you want to tell me?"

Amelia traded a glance with Adrien before she answered.

"Adrien and I decided tonight that we’re together. We should have said something earlier, except neither of us had talked about it properly until an hour ago."

Selene took that in with far less surprise than Adrien had braced for.

"I thought that might be where this was heading, and I’ve thought so since before you reached the capital. You speak about him differently than you speak about Lucien, and you’ve spent this visit finding reasons to be wherever he is."

"And you said nothing."

"Whether the two of you had said any of it aloud was your business. That isn’t a question a mother asks until she has to."

Adrien appreciated the distinction. Selene had suspected rather than known, and she said as much.

She turned to him. "I won’t ask you for promises tonight, Adrien. My daughter is old enough to choose who she wants, and she has never needed my permission to be stubborn. I only expect you to treat that choice as seriously as she does."

"I do, Lady Selene. This isn’t casual to me and hasn’t been for some time, and I’d rather you heard it from me than worked it out from a banquet."

"Then that’s enough for tonight. Her father should hear it from both of you, though, and preferably before somebody mentions what they saw on the dance floor."

The door opened again before Amelia could answer. Caelan stepped out without the outer layer of his formal coat, his expression easing when he found Selene and his daughter before it changed at the sight of Adrien.

"There you are. I’ve been through half the hall, and three people sent me in three different directions."

His gaze went to Amelia first. "My girl, you could have at least told—"

He stopped. Caelan reconsidered the words before he reached the end of them, looking at his daughter properly: dressed for a royal banquet, standing beside a man she had brought out here herself.

"No. You’re not a little girl anymore, and I’ve been slow about admitting it. You’ll always be my girl, and I don’t expect that to change until they bury me, but you’re old enough to make your own decisions."

Something in Amelia’s expression gentled. "I know, Father. I never minded as much as I pretended to."

Caelan looked toward Selene, who offered him nothing at all, then turned to Adrien.

"So. What exactly did I walk into out here?"

Adrien could have left the answer to Amelia, and it would have been easier. He chose against it.

"I’d rather tell you myself, Lord Caelan." Caelan’s face went still. "Amelia and I have been close for a while. It went past friendship before we came to Sylvamir, and tonight we stopped avoiding the conversation. We’re together, and I intend it to last."

Caelan listened without interrupting, so Adrien carried on.

"Some of what has happened between us is private and I won’t lay it out on a terrace, but I won’t have you thinking I’m hiding how serious it is. You’d learn it eventually, and it should come from me."

Caelan’s jaw tightened. "Things have happened."

"Yes. I’m not going to insult you by dressing it up as anything less."

Another silence followed before Caelan looked at his daughter.

"Is this what you want, Amelia? Not what you’ve decided to live with. What you want."

"It is, and Adrien isn’t speaking for me. I chose this as much as he did, and I’d have chosen it sooner if either of us had been braver."

Caelan held her gaze for several seconds before the tension drained out of his shoulders.

"Then that’s the part I care about, and the rest is mine to grow used to. I don’t need details and I don’t want them. She’s old enough to decide for herself, and if I’m honest she’s been old enough for years."

Adrien inclined his head. "I understand."

Caelan stayed serious. "Treat her well. Not because I’m Seven Stars, and not because I could make your life inconvenient. Do it because if you’re serious about her, that ought to be what you intend anyway."

"It already is. You won’t need to remind me, though I don’t blame you for saying it once."

That appeared to satisfy him. Caelan turned back to Amelia and rested one enormous hand against the side of her head, the way he must have when she was small.

"You’ll always be my girl. I reserve the right to struggle with everything that comes after that."

Amelia covered his hand with her own. "That seems fair. You’ve earned a little struggling."

Selene moved toward the door. "The banquet is still going, and if all four of us stay missing much longer somebody will come looking."

Caelan gave Adrien one last measured look before following his wife inside. Amelia waited until the door shut, then turned back to him.

"You really decided to tell him yourself. I was two words away from doing it for you."

"It seemed like the sort of thing he should hear from me rather than about me. One uncomfortable minute now beats a year of him wondering."

She studied him a moment longer, then put the glass he had abandoned back in his hand. They stayed outside a while before going in. Nothing had altered as dramatically as it might have looked from the hall, and the same responsibilities would be waiting in the morning; they simply knew where they stood now, and so did the people whose opinion carried any weight.