The older attendant knocked while I was choosing a glove.
"Lady Valeria Embercrown, my lord. She wishes to speak about the academy."
He stood alone in the doorway. I looked past his shoulder, expecting to find her there, but he waited for my answer.
"The reception room. Give me a moment to get there."
"Shall I bring her when you ring?"
"Yes."
He went downstairs. I took the formal gloves, leaving the comfortable work pair on the desk, and went ahead to the reception room. I moved the tray table between two chairs so I wouldn't have to stretch for the pot. Then I rang and tried to finish dressing my right hand.
The button went halfway through its hole and caught the linen underneath. I was still working it free when the footman brought Valeria to the open door.
She noticed before she crossed the threshold.
"Have I interrupted something?"
"A disagreement with a glove."
Her gaze moved from my hand to my face. Then she held out her own, and for a stupid moment I thought she was offering to help. The footman lowered his eyes. I bowed over her fingers without taking them.
When I straightened, her hand was still there.
"An injury," I said.
"I see." She withdrew it and waited for me to move.
The scarlet eyes and midnight-blue hair were familiar. I remembered her at the far end of a ballroom, refusing a man in front of thirty people. Here she stood close enough to see the loose thread I had pulled out of my glove.
I stepped aside and indicated the chair with its back to the window. She paused beside it.
"Since when do I sit here?"
"Have I—" I caught the back of the other chair. Afternoon light lay across its seat. "It seemed worth trying."
Valeria sat, keeping her gloves in her lap. I took the chair facing the window and found myself squinting at her. She watched me settle without offering an exchange.
The footman brought tea. Once he had arranged the tray, I told him he could go.
"Leave the door," Valeria said as he reached it.
He took his hand off the door and went. People passed in the corridor behind her; from time to time a shoe caught on the same loose board.
I picked up the pot with my left hand.
"Is something wrong with the service?" she asked.
"No." A little tea ran down the spout. I set the pot down on the tray, where the footman would find the puddle later. "Nothing."
She waited until I had put my hand back on my knee before touching her cup.
Valeria was eighteen, a year older than Cedric, and D-rank. I was trying to make an F-rank body look comfortable in a chair. Our engagement was one of the arrangements the game had presented as a fact before it allowed me to make choices. I knew what to say if I wanted her to hate me. Several options came to mind, some of which I had tried.
"Your preparations for the academy?" I asked.
She gave a small, practiced smile. "Yes. They're going well."
I waited for the rest. There wasn't any.
She lifted the cup, and the saucer clicked against it. Her hand had trembled. She brought her other hand up beneath the cup and drank while I became very interested in the tea I had spilled.
"Will you send for me when we arrive?"
"At the academy?"
"Yes, Cedric."
Something about her tone made me search for a conversation I had never had. I remembered a response about her place at Cedric's side; I had chosen it once to see whether she really would throw the wine. I could not remember how the exchange had begun.
"Did I make an arrangement?"
Valeria lowered her cup. "You told me to be ready."
"For what?"
She looked at me, then briefly toward the open door.
"You didn't say."
I let go of the glove button. I had been working at it under the table without noticing.
"I want the first afternoon to myself," she said. "Once we're there. I want to know I can go somewhere without an attendant coming to collect me."
"Where?"
Her thumb stopped against the handle.
"The practice courts."
"Before lessons start?"
"Before everyone else wants to use them." She leaned forward to put her cup down. The cuff caught under the edge of the saucer, baring a patch of discolored skin above her wrist. She freed it with two fingers and drew the cloth back into place. "I want to see the equipment as well. Last year's list may be accurate. I'd rather look."
Training could have done that. She was looking at me again.
"And that takes the whole afternoon?"
"I don't know how long it takes. That's why I'm asking for the afternoon."
Her voice had roughened. She glanced at the pot, then left her cup where it was.
I had started this conversation to get through it safely. Somehow I was now demanding an itinerary. The sensible thing was to let her go wherever she wanted. A few hours during which she wasn't beside me would be useful, especially at a place full of people who knew how Cedric was meant to behave.
"All right. I won't send for you."
Valeria waited.
"That first afternoon," I added. "You can have it."
"I can have it." She repeated the words quietly, looking at her cup. "And if your attendant says you've been waiting for me?"
"I won't tell him to."
"That isn't quite—"
"No. I understand. I'll tell them not to fetch you. Or carry a message that means the same thing."
Carriage wheels rattled over the gravel outside.
"What do you want in return?"
"I don't want an argument on the day we arrive."
"Then you should have said that to begin with."
She drank a little more tea, watching me over the rim. I found I preferred her questions.
"Does your household expect you somewhere?" I asked.
"Mine?"
"That afternoon."
"I'll deal with my household." She put the cup down. "This is about what you'll do."
"Then you have my answer."
She nodded. Sunlight had reached the edge of her face, showing a shadow beneath one eye which the game had never had any use for showing me.
"More tea?" I asked.
She looked into her cup as though she had forgotten it. "It's cold."
The pot was still warm when I touched it.
"There's some left."
"Half, please."
She put her gloves on the table. I poured half.
"Have you been practicing this?" she asked.
I nearly looked at my hand. "Pouring?"
"No." She held the cup between both hands. "Usually by now you've told me what's wrong. With my dress, or something I said before I came in. I keep waiting."
There were answers I could have given her. I could promise never to do it again and hope she didn't ask what I meant by 'it'. I could apologize for things I could not name.
The pot grew heavy in my left hand. I put it down.
Valeria watched me for another moment, then drank.
When she rose, I stood too quickly. My chair caught on the rug and the pull in my chest interrupted my breath. I steadied the chair with my left hand.
"Give me a moment."
I sat before she could answer. She looked at me, then at the open doorway.
"I'll wait."
She went to the window. I kept my feet flat on the floor while I waited for a full breath, embarrassed by how long it took. She could see the drive from there. Once she closed her eyes, then opened them and tugged the red-edged cuff down over her wrist.
"All right," I said. This time I got up slowly, leaving one hand on the chair until I was standing.
She turned her head toward me. Asking about the cuff would be foolish. For one thing, I didn't know whether Cedric was supposed to know already. I looked at the corridor, where a woman carrying folded linen passed without turning her head.
Valeria spoke with her back still toward me.
"You won't ask?"
"Not here."
She turned.
I heard what I had said a moment too late. "You don't have to explain it to me."
"Very well." She came back to the table and collected her gloves, smoothing one flat over the other. "We'll leave it there."
I moved my chair out of her way and rang the bell. She stopped beside the table.
"The afternoon," I said.
The older attendant answered. I waited until he stood in the doorway.
"On our first afternoon at the academy, none of my attendants are to fetch Lady Valeria. No summons from me, and no messages saying I'm waiting for her. Tell whoever is assigned to me."
"The afternoon of your arrival, my lord?"
"Yes. Only that afternoon."
He glanced at Valeria, then repeated it. "Your attendants are not to summon her on the first afternoon. I'll pass the order on."
She had waited through his answer without putting on her gloves. Now she slid them on and walked to the doorway, where she stopped with one hand against the frame.
"Did your father ask you to do this?"
"No."
She looked at me long enough that I began searching for something else to say. Then she inclined her head and left.
The attendant went after her. I sat until I heard her carriage move away. She had finished the second half cup. I hadn't poured anything for myself.
Her last question would not fit into any of the conversations I remembered. Perhaps there was a branch I had skipped. There were plenty of those.
I worked the button out of its hole. The linen had bunched underneath. It took both hands and rather more patience than I had left to ease the glove off.