The Beginning: Singing Plot

[very_sharpe]

Thomas smiled when Greta walked through the door. "Flip the sign, would you?"

He'd given Rowan a break, sent him off on lunch. But now that Greta was here, he supposed it wouldn't be too untoward to take a little break himself. It wasn't unusual for the shop to close for lunch - he had so few staff members that it just had to be that way, most of the time. But more than that, it seemed oddly civil.

"There's something in the back I want to show you. I'd thought to just bring it over later, but this is perfect."

He liked that she dropped in to visit him, whenever she had time or whenever it occurred to her.

Comments

[very_sharpe]

"It was in the window of a jewelry shop. The little card beneath it was boasting that it was an antique of some kind or another, and the nice young lady behind the counter was insisting that the little figure is a sort of muse or-- or something like that. I don't know, but I thought of you."

He smiled at her, feeling a bit shy about the whole thing, but Greta seemed pleased. "No, of course. I'd hate for the chain to break or for it to get lost somehow because little hands wanted to grab at it."

Thomas could repair a broken chain, but he couldn't find something that was lost. Or, God forbid, a child found the charm and managed to swallow it or something.

"You like it, though? Truly?"

[andhiswife]

Part of her is still reeling a little that he bought her jewelry, that she's with the sort of man who walks past a jewelry shop, sees something in the window that catches his eye and makes him think of her, and then gets it. Of course, some of that is simply down to where they are. She could probably afford to buy herself jewelry if she really wanted to, or if it had ever occurred to her. But it hadn't. Saoirse is far easier to indulge, and it's hard to think of finery as something she ought to be spending money on.

His question prompts a brief flare of mortification. Between her surprise and curiosity, she hasn't even thanked him, has she? And though he hardly seems annoyed, she can't help but think he must notice those little faux pas. A Lady would have got out a 'thank you' by now, surely.

"Truly," she's quick to reassure him, though not so quick that it sounds like a lie. "Thank you." She pushes herself up onto her toes to kiss him, sweet and lingering, before dropping back onto her heels. "I'm just not used to being gifted jewelry," she adds. There's some playful exaggeration to her tone -- as if the gift is just horribly decadent -- but there's no masking the plain truth of it.

[very_sharpe]

Thomas smiled brightly and leaned in to meet her kiss. "I'm glad," he said quietly, tenderly, just between them.

"And you are dating a baronet, I think jewelry and fancy parties are just things you'll have to get used to," he teased her. Not that he had a bruising social calendar these days; no social season to attend to. His title and lineage meant nothing here.

But if she was going to tease, he was going to give as good as he got. He liked teasing Greta.

"At this rate you'll have a ridiculously large sapphire or something before the summer is out."

[andhiswife]

"Oh, god," she says, tipping forward to smother a laugh against his shoulder. Sapphires, indeed. As a child, she'd dreamed of being with someone who might shower her with such riches. It's harder to imagine, now. Too many years of an unglamorous life lived; too many simpler wishes deferred or denied. What would she even do with rich jewelry, besides keep it in a box and live in constant fear of something happening to it?

"One of the dogs would probably swallow it," she declares with a rueful air, as if it couldn't be helped. "And then where would we be?"

[very_sharpe]

"Well, we'd have a very wealthy dog," Thomas said, trying not to smile. He grinned and gave Greta another sweet kiss. God, but he loved her. Sometimes it terrified him, as if the other shoe would someday drop.

As if something terrible might come flying out of his past to take her away, or drive her from him, or worse, destroy her. But he couldn't go do that dark road now.

Instead, he brushed his thumb fondly across her cheek. "Perhaps no sapphires, then. We always were a bit of an austere family."

[andhiswife]

Greta can't even begin to keep a straight face, so she doesn't bother, smiling against his lips even as he kisses her. A soft, contented sigh escapes her, and part of her is almost embarrassed at how utterly smitten she must seem. Well. Is, really.

There ought to be music. The more she grows to care for him, the more keenly she feels its absence. It's not that none of this feels real, without it; they've spoken too much, and too honestly, for her to doubt him. But it... god, it almost puts her in mind of adopting Saoirse: of waiting impatiently for some bewildering bureaucracy to officialize something that was already true. Except for the part where Darrow at least provides a bureaucracy, but heaven forbid it give them a tune.

She just wants this to be real. And she doesn't know how to make it feel that way without music. She doesn't know how to tell him she loves him, as if it wouldn't sound trite and hollow without a melody to fill it out.

In that moment, her thumb idly smoothing over the jewel on her new necklace as Thomas's brushes against her cheek, she wishes there could just be music.

But she knows better. And this, as it is, is still rather wonderful. "I admire your restraint," she says, mock-serious, catching his hand with her own and pressing a kiss to his palm. Some methods of communication, at least, don't require words at all.