The soft, disappointed click of his tongue was at first his only answer as he concluded his sentence. The silence was broken only by the scratch of his quill after that, before at last he docked it and looked over at his wife fondly. In their years as friends and as a married couple, she had come to know him intimately well – predicting his movements as surely as he manipulated the actions of others with his words and experiments.
She held a certain immunity to his games, though there were times when he felt it necessary to test her – not so much because he felt anything had changed, but because keeping her at her very best was invaluable. James was still in his training phases – enough so that she had heard Thomas deliver the same quiet note of disapproval more in the past few months than had been necessary in years. Between them, it was more of an internal joke than it was a signal – but the connotations it carried were heavy enough to bear the pause he needed.
“My dear, if I informed you of everything, I fear you may lose the pleasure of experiencing anything resembling surprise in this life of ours.” Amusement pulled at the corners of his lips as he rose to his feet and went to meet her, smiling even as he reached out for her hands – placating as he was stern in his assertion, “It does me no good to be entirely predictable to anyone, least of all you.”
Ocean Archive 