Her dressing gown belted tightly about her and hair braided down her back Reinette stood in the sitting room that adjoined her own bedchamber to the one Jack used the evening before for several moments determining her course of action.
For all their teasing the previous night there was still something very intimate and exposed about sleep. He had seemed especially vulnerable when she left him the before. And for all her curiosity and questions, she found herself feeling unexpectedly protective towards the man. It was sudden, and somewhat confusing. Reinette was accustomed to being a master of her own emotions.
But if she was not the one to enter, one of her countless staff would soon enough. Lord protect the first scullery maid that presented herself to Jack.
Decision made, Reinette moved to knock on the door briskly before entering his room.
There was no real way Jack could tell who the person the other side of the door would be. There was no guarantee at all that it would be Reinette, but still, he responded to the knock with an utter certainty.
"I was wondering when you'd emerge," he said without looking back to the door. He assumed she'd enter, assumed she'd respond.
The window, though, while it had held his attention for the last while, he knew it didn't hold a candle to Reinette.
"Is it a good morning then," Reinette pressed directly, crossing the room with a sense of ownership. She closed the distance between them with brisk and easy strides. Joining him at the window Reinette smoothed the lines of her robe and met his smile with one of her own.
It was tinged with curiosity.
"You slept well, despite the strangeness of the place?"
Or was he one that needed his own room and his own belongings. It would be yet another think she marked to learn about this man.
"I slept," he said with a nod, agreeing but not agreeing to well. He though it would take quite a deal for him to honestly say he could have slept well.
"And what can I say?" he went on, "Ever the optimist, that's me. Better a good morning than a bad one." He wasn't an optimist, of course. Or at least if he ever had been one he wasn't any more.
"And you," he said as he gestured towards her with a hand. "You know it's probably a crime to look that good first thing in the morning, Jeanne-Antoinette."
Comments 112
For all their teasing the previous night there was still something very intimate and exposed about sleep. He had seemed especially vulnerable when she left him the before. And for all her curiosity and questions, she found herself feeling unexpectedly protective towards the man. It was sudden, and somewhat confusing. Reinette was accustomed to being a master of her own emotions.
But if she was not the one to enter, one of her countless staff would soon enough. Lord protect the first scullery maid that presented herself to Jack.
Decision made, Reinette moved to knock on the door briskly before entering his room.
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"I was wondering when you'd emerge," he said without looking back to the door. He assumed she'd enter, assumed she'd respond.
The window, though, while it had held his attention for the last while, he knew it didn't hold a candle to Reinette.
He turned. And he smiled.
"Good morning."
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It was tinged with curiosity.
"You slept well, despite the strangeness of the place?"
Or was he one that needed his own room and his own belongings. It would be yet another think she marked to learn about this man.
Reply
"And what can I say?" he went on, "Ever the optimist, that's me. Better a good morning than a bad one." He wasn't an optimist, of course. Or at least if he ever had been one he wasn't any more.
"And you," he said as he gestured towards her with a hand. "You know it's probably a crime to look that good first thing in the morning, Jeanne-Antoinette."
And again, he smiled.
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