May 17th, 1891 — Zabini Residence, London

The weekend had been a little exhausting, though it had come off well enough. Domitian was a champion pretender, but he was not often called upon to pretend to be pleasant in the center of so many people who were keenly waiting to see him slip and show his true feelings. At any rate, that hadn't happened in years — he was out of practice and not particularly enthused about having to break the skill out once again. The mental labor of it hadn't even ended when the final guests had left. Since they had been obliged to host, there were little signs of the reception lingering on after the newlyweds themselves departed; things out of place, messes to be cleaned, subtle reminders. It wasn't until that morning that he really felt the event was over, and he'd been looking forward to coming home and putting it as far from his mind as possible, even if only for a few hours. He could retire to his study and drink whatever good liquor was left in his cabinets and smoke a cigar and if he felt particularly inclined maybe go for a midnight prowl through the English countryside.

Or he could reopen the whole thing again. Apparently that was what he was going to do, because when he returned from work Camilla was sat in the parlor.

"Mrs. Prewett," he said in greeting, tone impassive. "I wasn't aware we were expecting you for dinner."

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Camilla Prewett Cassius Lestrange

  

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Bree made this!

Things were weird with her siblings, and were liable to be weird for a while, but that didn't mean that Camilla couldn't work on them. She had time to work on them, because she had not settled on how to relaunch herself on society as a married woman, and because her reception was now over. (She'd enjoyed it, for all that everyone — including Camilla — had been very apparently uncomfortable.)

So — she was in Domitian's parlor, and she was waiting for him, and they had not been alone since their conversation in the ensuite bathroom. She looked up at his entrance and half-smiled, as if she had not noticed him calling her Mrs. Prewett.

"Domitian," Camilla said, "I was in the neighborhood." She had not been, and she suspected that was obvious, but it didn't need to be said.

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set by bee

Domitian knew where Mr. Prewett's London residence was*, and it wasn't in their neighborhood. There was nothing in Domitian and Matilda's neighborhood that would draw outsiders unless she'd been paying a social call, which he doubted on a Monday afternoon. Her lie was a flimsy one.

(*He knew where it was now, anyway; between his own return to England and the end of Camilla's "honeymoon" he'd taken it upon himself to learn everything he could about her new husband, which was a considerable amount. He made a career out of finding people who didn't want to be found and bringing them to justice, after all, which meant it was hardly difficult to uncover all of the minute details of a life lived so publicly as Mr. Prewett apparently lived his. It was another mark against him in Domitian's book, since of course he preferred not to make himself so easily accessible to strangers.)

"You are staying for dinner, then?" he asked. "Or will you go back before?"

He could have said go back home before, but he intentionally avoided the word, at least until he knew what her purpose was here. If she was trying to escape something (unfortunately all too possible, given how little consideration she'd given to this arrangement before deciding to marry Mr. Prewett; there was no real way of knowing what sort of man he was except that he cared not a whit for her reputation) he didn't want to imply that he was unwilling to harbor her.

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Bree made this!

"I think I'll head back home before then," Camilla said easily, as if it did not matter to her one way or the other. (Mostly — it didn't. Dinner had not factored significantly into her planning for this excursion, to the extent that it was planned.) Now that she was here — and things had been more or less irreversible once she was here — she was not sure how to circle around to her actual purpose.

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set by bee

The tone she answered the question in made him think she wasn't trying to flee an abusive husband, but she had clearly still come here with a purpose in mind. Presumably she wanted something from him, because if she'd been after Matilda she could have come and go before he'd been home from work. His patience in trying to get it out of her was a little thin; he had done quite a bit for her in recent months already, from the scene onboard the Santa Antonina up through her reception the previous weekend, and thought he'd rather fulfilled his quota of brotherly duties for the next few months.

"Well, happy to have you," he said mildly. If she wanted something, she would have to come out and ask for it, because he wasn't going to fish.

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   Camilla Prewett

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Bree made this!

The trouble with playing a game of chicken with Domitian was that Camilla knew, before she'd started, that she would break first. Domitian was, above all things, patient — Camilla had never been accused of patience before she had ended up in bed with Fitzroy Prewett, and never mind after.

"I was wondering if we could chat a bit," she said mildly, "about resentment."

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set by bee

Domitian took a seat in an armchair and reached for the newspaper nearby, though he didn't necessarily intend to read it. "As a philosophical concept?" he asked, though he knew very well what she meant.

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Bree made this!

Camilla quirked an eyebrow at him. "Sure," she said, "Why not?" Well, she did not have much interest in philosophy, but never mind Fitzroy, I'm concerned about Bellona was a lead-in with which she was not entirely comfortable yet.

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set by bee

Domitian considered her for a moment, thinking. He'd expected her to be more direct, but if this was the route they were going to take...

He rose and crossed to one of the nearby bookshelves. He took his time selecting the appropriate volume (Aristotle), then returned to his seat and found an earmarked page. "To be angry is easy," he read. "But to be angry with the right man, at the right time and in the right manner: that is not easy."

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Bree made this!

Camilla hadn't really known what to expect, but she certainly hadn't expected Domitian to read to her. "Is this a caution about directing one's feelings?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow at him; her other guess was a caution against impulsivity, but Camilla had already done the most impulsive thing a young woman could do. (And it had, more or less, worked out for her.)

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set by bee

Domitian raised an eyebrow at the word caution, as if to say and what would be the point of that? Camilla was not particularly in a position where she needed his advice, at least not about matters such as resentment. It wasn't as though his warning her of what was to come could change anything now. If she'd been concerned about having her husband resent her for the rest of her life, the only time to act on that had been before they'd married.

"It's a Greek philosopher," he responded. "Speaking philosophically. I've taken it to mean that unjustified anger fades quickly. Resentment is difficult to sustain. It takes effort."

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Bree made this!

"So people need to — work at resentment," Camilla said, eyebrows narrowing as she tried to parse it. That was good news where Fitzroy was concerned; she didn't think he had the attention span for it. It was, however, terrible news in regards to Bellona. Bellona and Camilla had been working at holding grudges for much of their lives, at this point.

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set by bee

Dom offered a curt nod.

"To be angry with the right man is one thing," he continued. "But at the right time and in the right manner requires restraint. Strategizing, almost."

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Bree made this!

Camilla was not particularly personally acquainted with restraint, but she was acquainted with resentment. She had it for their father, for Calliope, sometimes for — everyone. But hers was a different kind of resentment than what Domitian was describing. "It sounds like if you're careful enough with resentment," she said, "The people you resent wouldn't even notice."

This was also different than Bellona's resentment; Camilla had noticed.

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set by bee

"Not prematurely," Domitian answered cryptically. He did often fantasize about letting all of the people he resented know exactly how much he hated them, but it wouldn't do to show his cards before the time was right. Their father was the easiest example; the old man couldn't know how angry Domitian was with him until after he'd handed over his entire fortune for Nicodemus. Which meant, perhaps, that he would never know... but maybe Domitian would have the satisfaction of leaning in to tell Cosmo everything while he was lying on his death bed, too ill for speech — or perhaps he'd be able to spit in the face of his father's ghost. Someday.

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Bree made this!

Camilla hummed. "And if they can see your resentment, then that's — not as tactful?" she said. She had, perhaps, lost the thread a bit here — but she had never been entirely sure what she wanted to ask him. She had wanted to revisit the conversation they'd had in the bathroom of the Santa Antonina, before her marriage but after things were already in marriage — where he had alluded to Mathilda's resentment, and where she had started to wonder as to whether they were all doomed.

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set by bee