He flinched (almost laughably) at the mention of purple hair: he needed no reminders of it, when he was doing his very best to not catch any glimpse of his reflection in mirrors or silverware, as if he could pretend his way through the shame of having it. That Mrs. Warbeck and Alfred and an odd congregation of people were also sporting it did not help Evander feel better about it. Not in the least.
Oh, and perhaps that was it: perhaps it was just a woman’s intuition, and not some deficiency of his own. And flattery? Was flattery thus the key to have kept Caroline in such steady, reasonable spirits, even with an intruder in the house (and in her bed)? Evander’s mouth pulled into a frown, for he had always considered flattery a tool for sycophantic toadying, and little else. Flattery was somehow akin to lying, a magnifying of features and a blurring of flaws: and they were already married, their courtship long over, so what cause exactly was there to flatter one’s own wife?
Evander curled his hand more tightly around the post-dinner drink he was nursing and tried to come up with an appropriate way to interrogate this. The grin – and the woman’s wink – was so unexpected that Evander’s grasp slipped a little, and his face coloured for it. He cleared his throat, abashed, cheeks still pink for the content of her last statement just as much as its delivery. Mrs. Warbeck’s instincts were – rather extraordinary, actually. If Evander was not generally horrified by this he might have been impressed. “Oh. Right. She was, er, wearing that blue when we got engaged,” he admitted, awkwardly.
Oh, and perhaps that was it: perhaps it was just a woman’s intuition, and not some deficiency of his own. And flattery? Was flattery thus the key to have kept Caroline in such steady, reasonable spirits, even with an intruder in the house (and in her bed)? Evander’s mouth pulled into a frown, for he had always considered flattery a tool for sycophantic toadying, and little else. Flattery was somehow akin to lying, a magnifying of features and a blurring of flaws: and they were already married, their courtship long over, so what cause exactly was there to flatter one’s own wife?
Evander curled his hand more tightly around the post-dinner drink he was nursing and tried to come up with an appropriate way to interrogate this. The grin – and the woman’s wink – was so unexpected that Evander’s grasp slipped a little, and his face coloured for it. He cleared his throat, abashed, cheeks still pink for the content of her last statement just as much as its delivery. Mrs. Warbeck’s instincts were – rather extraordinary, actually. If Evander was not generally horrified by this he might have been impressed. “Oh. Right. She was, er, wearing that blue when we got engaged,” he admitted, awkwardly.
