*

tempus ludendi

*

Dana gazed at the polished door as it closed behind the young man who had just left, then transferred her reflective consideration to the man who remained. "Someday perhaps I shall understand why you will not let him go," she said, her voice dry and cool. "But I may rue that knowledge, sir."

Alex looked up from his book, and as he did one careless lock of hair unhooked from the sleek curve of his skull to paint a fine coiled arc on his brow. His dark heavily lashed eyes flickered. Those lashes shuttered a multitude of unmarked thoughts as his equally cool gaze rose and fell. "The boy has promise."

"As a rosebud promises bloom, then succumbs to canker," Dana said tartly, her needle jabbing into her embroidery with a subdued, vicious vigor.

"Oh, I don't know. . ." Alex idly turned a page. "In my observation, he has blossomed rather like a flower under Mr Skinner's tutelage."

"Skinner is too lenient."

Alex, now openly astonished, raised his head, lips parted, then laughed. "Too lenient--Skinner? Good lord, Scully, you quite astonish me."

Dana's cheeks took up a taint of heat. Alex's careless, husky voice rolled across her like a prickly blanket, mocked her, as did his address. "I have asked you not to call me that--that offensive diminutive," she said irritably. "I ask again that you desist. As to Skinner, he has much to answer for. The boy dropped a plate the other day--of mother's Wedgewood--and I know his hand was soft in the lashing."

"You fault him for not having the heart to beat a child?" Alex mocked again. "My god, the brute has mellowed, hasn't he."

"You jest, but he grows soft." Dana put down her embroidery restlessly and smoothed her dress, touched her hair. Obliquely appearing to gaze out the window, she kept a sidelong observation of her husband as she continued to speak, letting her words drop as if absently. "He is quite taken with the boy, I tell you. *Dotes* on him." Her tongued steeped the words in light acid. "Why, not two hours after the lashing I came upon them in the scullery. I suppose some comfort must be given--the little beast was sobbing wretchedly. Still, Mr Skinner should take caution. Naive youth is so easily. . .misled."

Alex's head rose sharply, and Dana felt his eyes pin her. Despite her reserve, her heart began to stammer more quickly in her chest. *I do not fear him*, she reminded herself angrily, with cold rage at her quailing womanhood. *Damn the man*. Had mother arranged a better match, if only Mr Colton had not left so abruptly and inexplicably for India--why, she had been nearly ready to accept his proposal. Quite nearly.

Her husband's gaze burned upon her like ice to ungloved skin, and her cheeks and fingertips tingled with roused sensations of a like chill.

"Do tell," he said, with an attempt at casualness. And yet she could see, from the corner of her eye, his long slender fingers white-knuckled upon the edge of his book. "Do you suspect impropriety? From Skinner? The man is as straight as a rector's gate." Assurance skated across the surface of his bland voice, but underneath dark currents uncoiled through hidden depths.

"Straight as a country road, I should say," Dana replied in dulcet tones, turning a face like smooth cream Alex's way. She smiled, a small perfunctory notion of the lips, which thinned briefly while touching nothing in her cheeks or eyes.

Alex's face was expressionless, had flattened in that characteristic way it was wont to, when he heard something he refused to admit. Rebellion in the Indies? Women's suffrage? Evolution? Absurd. Perhaps his incisive intelligence treated upon these matters more comprehensively in the privacy of club or study, but in the drawing room he would allow nothing to crack that polished placidity of manner. It was one of the few things Dana found recognizable in his person, one of the few she sympathized with and understood. She too disliked the furor of the outside world, which arrived for her viewing only in the romantic novels she both disdained and surrendered to, and in the fine print of the occasional newspaper Alex condescended to pass over to her at breakfast. Captivating, the world, but filthy as well.

"Perhaps I shall speak to him," Alex was saying now. He looked as if he would get up immediately, then shifted in his chair. His face was cold, and glowed like an ivory bowl, caught and held in the winter light that entered through the drawing room window, but which fell not far beyond their armchairs before succumbing to the dim interior. Broodingly, silently, he stared out, perhaps watching the pedestrians or carriages of the street. It seemed extraordinary to Dana, who picked up her embroidery hoop again, that a human man could be carved so coldly. He laughed, spoke with scathing passion on the topics of the days, indulged in the masculine brandy-and-cigar conviviality of dinner parties, and flirted almost rakishly with society's brighter feminine lights, and yet under that flickering, sparkled surface was the iced fortress of his heart, which Dana had not yet penetrated. Had not dared to, if she cared to acknowledge this uneasy truth.

Now she dared not speak another word. The silence pooled in the room like rising seawater, which slowly subsume their floed, still bodies. And then, when a time had passed, he seemed to shake off his moody reverie. Dana watched, again with no obvious attention, as he rang the bell to summon their servant.

Fox entered with a shyness he had not yet unlearned. Dana eyed him coolly as he came to stand by Alex's chair, observed the unrestrainable energy of his young body that evidenced itself in small nervous movements, tugs of jacket and smoothing strokes to his trousers. He rarely attended on matters of the drawing-room, of course. But Katherine, the parlormaid, had her half-day off. Inconvenient.

"You rang, guv'nor?" Fox said. His voice sounded cheeky, though his words were innocuous enough. Dana supposed their vulgar tone could not be helped, given his upbringing.

"You need only address Mr Krycek as 'sir', Fox. Street address is inappropriate and must be unlearned." Dana's rich accents unfolded her words like a bolt of silk. The boy's cheeks flared with heat.

"Sorry, ma'am. Sir," he mumbled, then looked hopefully to Alex under those ridiculously sensual, half-lowered eyelids which Dana suspected bespoke a mark of Hebraic mixing. "Can I get yer another tea, sir?"

Alex glanced up, stretched back in his armchair, smiled. Dana's face tightened as she focused on her moving needled, the red thread which pulled taut, drawn by her sharp fingers. Such charm was wasted on servants, inappropriate. And really quite unlike him. She did not care to examine too closely her vague sense that she would feel relieved had Alex flirted with the maids, or even taken his liberties with them. It was to be expected. But to gift fond smiles on a mongrel guttersnipe was repulsive. Tasteless. It of course meant nothing, was simply a whim. Men *would* have their odd caprices.

Alex's smile was amused, indulgent. His eyes alive with interest. His lips curved in a peculiarly sincere liking that few merited, whatever their standing. It seemed unaffected. Quite. "Oh, what?" He arched his brows, made a show of considering his tea cup. "Mm, yes. Another cup. But do be careful with them. I hear you've not been cleaning those fingers of yours very well."

At Fox's uncertain look, Alex smiled slyly. "You must wash the butter off, Fox, before you handle Mrs Krycek's tableware. She will be most unhappy if forced to change her pattern."

Fox's cheeks reddened further. "I'm sorry, guv'nor--ma'am--"

"Fox, I've said--"

Alex flicked a flash-cool look Dana's way, effectively silencing her rebuke, then returned his gaze to Fox. "Come here, Fox." His green eyes steadily compelled Fox's own. His lips remained lightly curved. "Let me see your fingers before you take my cup away, eh?"

Fox ducked his head, nervously--and quite unconscious of his effect--rubbed his hands across his trousers, than hesitantly moved forward.

"Closer--come, I don't bite." Alex lounged negligently in his chair, unmoving but watchful. When Fox slid up next to him he rewarded the boy's bravery with an approving smile, then lowered his gaze to contemplate the outstretched hands. He casually turned one over, noted its trembling fineness and felt in his coiled body the slow descending fire of an appreciation that was in no way pure, in no way simply aesthetic. Inwardly he savored the moment, aware of his wife's hard withheld rage, whose silence the years would only deepen not break. He had made a good marriage. He looked up into the angel's face, smiled and saw a mirrored smile rise shyly there.

Yes, a good marriage. But this--this would be something quite different. A pleasure that was in no way business.

*

Good morning. :)