The Great Grey

[continued from this thread]

With Duke's renewed presence to act as mediator and to fill the awkward gaps between conversation, the rest of the day passed much more smoothly. That did little to ease the guilt of it all, and indeed Alistair also found himself uneasy upon occasion that Duke would have some unreadable expression, or seem to prompt Alistair or Eppie back into conversation together. He was determined to not read into the situation, though, and by the time he retired into his quarters, he felt more exhausted than he had from the days of travel before.

Tucked into bed with a novel, he'd just begun to read when a slight noise caught his attention instead. Padding to the door, and seeing the paper that had been slipped beneath it, he nearly opened the door to catch whomever had deposited it. But if it were a servant, they were merely doing their job; and if it was... anyone else, it was hardly appropriate to greet them in his drawers alone.

Retreating back to the bed with the folded note, he read it quickly — eyebrows raising, and then lowering as he realized the origin and contents of it. It was silly, on the face of it. They were grown adults, fast friends. A simple conversation should not have been so difficult. And yet, it had been; and yet, when he sat at the desk in the borrowed room and scratched a reply, the words came far more easily. In no time at all, he had his reply penned. Clad in his dressing gown, he padded down the hall to his hostess' room, hesitating a long moment before bending to slide it under the door.

Then, like a child afraid to be caught out of bed, he hurried back to the safety of his room.

Eppie,

If you are to apologize, then I must as well. It is a poor guest that cannot soothe his host's discomfort, if you were to ask my mother. Please be assured that you have treated me very well. I suppose that there is always an expectation that the ease we have found in letters would translate perfectly to conversation. In truth, I have thought of you so often that it seems to have rendered my tongue quite twisted. I will admit only once, in this note that you must promise to burn after reading, that there were occasions in which I found myself speaking to an imagined version of you. Most often, it was when I had done something intolerably foolish. So if nothing else, be rest assured that you have been much kinder than the Eppie of my imagination.

My only regret is that I had not called upon you sooner. I wish that I had done so at the earliest opportunity, rather than allowing my wanderlust to gain the best of me. I cannot stress enough the value I place upon our friendship. If you are unfit for marriage or society, then so must I be, for I find you wonderfully clever and compassionate. ... If not the most gifted conversationalist, but that makes two of us.

Yours as ever,
Alistair

(And now I set an impossible-to-beat record in the speed at which you receive my reply!)

Expecting any sort of reply had felt the height of hubris. Expecting one that very night was beyond contemplation. And yet Eppie had sat at the head of her bed, boulstered by pillows, knees pulled nearly to her chest as she contemplated her own possible insanity. If she had been ridiculous enough to write a man a letter when he was just down the hall, why not be ridiculous enough to hope for a reply?

The moment it slid across her floor, she was out of the bed like a shot, and at her secretary with the letter in hand seconds later.

Alistair,

I would never have you believe that you are the cause of any discomfort, whether your mother advised you or not. I do not think I could even begin to apply the term to any possible version of you in my mind. For all that I am supposed to be better at corresponding upon paper, I am afraid I cannot quite find the words to explain my particular affliction. Suffice it to say that I would rather be awkward and inept with you here than at ease with you not.

I cannot believe that you might truly think of me in such a manner as to consult my imaginary person! You shouldn't tease me, you know I am prone to believe you. I will not promise to burn your letter, as despite your jest, I suspect I shall require reminding of your words when I next do something idiotic. But I shall keep it dear and safe, with your others.

You needn't have regrets over me, Alistair. Not ever. You have the sort of dreams and freedoms I could never allow myself to imagine — Such worlds I have been able to experience through your words and images and yes, even your drawings (I believe they are improving). I am overjoyed that you have come all this way for the sake of our friendship, but I would never seek to deny you that which you so clearly love, even if I do worry for you more than is perhaps appropriate.

Tomorrow is another day, isn't it? We may make another attempt, and perhaps we might find it easier to be ourselves. If we do not, I fear D may conspire to make it so.

Apologies for the mess I have made of the paper, I was in more haste than I ought to have been.

Yours,
Eppie

Though he told himself that he did not expect a response, sleep was not forthcoming. Alistair could hardly think of even laying in bed, such a nervous energy filled him. Since he was not to sleep anyway, and there was little other options, he found himself again at the desk – this time busying himself with other letters intended for his assistant back in London, his parents, the merchants who would supply the next trip, and so on.

He almost missed the sound of the letter being delivered under the rasp of his pen against paper. Almost; as though he had not constantly glanced to the door; as though there was any other possible reason to remain awake.

Alistair's initial attempt at a response was far too easy to write; but when he read it back, he felt his face heating for the sheer audacity of it. Such things were not to be said to any woman short of his wife, let alone a woman already wed – regardless of the unique aspects of that marriage. Setting the first attempt aside with a mental note to burn the damn thing, he tried again; this time penning something that at least came closer to resembling a polite letter to a dear friend.

Eppie,

I do not consider you obligated to explain yourself. Unnamed affliction aside, it is my hope that we could endeavor to find a world where you are both at ease, and I am here.

I tease about a great number of things, but not this. "Alistair," I have heard you say, "you should have been more careful!" And far more often, "Boil your water!" You have chided me, with no shortage of words, for wearing the wrong shoes, neglecting to bring enough provisions on a hike, and for eating a great number of things that did not treat my stomach kindly. Words I have always earned, though words I could not imagine offering to you in kind, no matter how supposedly idiotic your actions.

If I need not have regrets, I shall instead make promises. Do not bother me with the logistics of it all, not now, but someday I will take you to the far-flung places of this world. I will take you to Victoria Falls, in Zimbabwe. I will take you to the far south, to see the walls of ice. I will take you to the Amazon, where the birds and beasts create such a cacophony that thought seems impossible. Though it may not come to pass until we are both old and gray, I would have your heart's desires fulfilled. If you would never deny me that which I love, then you will not deny me these promises to you.

We are akin in our stubbornness. Surely if not tomorrow, then the day after. As you say – if not by our own efforts, by the sheer will of D alone.

Alistair

Upon the oriental rug that spanned most of her room, Eppie sat cross-legged in her nightgown, and she was not entirely sure how she had gotten there. Alistair's latest letter was clutched in one hand, cradled in her lap, and she could see but one line: If you would never deny me that which I love, then you will not deny me these promises to you.

With some effort, she jerked her attention from the page. Already lightheaded, for a moment she felt fully dizzy and hot, hotter than the summer night could account for. Abandoning the letter, she scrambled to her feet and the open window, slender fingers splaying across the sill as she gulped in cool air.

This was absurd — Absurd! When had she ever been in such a tizzy over a handsome man? Never! Never in all of her life, and if she was never given the chance beyond the faint tug of attraction from a glimpse across a ballroom, what of it? That was the point!

There were many kinds of love. The Greeks had nine! They were friends, and Alistair had spent such a long, lonely time at sea. Of course he held her in his affections — By his own admission, she had kept him company, but in the manner of a nagging mother or spinster aunt. Not as someone considered with that most tender and rare of emotions, and certainly not as an object of desire.

"You are ridiculous," she hissed into the night and then pushed from the window and back into the room. There could not be another letter that night, that much was certain. She would only prove herself more of a ninny, and his letter had ended, as her own before it, speaking of tomorrow. Surely that was permission enough to forgo a reply.

She swept the page from the floor, and, refusing to so much as glance at it again, instead tucked it away in her top secretary drawer. Lamp extinguished, she crawled back into bed and attempted some little sleep, although she knew her mind would be apt to race for hours if she let it.

He had not allowed himself to expect a reply to his first letter; now, he found himself awaiting a reply to his second. The clock ticked away on the wall, the work he had busied himself with had finished, and still no letter had appeared. Exhausted, and more disappointed than he should ever admit, Alistair finally decided that Eppie would not be replying that night. There was the slight discomfort and wonder if he had inadvertently offended with his words, but then it was dismissed. It was late, and the most obvious answer was that she had merely fallen asleep.

The letters he'd written were gathered into a neat-enough pile, set aside to be given for delivery tomorrow. After a final check of his door – or more accurately the floor beneath it – Alistair fully gave up on the notion of receiving a reply and returned to the bed. Tomorrow would be better, he told himself firmly. Tomorrow, he would not allow that strange hesitation to come between them.

He slept fitfully in spite of those firm thoughts, and was roused by a servant coming to fetch him to breakfast. Scrubbing the exhaustion from himself with rough hands, he had dressed and headed to the dining room. The bounce in his step belied his poor sleep, and he was already smiling as he joined Duke and Eppie at the breakfast table. "Good morning. I apologize for my tardiness; I seem to have overslept." It wasn't really oversleeping, he knew, but compared to how early he tended to rise while on expedition or at sea, this was a downright luxurious morning.

Eating had been a dubious endeavor for Eppie that morning. She had awoken far too early after sleeping far too little, and had proceeded to second-guess every decision she had made not only the night prior, but over the entire course of her life, all of them seeming to culminate in this one moment of acute social ineptitude. She had been at the breakfast table a full twenty minutes before D's arrival, and had continued to jerk her head toward the door at every distant scrape of sound until her husband had cleared his throat and leveled her with the sort of deeply patient gaze that said he adored her but she really ought to calm down. Since then, she had picked fitfully at her plate, chewing more at her bottom lip than her eggs or toast, and when Alistair at last entered, she rattled the entire table suppressing the instinct to jump free of her seat.

D placed a warm hand gently atop her own and smiled up at their guest. "We only barely abide by traditional hours around here, so please, no need to apologize. If it weren't for our cook, I doubt we'd keep them at all."

"Good morning," Eppie managed, along with a tense smile and a darting glance. Oh but she was genuinely so useless at all of this; the only reason someone like Alistair Campbell would care to be even her friend was because their discussions had been limited to paper! He seemed happy, which had to be a good thing, yes? But surely it was vainglorious to presume his happiness had anything to do with herself.

From his place at the head of the table, D rolled his eyes heavenward as if beseeching help. "I hope you slept well," he said, easily taking up the mantle of host again.

Ignorantly, there had been a part of Alistair that had hoped the awkwardness between them had been put to bed by the letters (well, notes, really – illicit notes exchanged in the dead of night, which did nothing to assuage the discomfort of sitting in a room with his friend and her husband). Instead it seemed as though, if anything, Eppie was even more unnerved by his presence. He still smiled, nodded along to Duke's greeting, but inside he wilted even as he resigned himself to another day of poor small talk and avoidance on Eppie's part.

Why must it be so difficult? It was impossible to keep the frustration from curdling in his belly, impossible to keep it from wilting the tender flower of hope that had dared blossom overnight. He cared for Eppie, considered her a dearest friend, and it had seemed that she felt the same way. If she had been a man, it would be far easier; he could clap her on the back, ruffle her hair, laugh about the social hesitancy she so excelled in showing. Somehow the same actions to a woman, even one as untraditional as Eppie, did not carry the same ease or connotation.

But, at least their letters had been somewhat prophetic. The glance heaven-ward was not missed, and though Alistair's ears burned briefly about the thought of it – Duke's seemingly unending patience and willingness to play host, even in the perverted mess that this still seemed to be to the young viscount – he was far more grateful than he was embarrassed. "I rarely sleep well away from the water," he admitted easily, helping himself to a cup of tea first thing. "Once you're used to a hammock and the sounds of twenty or thirty other men sleeping near-by, a comfortable bed on dry land is almost too luxurious to sleep upon." The dry humor of it was accompanied by a broad grin.

Smearing preserves upon a piece of toast, he glanced between the two and asked, "Had you any plans for the day? I certainly don't wish to intrude if so." It would not be difficult to keep himself busy if they had indeed made plans, though Eppie and Duke both made it seem as though each day's itinerary here was kept quite light. It did little to allay the permanent restlessness in Alistair's spirit, but he would weather that for company such as this.

"I knew a woman once who lived her entire life in a little house next to a water wheel, she said she loathed hard freezes because she couldn't sleep without the sound of it creaking away all night," Eppie ejected, the anecdote out of her mouth quite before she had become aware of speaking. She lifted her gaze from her plate after and stared across the table at Alistair, first a little owlishly, and then with a faint, apologetic pinch of her brow.

"That would drive me mad," said D, unflappable as ever as he mopped up a bit of yolk with some buttered toast. "A body can get used to just about anything, though, I suppose."

"Soldiers can have difficulty sleeping on a proper bed, I understand," Eppie supplied, and D nodded with a low hum as he chewed.

"I've no notion of what you two plan on for today, but I've my own schedule to keep," he continued as he brushed the crumbs from his fingers over the messy span of his plate. He stood, and bounced his attention from his guest to his wife. "Eppie's splendid at hunting out interesting ways to spend a morning, she'll come up with something if needs must. You'll have to forgive me for abandoning you," he added directly to Alistair, and stepped out from his chair. "You ought to show him the wine cellar, Ep. Campbell's a man who enjoys a bit of historical significance, I bet."

The sudden information shared by Eppie had Ali pausing ever-so-briefly before he met it with a grin. It was the kind of outburst he was starting to expect from her; given Duke's lack of much response, it certainly seemed closer to the norm than otherwise. It was endearing, in its way; and not just for how she spoke or carried herself, but for the clear fondness between Alistair's two hosts.

God, but he was a wretch.

His smile didn't flag, even in the face of Duke abandoning them. Considering that it was their fall-back plan, the both of them, it did not seem to bode well for any attempt at conversation. Would it be terrible of them, he had to wonder, to banish themselves to separate rooms and merely trade letters and notes for the day instead? Yes, obviously, but it was a hopeful thought he still entertained for a long moment.

"Nothing to forgive," he reassured Duke easily, more in passing than in true conversation. He and Eppie would simply have to make do, it seemed. The wine cellar was an excellent suggestion, for all that it was the first thing in the morning. If familiarity, friendship, and Duke's presence had all failed to ease their seemingly shared unease, perhaps alcohol could loosen their tongues.

"Sounds like an excellent place to start," Alistair agreed, though he did have to wonder if the 'historical significance' had to do with more than just old wine. "And then I suppose we'll just have to find a way to keep ourselves occupied the rest of the day."

The notion of spending yet more time alone with Alistair sent Eppie's stomach into knots that managed, somehow, to be both contrary — For their excitement and dread — and work in concert to produce a faint nauseation. There would certainly be no further extending of her already lengthy repast.

"It is quite interesting," she allowed, and tracked D as he strode from the room, the bloody schemer. After a moment of staring at the empty doorway and biting against the back of her lips, she managed to swing her attention back around to their guest. Their upsettingly attractive and charming guest.

"Have you done with your breakfast? I don't want to rush you, really. The stones have kept for centuries, they'll keep on a bit longer." The smile that curved her lips was diffident but genuine. That she cared a good deal for Alistair had never been in question, but she could not begin to fathom what D imagined for the two of them. Eppie was ill-equipped to be anyone's lover, and Alistair would be jaunting off across the world again before they could blink. They did not have the makings of anything approaching a grand romance.