“Where will you have it?” she asked.
“In hand,” came the answer, so she took a glass to him.
He had it from her with a smile, sipped—and laughed. “Yes! This will go excellently!”
“I suppose I should have told you that I know nothing of wine,” Aelliana said ruefully. “But my mission came upon me so quickly . . . ”
“No, you have comported yourself with honor! It only remains for me to do my part.”
Smiling, she drifted back down-counter, picked up her glass and looked about her. There were stools pushed under a high table set at an angle to the counter. She pulled one out and perched on it, watching as Daav deftly took four slices of brown bread from the loaf, sprinkled them with oil and set them on the flatiron he had placed on the stove. He unwrapped the block of cheese, and cut four thin slices from it, rewrapped it and pulled a second, smaller block to him. His motions were quick, but relaxed, without a wasted move, nor a stutter.
“Will you like sweet sauce?” he murmured, without looking up from shaving paper-thin slices from the second cheese. “Hot sauce? Jam?”
“Make them as you would for yourself,” she told him. She sipped her wine—and gasped.
Daav looked at her over his shoulder.
“Is the wine not to your liking?”
“I—It is very much to my liking,” she confessed, and raised her chin, determined that he not see her chagrined twice over the same bottle. “It will, I think, go very well with the cheese.”
“I agree,” he said, his eyes dancing. “I see that you give me close supervision.”
“As to that, I haven't the first idea of how to make toasted cheese sandwiches! I find the process fascinating.”
He grinned. “Watch well, then. The next time we require comfort, you will cook.”
She shook her hair back, watching him ply the knife, so certain and so deft.
“I might very well make an error, and lose comfort for both.”
“Little chance of that.” He put cheese on two slices of the oiled bread, and pulled a small jar down from a shelf cluttered with such. Each slice was spread with a brownish sauce and capped with a second slice of bread. Daav lit the burner and reached for the turner hanging behind the stove.
“Every toasted cheese sandwich is unique unto itself,” he said, picking up his glass. “Like art, there are no mistakes.”
Aelliana sipped her wine, relishing the sweet flowery notes, and the bite of licorice beneath. Daav made a pleasant sight, his shoulders easy and his hips cocked, as he overlooked his project. He raised his glass for another sip, the muscles moving beneath his shirt, and she was suddenly, vividly warm, recalling the feel of his skin beneath her palms, his long legs, entwined with hers . . .
Flushed, she raised her glass and drank, perhaps more deeply than the wine deserved. At the stove, Daav used the turner, and the sandwiches sizzled against the grill.
Turning slightly, he put his glass down and reached into the cabinet to the left of the stove, pulling down two plates.
“In a moment,” he said, over his shoulder, “we feast.”
That was, she thought, a cue. She slid from the stool and retrieved his glass, carrying it with hers to the table before she fetched the bottle and refreshed both. The stool, she brought back to its proper place, and turned just as Daav arrived with the plates, each adorned with a toasted sandwich, cut neatly into halves.
“Now, Pilot,” he said, folding his long self onto a stool, “I daresay you've never sampled anything like this!”
She laughed, watching under her lashes as he picked up a half sandwich and juggled it along his fingertips. That was not play, she found a heartbeat later, as she picked up one of her own halves; the bread was hot, slightly oily, and smelled delicious.
Carefully, she nibbled a corner, sighed and looked up to find him watching her.
“Well?” he asked.
“It's marvelous,” she told him truthfully. “What is the sauce?”
“Apple butter. You don't find it too sweet?”
“Not at all,” she assured him, and smiled. “Thank you, Daav.”
“No need to thank me for taking proper care of my pilot,” he answered, and turned his full attention to his meal, Aelliana following suit.
“Where,” she asked, after the plates were empty and the glasses refreshed again, “did you go?”
“Ah. Daav visited his brother while the delm took counsel of his thodelm.”
Aelliana felt her stomach tighten. “And the outcome?” she asked, striving for a calm voice.
“Thodelm yos'Galan is of the opinion that it is Korval's duty to show a bold face to the world. It is unbecoming of us to cower in the shadows, clinging to safety. He stops short of advising us to brawl in taverns and set up a business in the Low Port, but only just.”
She considered that, sipping her wine gratefully. “Mr. dea'Gauss had said that there were protocols in place in his office, to accommodate those tasks that the delm now oversees,” she said, looking up into Daav's sharp, attentive face. “He says that there is a promising younger on his staff whom he would very much like to accept those responsibilities—with oversight, of course.”
“Of course,” he murmured.
Aelliana sipped again, thinking of the papers that she had left, unexecuted, in Mr. dea'Gauss' hands. There was, she decided, no need to mention them to Daav. After all, he had seen no need to tell her that he intended to settle half his fortune on her.
“We are agreed, then? You will sit my copilot, and we shall enlist The Luck as a courier?”
He smiled, and she felt her blood warm.
“We are agreed,” he murmured. “How can we stand against the advice of both yos'Galan and dea'Gauss?”
She laughed, and reached out to touch his hand, feeling his amusement bolster her own.
“Now!” he said. “Would you like another toasted cheese sandwich?”
She considered him, and the thought—the desire—that had formed, seemingly of its own.
“I thank you,” she said, “but no. I believe that I would rather field—an impertinence.”
Interest rippled from him, and perhaps a glow of pride.
“And that would be?”
She took a deep breath, his hand beneath hers on the table. “Might I see—your apartment?”
There was a flutter of—Daav slid his hand away.
Panicked, she looked up into his smile.
“There is not very much to see, but if that is your whim—certainly. Let me clear the table while you finish your wine.”
His apartment was on the same side of the hall as hers; it warmed her absurdly to think that they shared a like view of the inner garden. He opened the door and stepped back to allow her first entry, as if she outranked him—or the place was hers by right.
She looked up into his face, which was perfectly and politely bland. She raised her hand—and let it fall before she touched him.
“Daav? If you had rather not . . . ”
“You had wanted to see it,” he murmured. “Please, satisfy yourself.”
Thus commanded, and regretting her impertinence fully, she stepped into the room.
She had meant—when she saw how much it distressed him, she had meant only to look, and then to go away and leave him his peace. But the room drew her in, step by wondering step, and she with just enough sense to keep her hands clasped behind her. The shelves begged study—there were books, certainly, but interesting stones, figurines, shells, and other things that she would need to ask him what they were, and what he thought of them.
A comfortably-shabby double chair covered in dusty blue sat at an angle to the fireplace, a book open, facedown on the seat. By the window, where in her apartment the computer desk held pride of place, stood a worktable of another kind, bladed tools were neatly set to hand; wood in different shapes, colors and textures were sorted to the sides. The comm unit sat on a table of its own; message light dark.