Page 68 of Duke of Diamonds
He sipped. Held the liquid in his mouth. Swallowed. Took another.
She waited with the eagerness of someone offering up a cherished creation.
He cleared his throat. “It tastes like grass.”
There was a beat of silence. Then?—
“What?” Fiona stared at him as though he had just insulted her family lineage.
Elaine, seated to his left, gave a short laugh and reached for her own cup. “I think it has a rather rich flavor, Isaac. Deep. Earthy.”
He turned to her, unbothered. “All I taste is grass. What more am I meant to say?”
The tea was warm, certainly. Potent in its own right. But whatever symphony of flavors they claimed to find in it was utterly lost on him.
Fiona straightened, lifting her chin by a fraction. “I see you clearly lack the refined palate to appreciate the nature and art of tea, Isaac.”
“Do not all teas taste the same?” Isaac asked, setting the cup down with more care than the words deserved.
The effect was immediate. Fiona’s posture, so animated only moments before, faltered. Her colour seemed to drain, if only slightly, and he had the fleeting impression that he had knocked something loose inside her.
That was a blow. Unintended, but a blow all the same.
Yet despite the twinge of regret, he found a small smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. She was altogether too expressive to hide such feelings, and it made her all the more captivating.
“All teas taste the same?” Elaine repeated, aghast. “Do not embarrass me, brother.”
Isaac leaned back slightly, the warmth of his sister’s scolding only adding to his amusement. “Forgive me. I did not realise I was committing heresy.”
“Perhaps he requires a visit to finishing school,” Fiona suggested, her eyes gleaming now with mischief, the earlier wound disguised beneath playful sharpness.
“My, I cannot agree more, Fiona,” Elaine said with a wicked grin.
Their laughter bubbled between them, rising easily, and though he was again the object of their jest, he found himself joining in. He had not laughed like that in... longer than he cared to measure.
A finishing school. Heaven preserve me.
He lifted the cup once more, tasted the tea again. It was unchanged. Still grassy. Still foreign. Had he expected it to grow on him in mere minutes?
“You do not like tea,” Fiona said suddenly, watching him with the same precision she used when choosing leaves from her collection. “We must do something to rectify that.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why does that sound ominous?”
She only shrugged, a faint smile playing about her lips. That same glint returned to her gaze—clever, unreadable, utterly magnetic.
He looked away.
Stop that.
“Do you know what will complete this lovely afternoon?” Elaine asked, clapping her hands together as if struck by divine inspiration.
Isaac had no time to object before she answered herself. “Music.”
She rose and seized Fiona by the hand.
“Come, you will play for us.”
Fiona glanced over her shoulder in clear bewilderment as she was led toward the pianoforte.
