It was complicated, being a spider sitting in the centre of a self-spun web. There were flies already caught in every strands, wrapped up in silk, and others hovered around like butterflies, perilously close to being ensnared. Who looked more like a butterfly than Alethea, in her flowing gown and with her wide-eyes beauty? The baron was not blind to her potential for usefulness if she continued on her current trajectory. He was prepared to wait, to bide his time and just watch her flutter. If anyone had found their way into his head as his hands closed on either side of her waist and the muscles in his arms braced against her weight in order to lift her feet from the floor for a beat of music, then they might have thought his advice hypocritical. Did Mordred not act in the way everyone expected him to? Did he not hide his true self, his real whims and passions from the world? For now. He would have argued the point. He did not act the way people wanted him to for their benefit, but for his own. The masquerade of his life had one solitary purpose, to win for him what he had always wanted. The baron’s ambitiousness was the largest part of his heart, and in serving that, he believed himself to be acting only for himself. The advice to him, therefore, was apt. Of course, he had intended for the little lady in his arms to take it in a warmer way, but the point stood.
At her response he wanted to laugh, tickled wryly by the simplicity of it and the apparent devilment it brought to her eyes, meshing effortlessly with her guilelessness. Instead he smiled at her, as if she had just said something remarkably charming. “Do what makes you happy lady,” he advised, with an easy charm of his own, “that is all any of us can do, seize hold of the moments and the things that make us smile.” His eyes held hers, the blue depths swimming with intelligence and a thoroughness of thought. The soul he let her see was one apparently well-examined by its owner, a ponderous being, a little burdened by self-reflection. It explained for those who required explanation why he could sometimes seem so private and mild-mannered.
They had schooled her well, like a little bird in a gilded cage, what to say and when to say it. It was a wonder that her sweetness of temper had endured so long, that no one had taken shameless advantage. It would have been so easy. The sweetness of the wine on her breath, the flurry of her perfume, and the trust as she pressed herself against his hands and chest. It was tempting, Mordred could not deny it, perhaps just a taste. It did not seem as if the baron looked away, his attention seemed to be focused entirely on her, but he had just noticed his nephew move back into the hall, returning from the gardens. Mordred calculated. He could see the boy...the boy could not see him. “I was born in the winter,” he explained, “and if you asked it of me, I could never refuse you.” Lowering his head to hers, he kissed her softly upon the mouth, the pinkness of her lips pressed against the paleness of his. It was not passionate, nor was it chaste, hovering ambiguously in the space in between. Mordred pulled away, his smile a little sad, but all too knowing, “but I am not the one you wish to dance with, my Lady, not really.” Nodding in the direction of Tristan, who was now perfectly in Alethea’s eyeline, Mordred released his physical hold on her and stepped backwards into the crowd, absorbed almost instantly into the throng.
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