color your judgment

Chapter 5

A/N:

It's high time we get some context.

TW: Mention of/reference to canonical character death

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"... for if everything is considered carefully, it will be found that something which looks like virtue, if followed, would be his ruin; whilst something else, which looks like vice, yet followed brings him security and prosperity."

— from The Prince, by Niccolò Machiavelli

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As promised, the contract documents arrived at Aamon's desk later that evening, and he wondered why some part of him dared to think—even hope—that there would be anything else that came with it.

He supposed he should be content. It was well within her right to back out of the job after their first consultation, but she didn't. Perhaps his title may have played quite a... pivotal role in that decision, but Duke Paxley knew better than to fold the cards he had been dealt. No, he would play them to the bitter end.

Settling into his chair, Aamon rifled through the sheaf of papers just to check the schedule she had outlined for the renovations. She did say she would only meet with him at designated times, so that was about all that he wanted to know. How often? How soon?

Despite his rather measured and methodical countenance, it was astonishing, really, how uncontrollably she could possess his every thought. Even a lifetime's worth of discipline was never going to be enough to stop him from allowing her, either. Gods, and that was just from the sight of her alone. Ariadne had barely acknowledged him and was yet to show her hand, but here she was, already clouding his very consciousness as if she were ink in water.

Ah. There we are. With consideration to the urgency of the matter, the next consultation would be a site visit the day after tomorrow. After that, she would briefly meet him in the mornings every other day over the course of two weeks, if only to finalize the designs and technical requirements necessary to project implementation. The following weeks beyond that, he would see her less—particularly during the production of pertinent construction drawings—but the periodic visits would eventually resume during the construction phase itself, until completion.

The nib of his quill scritched quietly against the grain of the paper as he signed his agreement. He didn't have to check the rest of the terms to know what they stipulated. He already knew.

Just as he knew she would need that carriage, those floor plans, and her copies. Just as he knew she would be radiant the moment she walked through his doors.

In that little studio by the sea, all he'd ever craved was to know her, after all. She'd never told him anything about her beyond her name, so he'd simply learned her in all the ways that he could. By body. By mind. By soul. By all her little things, and by all that she surrounded herself with. He'd learned her through the splotches of paint and graphite that often stained her skin, and through the careless italic with which she wrote her lessons from architecture school. Aamon had leafed through those notebooks more than once, asking every now and then about this architectural process or that, because he'd wanted to learn her through the things that would occupy her future, too.

With that said, his pride may have soared a little at the surprise on her face when he told her that he had already prepared her duplicates as per his expectations that she would need them. There was nothing Ariadne prized more than efficiency, and Aamon's gesture had essentially saved her several days of extra work. Although she had been professional the entire meeting, in that moment, her composure obviously slipped.