The tall, underfed singer bent over to kiss the duchess' hand, a lock of fiery hair falling into his eyes as he did so.
"Agatha. You look stunning, as ever."
He flashed his teeth at her. She giggled.
"And you flatter me, you naughty boy. I know I'm an old woman. Now, see here, love, there's someone I want you to meet –"
Ralph knew what was coming. Somehow, from some deep dark corner of his mind he hadn't visited in ages, a numbing voice came and told him. Change. This was big. The cogs of the world stopped turning, his ears rang, he barely noticed the concerned glance George shot him as his eyes went huge with fatal dread, and he froze in his seat.
The duchess gestured with her plump, glittering hand at him.
The man looked up with slightly bored expectation in his eyes.
Their gazes met.
Piercing blue eyes, a bit deep-set, now widened for a moment in shock. The rest of the face was equally striking, with its pronounced cheekbones and narrow cheeks. Only a few freckles remained of the generous amount Ralph was used to seeing. They did nothing to soften the impression. The smile curving the red lips at the moment was not at all like George's, and now it widened into a Cheshire grin.
Ralph could feel his own mouth twisting with dislike and something akin to hatred. He'd just managed to make a normal life for himself, had just been promoted, had found someone who could perhaps be… well, something important to him, at any rate – and now this. The goddamned bastard just had to come waltzing into his life and – he wanted to hit something. He tried to school his face back into indifference. It almost worked, but the old Duchess' keen eyes and inbuilt intrigue-detector were not so easily avoided.
"Now, young Mr Weatherton, you look absolutely gobsmacked. Do you two boys know each other?"
"We're old acquaintances."
Again that smile. To Ralph's intense frustration, there was no other word for it than charming, and he so wanted there to be. He was so busy searching for one, that he barely heard Jack saying something undoubtedly inane to the Duchess about how long it had been since they'd last seen each other, and wasn't it a pity?
"Well, then my dear young Ralph, you mustn't sit over there! Here," she gestured eagerly to a chair next to her, "take Alfred's seat, he won't be back at once. I imagine he's had one sherry too many and fallen asleep in the salon…"
Ralph gnashed his teeth quietly, but rose from his current seat with calm and precision. Making his way down the table to the Duchess' end, he kept his gaze steady on the personified evil that was standing there, relaxed and self-assured, in a black suit that screamed of exquisite tailoring and ridiculously high prices.
He would later be told that nothing whatsoever had shown on his face. But as he walked those few steps toward what felt like sudden and irrevocable doom, his nerves had been tingling like mad, making him want to roll his shoulders or stretch his muscles. He felt confined, trapped, and his hands were numb and cold.
He took the empty chair two seats from the Duchess', and kept his eyes on the tablecloth as Jack lowered his thin persona into the one between Ralph and 'dear Agatha'; leaning back comfortably and looking like he owned the house.
The silence between the two of them was more oppressing than Nazi Germany, but nobody along the table seemed to notice. Not even the Duchess appeared to be perturbed in the least. She'd turned her attention elsewhere already, and was busily discussing politics with someone at the other end of the long table, if her speaking volume was anything to judge by.
Ralph cautiously raised his eyes, and to his horror, they met George's. There was a question in the brown orbs which he really didn't know how to answer. He tried to look helpless and apologetic. George's mouth twisted slightly, but he smiled and broke eye contact, and turning away, he quietly engaged some elderly man in conversation.
Ralph sighed through closed teeth.
"So. Ralph."
The blond shut his eyes briefly, then fixed them on the white linen again as if his gaze alone could set it on fire.
Unfortunately, that made him imagine himself fleeing from a funeral pyre of charred wood. And that really didn't help.
"Yes?" he bit out.
"How have you been?"
Before he could remember control, he'd already turned in his seat.
"How have I been?"
That face. It had obviously changed over the years, elongated, the features evening out and becoming better proportioned, but he was still ugly as hell, in Ralph's opinion. And those eyes, which were currently boring into him like beams of concentrated light, making him feel incredibly small and naked…
An incredible anger rose in him. There was no way in hell that he would sit here and cower like a girl, at age twenty-two. He forced himself to smile.
"I've been just fine, thanks. Went into the Navy, like my dad. Just got promoted, in fact."
As the reddish eyebrows lifted coolly, he allowed himself a moment of triumph. Beat that.
"You?"
"Oh, you know," Jack drawled. "I get by. Singing, mostly. It pays nicely. And I get to do what I like." His eyes glinted.
"And you must be very happy in your job, I imagine?" A slow lazy grin curved across his mouth, and brought to mind animals baring their teeth. "So much sea."
Ralph shuddered. The fact was, he wasn't overly fond of the sea anymore. But he never let that on, either to his fellow officers or his father. For a while, being on the ocean for weeks on end and never seeing land had been a dream. Now it was an obligation, and the main (and only) reason he ever touched alcohol.
"Or maybe not."
The silky voice snapped him out of his reverie.
Jack was watching him, still smiling, but it never really reached his eyes, and the satisfied cunning reflected in them was almost enough to make Ralph punch him in the mouth.
Almost.
As it was, he merely forced another smile, but he was not about to sit here and take this much longer. If Jack thought him a coward, then so be it. At least he had the sense to stop before it became an outright fight. He wasn't so sure if that applied to them both.
Getting up from his seat and pushing his chair in, he touched the Duchess politely on the shoulder and waited impatiently until she had finished her tirade, before addressing her.
"You really must excuse me, lady Narborough, but I'm getting kind of cold. I think I'll take a walk, warm up a bit."
She gave him a flustered reply which seemed to mean "All right, my dear boy" – or at least he took it to mean that – and with that and a quick bow, he left the room at a brisk pace, not looking back. He could feel Jack's eyes on him, but he resisted the temptation to whirl around and give him a knuckle sandwich.
He's not worth it.
Outside in the hall, he upped his pace one more notch until he was almost running.
His heart was pounding a mile a minute, and it almost felt like he was running away again. He pushed that feeling down. There were more important things, like focusing on how to find his way through the gigantic house.
At last he reached the salon that the Duchess had mentioned. In one of the soft-looking armchairs, an old man was snoring loudly, an empty glass and half-full bottle on the spindly wooden table next to him. Ralph assumed he must be Alfred.
Breathing deeply and shakily, he collapsed in one of the other chairs – it proved to be just as soft as it looked – and closed his eyes.
Right about now he was really starting to wish he liked sherry.