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Looking up from the inventory she was writing, Aveline Vallen tried to determine what had startled her. To her great surprise, she saw that her office was dark, except for the small lamp on her desk illuminating the paper in front of her. It had been broad daylight when she sat down, she was certain. How long had she been here? The cramp in her fingers and the stack of neatly filled in reports to her left said quite some time … although the stack of papers yet to be dealt with on her right seemed little smaller than it had been to begin with, which was disheartening.
The sound that had drawn her attention came again, and she frowned, looking around the room. A tap at the door? Yes, that was it.
"Is someone there?" Aveline called out sharply, one hand on the dagger that was never far from her while she was working. She could reach the sword on the decorative armor stand in two steps if needed, she knew from practice.
"It's Donnic," came the familiar deep voice, and she relaxed briefly, then tensed again as she always did when Donnic was around, afraid to lose control and say or do the wrong thing.
"Come in."
He opened the door, leaning against the jamb and folding his arms. In the light coming in through the door, she could see that his expression was wary, well on its way toward irritated, and Aveline was alarmed. Donnic was one of the most easygoing men she had ever met. It took a great deal to make him angry, and if he was already irritated, something must have gone terribly wrong.
"Guardsman?" she asked, half-rising from her seat.
Donnic's expression moved into a full frown. He moved into the room and pushed the door closed behind him with his foot. "I thought we agreed you wouldn't call me that in private."
"We … did." It was hard to do in practice, though, and even harder to find the line between where Aveline the Guard Captain ended and Aveline the woman began. It had been so long since she had even remembered there was such a person as Aveline the woman. "Donnic."
"Aveline. I take it you forgot that we agreed to meet at the Hanged Man?"
Her eyes widened. "I definitely did. I'm sorry! I got so caught up in these papers that I …" She trailed off, shaking her head miserably. "I'm sorry."
Donnic was looking at her, but it was hard to see what he was thinking in the darkness of the room. He was so handsome, with his broad shoulders and his tender brown eyes and that overlong brown hair, strictly against regulations, that she so wanted to tangle her hands in as she pulled him closer to her … But she had screwed up, already, as she had known she would, and now he would forget whatever he had seen in her to begin with and go off to turn his attention to any one of the other women who watched him on his guard rotations with hungry eyes. Aveline had seen them. One day, she had counted twenty-four, unable to stop herself.
"I'll … I understand if you want to call it off," she said now.
"Aveline." The word was soft, the tone hurt. "Of course I don't." He took a deep breath. "You really didn't notice the time passing, did you?"
"No, I—there was so much work to do, and I didn't want to get behind …" She gestured helplessly at the stack.
"You need an assistant."
"Oh. No, I can manage." She couldn't imagine having someone else in her office messing with her orderly routines.
"What are you working on now?"
"The Viscount's office asked for an inventory of all pieces of equipment replaced this past year." Sourly, she added, "No doubt the Seneschal is looking to take me to task for overspending."
"Keeping our equipment in good shape is hardly overspending."
"It is when the Seneschal's definition of 'in good shape' is 'not actually in pieces'."
"I'm certain you can make him see reason. You're very persuasive."
"Yes, well …" Aveline shifted her weight uncomfortably. 'Persuasive' was hardly the right word for her blunt, confrontational style. If Donnic thought she was persuasive, what else was he wrong about when it came to her? "That's kind of you to say."
A hiss and a flare came from Donnic's direction, and one of the sconces by the door blazed into light, then the other. Aveline blinked in the sudden illumination.
"That's better," Donnic said with satisfaction. "You'll hurt your eyes squinting in the light of a single lamp."
"I hadn't noticed."
He reached out a hand to her. "Aveline. Come dance with me."
"Dance? There's no music."
"There's always music when I'm near you."
The words, the look on his face, took her breath away. Had Wesley ever looked at her like that, as though he found her astonishing and extraordinary? Impatiently, she brushed the thought away. Comparing these two men, so different from one another, diminished both of them—and herself.
"Aveline?"
"I …" She wanted to move, she did. To go and dance with him here in her silent office, to pretend to hear the music. To pretend she was a romantic. But he would know the truth about her, how stolid and practical and lacking in whimsy she was, soon enough. "I should finish this report."
"When did the Seneschal ask for it?"
"Today."
"No, I mean when is it due on his desk?"
She made an impatient gesture. "You know the Seneschal. He'll want it immediately."
"Aveline. When did he tell you he wanted it?"
"The end of the week."
"So you have time."
"I suppose," she admitted. "But what if something comes up? Hawke gets in trouble every other day, it seems like, and there's that new group harassing people in Lowtown, and—"
His long legs carried him across the room in what seemed like two quick steps, and then she was in his arms and his mouth was on hers, stopping the litany of potential disasters that might have gone on indefinitely otherwise.
Oh, he was good at this, Aveline thought hazily. The kiss was slow and unhurried, thorough, and the whimper of pleasure she heard was her own, the kind of sound she hadn't made in so long she had forgotten she was capable of making it. Her knees quivered, and she held on to him as the only solid thing in a world that was melting around her.
The kiss broke, and he was looking down into her eyes. "Dance with me, Aveline."
Breathlessly, she nodded, and he led her around the edge of the desk, into the middle of the room, took her in his arms, and began to move. Aveline felt a stab of fear—she was only graceful with a sword in her hands, and even then there was more force than there was fluidity. She would step on his toes, she would stumble and fall, she would—
"Hey." Gently he tipped her chin up so that she was looking up at him instead of down at her feet. "Let go."
"I can't."
"Of course you can." She felt a tug at her hair, and then his fingers carding through it, letting it fall loose around her shoulders. The leather headband went next, dropped on her desk on top of the stack of finished reports. "Now you're my Aveline."
"Am I?" She wasn't sure what that meant, but she liked the sound of it.
"Do you trust me?"
Well, there was the rub, wasn't it? She wanted to trust him, but she didn't know how.
"Guard Captain Aveline is glorious. A force of nature," Donnic said. "I fell in love with her."
He had never used that word before. "You did? Really?" Aveline asked in wonder.
"Yes. I really did." He smiled, and Aveline couldn't help smiling in return, the warmth in his eyes creating a glow all through her. "But you seem certain that I couldn't possibly love Guard Captain Aveline—so certain that you can't stop being Guard Captain even for a moment."
"I don't know how!" Aveline protested. "Do you know how long it's been since I had a moment to stop fighting? Since … before I left Ferelden." She glanced away, trying to force back the image of Wesley, dying from the taint, begging her to kill him. Maybe Aveline the woman had died that day. Maybe she was gone forever. "It's nothing to do with you."
"It could be something to do with me, if you'd let me help."
"I don't need any help." The response was automatic.
"Everyone needs someone." She felt his arm tighten around her waist. "Or would you rather lock yourself up in a dark office for the rest of your life?"
The question brought her up short. Was that what she wanted? If those were her options, letting herself reach for Donnic even though she might fall or remaining locked up here safe and tight and alone, she wanted Donnic. But it was a long way, and a treacherous path, and so many ways it could be blocked. "I'm afraid," she admitted, and there was a freedom in just that small bit of honesty, as though Aveline the woman and Aveline the Guard Captain were the same for the space of those two words.
"I am, too."
"You don't seem to be."
He smiled. "Your courage gives me courage."
"Even though I just admitted I was afraid?"
"Because of that. Because you face everything in your path head-on, and you don't let anything move you aside."
That did sound like her. "That's not very ladylike."
Donnic laughed at that, and then he hugged her. "Please, never feel you have to be 'ladylike' around me. If I wanted someone ladylike, I would have accepted that ridiculous de Launcet girl's invitation to climb in her window at night years ago."
Aveline grimaced at the picture in her head. "You wouldn't."
"No. And you would never ask me to hide what's between us." He put his hands on her shoulders, looking down into her eyes. "I treasure your honesty and your forthrightness, Aveline. You never have to pretend to be someone you aren't, not with me."
"Even when I get lost in my work and forget where I was supposed to be and don't bother to turn on the lights?"
"Even then. I'll come find you, and remind you to take a break, and take care of the lights. I promise." He gestured toward the sconces he had lit. "I'll take care of you when you forget to take care of yourself. If you'll let me."
"That might take some getting used to."
Donnic smiled. "We have time. The rest of our lives."
"I suppose we do," Aveline admitted, feeling an answering smile bubble up inside her. It wouldn't be easy to learn to trust, to let go, but his arms around her were strong and sure, and she thought maybe she could learn to lean back into their support.
"So you'll dance with me, even if there's no music?"
Had she said there was no music? Because she heard it now, an intoxicating melody that made her feet want to move in steps she hadn't known she knew. "There's always music when I'm near you."
And they danced in the warmly lit office, where anyone who needed Aveline the Guard Captain could find her, but where Aveline the woman could feel free to let herself fall in love.