It's not like you to say sorry.

It had been two months since that meeting in the candlelight, since she'd sat with him in his study and looked at him in a way that made his mouth dry and his hands clench in frustration. It was mid-January now, with the snow thick on the grounds and Misao's delighted laughter echoing up the stairs. Strange, how that went hand in hand – snow, and her laughter. She spent her entire day outside, building snowmen or completely unrecognisable animals. And though he enjoyed it, enjoyed hearing her voice day in and day out, enjoyed listening to her thudding footsteps up and down the otherwise silent staircase, he knew it was time for it to stop.

She'd been here for almost four months now. Four months. And she'd been free to do whatever she liked, to run wild about the house, to laugh and play and roll her skirts up past her knees if she wished. And however much he loved it, loved the light it brought to the whole house, he knew his duties. She was sixteen, would be seventeen soon – he didn't know when – and, as far as he knew, had absolutely no education worth regarding. She could speak English, yes, and though that was a high enough qualification in Japan, here it meant absolutely nothing. And, since local schooling for young ladies wasn't appropriate, he'd have to hire a governess.

He didn't have problems with the hiring. It would be easy enough to find someone, to give them a suitable wage and house them in the manor, to feed them regularly and let them interact as long as they wished with their pupil. He just had problems with the telling.

He knew that Misao wouldn't take it very well. She would take it, he was pretty sure, but how she took it was a completely different matter. He contemplated having Okon or Omasu tell her of his decision, but he'd have to face her someday, and so he might as well be the one to tell her, face to face.

There were skipping footsteps in the corridor outside his room, and he knew she was coming in response to his call. She knocked and entered, not waiting for an answer, dripping melting snow all over his carpet. "Morning, Shinomori-san!" she said cheerily, heading for the half-drawn curtains in his room and pulling them wide open. "Look, it's snowing again!"

She'd picked up a lot more confidence around him over the past few weeks – he knew she'd never have had the courage to walk up and yank the curtains of his room open without his consent. But she was still wary, still hesitant – he could feel it, even though she didn't give the slightest sign. He could feel that she was deathly scared of being told not to do what she had just done, deathly scared of being frowned at, of being scolded. Deathly scared of the disapproval she expected from him.

He nodded, not feeling that a reply was needed to that statement. As she stood at the window, looking out rapturously, he said, "I needed to talk to you about getting that governess, Misao-san."

She started, turning around from the window so quickly that her braid whipped the glass and left a streak against the frost. "What?" she said, her eyes round. "But you said not till next year!"

"It is next year," he said evenly.

"No, but – but – I don't need one! I mean, do I? Aren't I – too old, or something? Aren't girls my age supposed to be doing – other things, in England?"

He opened his mouth, but found himself unable to tell her that 'other things' meant hanging around in parties, looking for husbands, spending time sewing or playing the piano, or polishing up other womanly arts. Instead, he said, "You're doing nothing constructive with your time. I can see you haven't thought about what you want to do with the rest of your life, but at least you can think of your immediate future."

"I know what I'm going to do with my immediate future, okay?" she protested, as blobs of snow fell onto the carpet and disappeared into pools of dampness. "I'm going to go downstairs and make snowmen!"

"Not so immediate," he snapped, irritated by the mess the snow was making.

"And then," she continued, "I'll eat, I'll sleep, and I'll wake up and do that all over again! There's no need for a governess!"

"And how long will you do that?" he said calmly. "Until the snow finishes? Until winter ends? And then what? What will you do every spring day, ever summer day?"

"The same thing," she said, but he could see that she knew how little weight her argument carried.

"Listen to yourself, Misao," he said, and though she couldn't hear any change in tone, she could feel the impatience in his voice. "You have done nothing whatsoever over the past four months, and that was only because I felt you needed time to adjust, to get over – coming here. And now its time you moved on, time you did something with your life. And this seems the best way of going about it."

She stared at him, gaping, looking like a landed fish. He expected a response like a five-year-old's, a whiny response, something selfish and childish and endearing and exasperating. Something like, 'I don't want to do something with my life!' Instead, what came out of her mouth shocked him.

"You – " She was pointing, half laughing, half stunned, "You – "

He waited expectantly, one eyebrow rising very slightly.

"You spoke!" she managed finally. "That – that must've been a whole – whole paragraph, I'd think! Wow! Fifty-four words, all coming out together! Wow!"

"Fifty-five," he corrected automatically.

She blinked at him for a second, and then burst out laughing. "You counted too! I don't believe it! You count the words in your own conversations!"

"I do not," he said woodenly. "It is my job to be observant, and so I generally remember any conversation I have word from word."

"Yeah, but it's not your job to remember the number of words!" she giggled triumphantly, beginning to hop around on one leg.

This was getting out of hand. "What timings would you like for your governess?" he said, hoping to stop her mad hopping.

"You counted, you counted!" she chanted, grinning.

"Nine o'clock to twelve, shall we say?"

"You actually counted!"

"And then a two-hour session after lunch – "

"You counted!"

" – from two till four. Do you agree?"

"I don't believe you do that!"

Enough. When he spoke, he would be listened to. When he spoke, he was always listened to. It was one of the privileges of not speaking often; when you did speak, people hung on to your every word. Maybe he'd spoken far too often around her, then, if she hadn't gotten the idea. There were certain rules here, rules she was forgetting. When he spoke, she would listen.

"You begin next week," he said, and his voice was empty, icy, the slight suggestion of gentleness and the even slighter suggestion of amusement gone from it. He took the amusement and laughter from the room as well, leaving it as cold and empty as his voice. Misao stopped laughing immediately, standing there in the middle of the room, suddenly awkward and alone.

She nodded, swallowing, twisting her fingers in the material of her scarf.

"That'll be all," he said, his attention now completely on the yellow envelopes awaiting him on his desk. He probably didn't even know that she was there.

She nodded again, turning and running from the cold emptiness of the room, her feet leaving wet footprints on the already damp carpet.

The governess would be here on Sunday morning, and would begin lessons on Monday. Which was fine, because Misao wouldn't be too disappointed – there would be no more snow by then; it was already melting – and she'd be spared the anti-climax that would come after having looked forward to the winter for weeks and months on end.

That's how he'd planned it, anyway.

It was Saturday today, and Omasu and Okon had had the lady in the village send up some dresses for Misao to try on. He didn't know why they had taken so long, considering the fact that they had been ordered two months ago, but he let it go – he didn't know much about these things. He supposed they thought this would cheer her up, but he doubted it. Misao didn't like dresses, anyone could tell.

Misao. He'd said that. He'd called her that. No '-san' at the end, no respect in his tone. Just a simple, straightforward – command, almost. It couldn't be called a scolding, not in his opinion. Just a sharp – he didn't know. But the point was … Misao. He'd said Misao. To her. As if he knew her. As if he had a right not to be polite around her. Which, even though he was her legal guardian and everything, he didn't. It was simple etiquette – and you didn't let go of simple etiquette until you knew the other person really, really well … and sometimes not even then.

And … Good God, he counted the number of words in his conversations!

Now that he thought of it, it was something he'd always done, ever since he took up this work, even before that. Just an unconscious way of remembering whether his speaking abilities had improved at all over every conversation.

God, he was pathetic.

This was something that was going to be corrected. He had to be in Paris next Friday, and he'd make sure he counted nothing while he was there. Nothing. He wouldn't even add up his hotel bill. And no more Misao-ing. It'd be Misao-san­. Always.

~*~

A/N: Sorry about the late update … I'm in the middle of my O-Levels and an unhealthy Buffy the Vampire Slayer obsession (where was I these past four years, you ask?) and that's not exactly conducive to writing this fic … hopefully I'll be faster once my exams finish …