Lemon tarts do have a way of mellowing the savage beast, he thinks at the spinning wheel. Days passed and the flirtation with being able to have conversations with his princess-maid ebbed. The exchanges for the last week were brief, observational, domestic in the way a newlywed couple hopes never to be.
"Why do you spin so much?"
Her voice captures his attention like a song not heard in years.
"Sorry," she says, mistaking his silence for contempt. "It's just that you've spun straw into more gold than you could ever spend."
"I like to watch the wheel, helps me forget," he says more to himself. Indeed the busy repetition of it appeals to a tormented mind, but he never gave it any conscious contemplation before.
"Forget what?"
"I guess it worked," he quips, tossing in a laugh for good measure. Her laughter, although quiet, fills the room like the tinkling of a bell, so he spends a moment regarding her. Back to normal, are we? Not normal, no, not ever normal, but back to the way it had once been? Willing her to look at him does nothing, so he goes over to her on the ladder and sees her tug on the cumbersome curtains.
"What are you doing?"
"Opening these. It's almost spring. We should let some light in."
In those shoes, he considers asking, but feels the situation is still too fragile. He would have to remember to magic her some boots for later if this warmer weather made her extra ambitious. Grunts grow more guttural with each tug until she half-faces him.
"What did you do, nail them down?"
"Yes." Don't lose your patience now, dearie. You've dealt with them closed all this time. He sees no reason why she should be straining.
She utters a snort of a kind and throws more of her weight into it than she plans. Within a split second, she's off the ladder and gathered in his arms.
His mind races in vain trying to answer the question of why he has barely touched her before today. The warmth, the lightness, the slightest hint of a scent—the sensations course through his limbs, like the rays of sunshine seeping into the room. It takes strength, true, unbridled strength, to even cock his head. Long lashes, almost an aqua shade of irises, a feline shape and brightness—it shouldn't feel new. He'd seen her eyes before, read them the same skillful, experienced way he read anyone else's and yet...so new, so dizzying.
"Thank you," she says, her chest heaving, the heat from her rising. Fear, nothing new about that in eyes, but then they darken with, with, something unsettling, to be sure.
He'd have dropped her had he held her a moment longer anyway. She finds her footing and apologizes. Refused to apologize earlier and now apologizing for his heart racing as if to compensate for lost time...
"No matter," he coughs after a long while, his vision narrowing on the spinning wheel.
"I'll just put the curtains back up."
"Oh, er, there's no need." He wonders if he's shaking. "I'll get used to it." Don't look back at her, he warns himself, flexing his hands in hopes that will stop the tingling. By the end of the day, she will have boots in her wardrobe.
A/N: I know many fics put this much earlier, but that might just be a difference in interpretation. Hope you don't mind that I saved it for now.