"I have slept perfectly well, thank you," Thomas said, sitting down and accepting the tea that appeared at his elbow with the efficiency of a household that had learned not to ask unnecessary questions about unexpected early callers.
“It has been some time since I have seen you,” Samuel said.
“Not so long to cause a tension between us?”
“Of course not, although I am curious as to why you are here. Should you not be at home with your new wife?” Samuel replied.
“I suppose, but I am in need of information, and I have not been able to come out to social events as I usually would,” Thomas sighed.
“I would say that is a blessing for a newlywed,” Samuel laughed. “So, what do you need information about?”
"I need to know what people are saying."
“About?” Samuel asked with a slight grin.
“My marriage,” Thomas said, his patience waning.
“The marriage I was told on the day of I should not attend?” Samuel asked.
“What other marriage could I possibly mean?” Thomas asked.
“I was not sure, as you see, I was under the impression that of course you would invite your best friend to be at your side when you were stood in that chapel,” Samuel said before taking a sip of his tea.
“The circumstances were outside of my control. Surely you are not truly offended, my dear friend?” Thomas asked.
“Not so much that it should worry you,” Samuel grinned.
“Samuel,” Thomas sighed. “Please.”
Samuel’s expression softened and he leaned back in his seat and nodded.
“I apologize. I expected you would be in need of some levity after Clarissa,” Samuel said.
The name dropped into the room with the particular weight that her name had acquired in recent weeks. Thomas was aware of it landing—was aware of the precise quality of the silence that followed it—and kept his expression entirely neutral through both. He had become rather practiced at that.
"I am here to learn what is being said about my marriage but… If you have something to say on that subject," he said, in a tone that was conversational and not entirely a warning, "I would ask you to say it plainly and then we can move on."
Samuel looked at him steadily.
"I thought she was after your money," he said. "I thought so from the beginning of your courtship and I think so now, and I am telling you this not to wound you but because I believe you deserve to have heard it from someone who genuinely cares about your welfare, rather than piecing it together yourself over the coming months."
Thomas felt the anger move through him in a clean cold wave. Not hot, not irrational, just present and significant. He had known, on some level, that Samuel had reservations about Clarissa. He had not known quite how specifically those reservations had been held. He let the anger exist for the appropriate amount of time and then put it somewhere it would not interfere with the conversation, which was a skill he had been developing since boyhood under his grandmother's watchful eye.
“I see,” Thomas said, putting his teacup down slowly. “We should move on from this.”
"Yes," Samuel agreed, with the ease of a man who had said what he came to say and required nothing further from it. "The marriage, then. You want to know about the gossip."
"I want to know about the gossip," Thomas confirmed. He sat back in his chair and looked at his friend, trying to read his expression, which was as pleasant and considered as it always was and told him nothing he could not have assumed in advance. "The paper has run it. I know that. I know that people are talking. What I do not know is the quality of what they are saying, and that is what I need from you."
Samuel was quiet for a moment. The fire in the breakfast room grate shifted and settled.
"The quality," Samuel said at last, "is better than one would have expected."
Thomas looked at him.
"People are curious," Samuel continued, in the measured way he had when he was building toward something rather than simply stating it. "Endlessly and exhaustingly curious, which is their natural condition and one I long ago accepted as immovable. They want to know what happened and why it happened. There is some talk of an officer… is there any validity in that?”
Thomas tensed, his hand tightening on the teacup.