Chapter 37: They Finally Return
Isaac tried hard to resist the urge to spur the horses on even faster, but his desire to see Kyrie was quickly becoming overpowering; they had just entered the city limits of the Terra Capital after 4 long weeks in the Dominion, and Isaac found that the closer they got to the Dandridge manor, the more antsy he became. Still, Isaac was already at the upper edges of comfort for the people inside the carriage, and he certainly didn't want the lady to reprimand him for pushing it past what was tolerable. Kyrie was so close now, and Isaac longed to see her again, but he had to be patient.
Her absence had been torturous for Isaac while he was in the Deveris household; every night he remembered the complete dejection he left her with, and his brain had replayed everything the two of them had said to each other before he left so many times that he was sure he knew that conversation by heart now. He didn't think of it particularly fondly though, he thought back on it and wished he'd said things differently; anything to get her with less abandonment on her face as he left.
She had expressed some concern about Renard, and while Isaac had assured her at the time that nothing would happen, that assurance had dulled over the course of his time the Dominion. What if Renard did do something to Kyrie? Renard knew that Isaac would be livid if he ever did, but the anger of people around him had never particularly stopped him before. Especially so if he was confident he wouldn't get caught with whatever he was doing. Hopefully the fact that they were friends meant more to him than having a romp with one of many women; Kyrie was one of a kind to Isaac, but to Renard she would just be another of a long list.
His hands trembled slightly with anxiety before he gripped the reins tighter in response; once again he fought back a powerful urge to kick the horses into a faster pace. The time it took for them to make it from the city limits to Mae's manor wasn't long, all things considered, but to Isaac it felt like a century. The moment the house came into view, he thought that he'd be relieved, but instead there was a tight constricting feeling around his heart. What if Kyrie wasn't doing well? What if she wasn't as happy to see him as he was to see her? What if Renard had done something to her?
What if what if.
Rumbling past the gates, there was no sign of either of the two women that had stayed behind, but Renard was seen emerging from the garden wiping off his hands with a cloth. The two men caught each other's eyes and while Renard gave Isaac an easy smile, Isaac scrunched up his features in an almost accusatory look. Renard was used to such scrutiny from Isaac though, and remained completely unfazed as he approached the carriage to help unpack everything.
"Welcome back! I bet it feels good to be home again, huh?"
Isaac simply grunted as he hopped down from the front of the carriage. Pointing towards the carriage that had rumbled in behind them, he didn't feel so inclined towards pleasantries with Renard right now.
"Help out Lady Deveris with her things. I've got Lady Dandridge covered."
As Isaac said this, he knocked lightly on the door to the carriage to indicate that they'd come to a complete stop. Before he could open up the door or even hear a response from inside, it was already slamming open. Isaac's face jerked back so he didn't get caught in the door, and it was Vivian's face that emerged first, though she was looking straight past him towards Renard. The suddenness of the door opening had drawn Renard's gaze for a moment, and when Vivian and Renard locked eyes with each other, Vivian's face sprawled into a bright smile while Renard's picked up his usual amiable look. If there weren't the two nobles to think about at the moment, Isaac was sure that Vivian would've run straight into Renard's arms.
Isaac's heart constricted even more to see this, and he glanced longingly towards the house. Surely Kyrie was doing her job either in the menagerie or the rooms, but a part of him felt hurt that she hadn't come out to see him. Pushing that completely unfair resentment down, he unhitched the horses and began the process of putting them away in the stables while the female slaves led their respective masters and their children into the house. The work went by quickly with the help of Jiera's stableman and Renard, and it wasn't long before the three of them were picking up luggage to bring into the house.
Renard was doing his usual thing of being chatty with the other stableman, but Isaac just remained sullenly silent as they trudged up the stairs. Especially so because the conversation seemed to be about how attractive Jiera's slave that she'd brought with her was. The whole topic irritated him, perhaps more so than usual because of how desperately he wanted to see Kyrie again.
Vivian had tried to alleviate that loneliness a bit while they'd been in the Dominion; she chatted with him whenever they saw each other and she kept him company at the slave's table. It was a nice gesture, Isaac supposed, but she just wasn't Kyrie; she could barely even address the massive hole that was Kyrie's absence. There was even one evening after dinner that she'd tried commiserating with him in the hopes that it would make them both feel better by letting their feelings out. She'd talked about how much she missed Renard and how he must miss Kyrie just as much, but after that night, she hadn't tried pouring her heart out to him a second time; the only thing it had done was make them both absolutely miserable.
To try and get his mind off of how much he'd missed Kyrie, he spent more time speaking to and observing the members of the Deveris household. He wasn't entirely sure how much he was really able to pick up on, but he did get the sense that through their more subtle interactions and words that they mostly felt that they answered more to Lord Deveris than Lady Deveris. They liked the lady just fine, in fact they quite adored her, but she wasn't the authority figure to them. The one they really answered to was Lord Deveris. … If that was the case… Didn't that mean the poisoning probably had something to do with him? If the slaves in the Dominion didn't have a lot of true devotion to Jiera then they likely wouldn't have found out about Mae's condition through her. Considering the fact that Lord Deveris was Jiera's husband, that was a person that Jiera may have confided to about Mae's position.
To that end he'd started investigating ties between Lord Deveris and Lady Dandridge. Just how did he feel about the lady? Did he say different things behind closed doors? Who did he tend to associate with most often? These were all important questions that Isaac had decided to try and pursue. The only thing that Isaac was able to pick up on, really, was that Lord Deveris sent a lot of slaves out to deliver messages. That wasn't really anything too remarkable though considered how active their social lives were. Isaac couldn't exactly follow the slaves once they left the grounds, and Lord Deveris rarely had any important meetings in his own house to eavesdrop on. All things considered, despite his efforts he didn't really get much that was conclusive either way.
Drawn out of his own thoughts when he encountered Mae's doorway, he was soon knocking on the door to Mae's room. He was permitted entry, and as he eased the door open, he held his breath at the thought that he would finally see Kyrie somewhere. When he got a view of the inside of the room though, his shoulders visibly slumped. No Kyrie... It was just Mae, Raine and Vivian.
"Set the items down next to the door, and bring Raine's things to my room as well."
A brief look of confusion passed across Isaac's face at that last part, but he wasn't about to question an order given by the lady. Setting down the luggage in the correct location, he then left the room to head back down the stairs.
Just where was she?
The gloom around Isaac was only getting worse, but at least he didn't have Renard and whoever that stableman was talking about some beautiful woman that wasn't Kyrie. Though to be fair, if they were talking about Kyrie he wasn't sure that would've been much better; Kyrie was his, and to hear other men looking upon her with desire stirred up hateful feelings in him. He knew it was an overreaction, he knew that he should be happy if she ever got compliments like that, but he didn't think he'd ever be able to grin and bear it without everyone present knowing that the grin was only a thin facade.
Tromping back out to the stables, before he could fully make his way inside of them, something just outside made him stop in his boots.
There was Kyrie, lightly bracing herself against the entrance to the stables as she peered in, clearly looking for something.
For a moment Isaac was speechless as his eyes followed the contours of her smaller body: she was still just as beautiful as he remembered. That wasn't really that big of a surprise though: Kyrie was a lovely gem to him that he was positive he would admire for all his days. He could see that her expression was a little nervous, but she didn't seem to be doing particularly poorly. He could easily just watch Kyrie for a while as she stood there, but a bigger part of him wanted to do more than watch.
"Kyrie?"
His voice broke a little as he said her name, though he tried his best to disguise it. There was just too much emotion running through him at the moment; there was relief that she was alright and still wanted to see him, and then of course there was the love he always felt for her. Both these emotions were just impossible to keep out of his voice.
She jumped a little at the sound of a voice from behind her, and as she quickly turned he could see that her eyes were wide open from surprise. The moment she saw him though, she seemed to be equally frozen to the spot. One of her hands went up to cover her mouth as her eyes began to tear up a little. Usually her tears were concerning, but from what he could see of the expression on her face, this wasn't the threat of upset tears, it was the threat of happy ones. Finally Isaac found himself cracking his first smile after coming back, and he knew now that he was home.
"Kyrie!"
Clear excitement in his voice now, he sped forward and engulfed her in a hug. Her body was warm against his, and she fit against him just as naturally as he remembered. Burying his face against the side of her head, he took in a deep but slightly shaky breath; it felt almost unreal to hold her like this again, now that he was though, he didn't ever want to let go.
Once Isaac had unfrozen, Kyrie too had been prompted into motion; opening her arms to eagerly embrace Isaac, she squeezed herself up against him. Even though Isaac was a bit dirty from the road, it didn't seem to matter in the least to Kyrie; to be surrounded by his scent and presence once more... It felt so comfortable, so incredibly nice. She knew that she'd missed him, but she hadn't realized just how much until now. Tears of happiness were slowly spilling down her face, though there was something else to them that wasn't immediately obvious. It was as if the confirmation that she loved Isaac as much as she did was further cementing in her mind how important it was for her to keep her secret. So perhaps these tears were tears of relief to see that he still thought so positively about her, or maybe they were tears of sadness to know that there was no way she would ever be able to tell him about what she'd done. Whatever that mixed feeling was, Kyrie didn't dwell on it long enough to figure it out. She didn't want to ruin this moment between them.
"I missed you..."
Kyrie's voice came out muffled against him, and Isaac gave her a soft smile as he kissed the top of her head.
"Mmm... To hear your voice and be able to feel you again... I can't tell you how much I longed for this while we were apart. Though by the sounds of it, you seem to understand the sentiment."
Giving her a little more of a squeeze accompanied by a gentle smile, the two of them spent a couple more moments together until a rather teasing sounding whistle drew their faces away. There was Renard and Jiera's stablehand standing there. The stablehand was looking away and clearly acting out of sorts for having stumbled upon an intimate scene, while Renard was staring down the two of them with a grin on his face, not even remotely embarrassed by what he was seeing.
"Look at you two lovebirds! You'll make me jealous."
Sure enough this flustered Kyrie horribly and she stepped back from Isaac in embarrassment. Isaac gave his friend a pretty clear glower as he let Kyrie go rather reluctantly; he wasn't about to keep hugging her against her will, after all. Renard just shrugged, though that smirk was still lighting up his face.
"I'm just saying, you getting time with your lady while I have to wait for one of my own seems a mite unfair."
Isaac still wasn't exactly happy about this, but the fact that he'd seen Kyrie had put him in a much better mood. Deciding that the best course of action would be to just ignore Renard (he tended to lose interest quicker that way), Isaac turned his attention back towards Kyrie. It occurred to him now that he hadn't even bothered asking her why she was down here—he'd just been so happy to see her that everything else took a bit of a backseat—now that he thought about it though, it was a little unusual. She should probably be helping out Vivian if she wasn't currently in the menagerie, yet here she was, out in the stables for some reason. Scrutinizing his lover a little, he could see that she was looking down at the ground as per usual for her when she got too shy. Renard and the stablehand were still lingering, and Isaac gave them a slight jerk of the head towards the stables to tell them to move on. Isaac wasn't paying enough attention to them to see whether they complied, but it would seem that only the stablehand rushed to go get more luggage.
Isaac's attention was more on Kyrie, he wanted to get her feeling less shy again. Gently resting a hand over her shoulders to pull her towards him, he kissed the side of her head comfortingly.
"I'm sorry, I was so excited to see you again that I didn't even ask what you were down here for."
At this question, Kyrie flinched a little and her hands began to fidget. Isaac had expected the relatively simple question to calm her down, but instead it was getting her more flustered. Unbidden, the memories of her coming out to the stables for the express purpose of having sex with him flit through his head. His heart raced at the mere thought of that, and he struggled internally to get himself to calm down. Even if that was the case here (which he highly doubted), they didn't exactly have the time nor privacy to indulge such desires at the moment.
The response that Kyrie ended up giving was one that Renard wasn't able to hear, and even Isaac, who was right next to her, had to lean in to hear it.
"I just... I wanted to see you again. I should be up with Vivian but I... I figured I could at least check down here before heading up."
Isaac swelled with love to hear that and he couldn't resist leaning in to nuzzle the side of her face before murmuring softly into her ear.
"Oh, Kyrie, I love you so damn much.... Thank you for coming to see me."
She blushed brightly at this and despite the fact that Renard was still watching, she reached up to lightly touch Isaac's stubble as a kind of brace before kissing the side of his face.
"Of course I'd come to see you... I missed you a lot, you know..."
Isaac practically beamed at her in response, and finding herself once again overcome by shyness, especially so due to the fact that they had an audience, Kyrie dropped her hand and turned her face away from Isaac. Bringing her hands up to her own face as if that would help quell the heat there, she clenched her eyes shut while she wrestled with her embarrassment. Why was Renard even still here? Did he have to be watching this? This was probably just him trying to tease her again!
Isaac rested his hands over Kyrie's for a moment to turn her face back towards him before leaning in to gently touch their foreheads together. Closing his eyes, he found that he really didn't want to let her go, but he knew that Kyrie had her own chores to do. It was a blessing enough that he'd even gotten to see her like this before dinner time. He had his own work to do as well, so this really wasn't the time to enjoy each other's company like this, as much as he wished it was.
Tonight though, tonight he would have Kyrie again, and he would be sure to savor every second of it.
Effectively revitalized for his chores, he let Kyrie go, and her eyes fluttered open with a bit of sadness to have Isaac's presence leave her. She knew why he was letting her go though, it was a busy day, and they both had things to do. Giving one last caressing touch to Isaac's face, she gave him a soft smile.
"I'll be counting down the hours until this evening."
Blushing brightly at how much more forward it sounded now that she'd said it, Kyrie practically scurried off towards the house. Had she really just said that to him? Still, this was a good sign, wasn't it? She'd been worried that she might act too nervous around Isaac, especially so with Renard watching. But... interacting with Isaac was just so different from interacting with Renard that there was very little comparing them to each other. As a result, when she spent time with one, she didn't think too much about the other. There really was nothing to worry about then: she could do this. Feeling good about the current state of things, Kyrie's embarrassed run turned into something a bit lighter due to the good feeling. Her cheeks still felt a little heated, but she wouldn't want it any other way after an encounter with Isaac.
Renard, in the meantime, had watched all these proceedings with interest in his eyes. He couldn't hear all the words, sure, but he saw how the two interacted with each other. Usually they weren't so open about their affections in public, but the fact that Isaac hadn't seen Kyrie for so long combined with Kyrie's slight shift towards more confidence meant that he was privy to a new view. There was no jealousy in Renard to see Kyrie get intimate with another man though; it wasn't like she was his, after all, and he wouldn't really want that to be the case, if he was being honest.
When Isaac noticed that Renard was still standing there, the silly grin that was on his face as he watched Kyrie leave turned to a furrowed brow.
"You couldn't have the decency to give us some privacy?"
The tone with which Isaac said this told Renard that his friend was in a much better mood now, joking around instead of being hostile. It would seem that whatever worries Isaac might've had became immediately alleviated upon seeing Kyrie. Well, if she had that much of an effect on him then Isaac was never going to find out about the fact that they'd slept together. It didn't exactly feel great to keep this from his friend, but he would admit that successfully keeping it from Isaac would make things a whole lot easier. Giving Isaac a rather easy grin in response to his question, Renard countered with a quip of his own.
"Oh please, Isaac, you know me better than that!"
Isaac just rolled his eyes before disappearing into the stables and Renard followed after him with a laugh.
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