Emma's Tea Spot, Baltimore, Maryland, Thursday Afternoon

[mustbeawitch]

It was Lydia's twentieth birthday in a few days, which she very much doubted anyone remembered. She was trying very hard not to make a fuss about that, though it was very difficult. Look at her, maturing or something. Still, as the birthday girl she felt she was allowed a few liberties, such as moving Supper Club to the afternoon so they could have afternoon tea, a lovely English tradition she thoroughly predated but had been introduced to on the school trip to Canada. She did so hope everyone would enjoy it.

She had included in the message letting their usual suspects know about the time change and location a note that it might be fun to dress up a bit (she herself was wearing her newest dress, but that wasn't mandatory. Probably. Look, you had all met Lydia, right?

Welcome to Supper--er, Afternoon Tea Club, everyone!

Comments

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

And here was another excellent reason why Liliana might be leaving early. Or, at least, so those tiny brushes of her fingers over his tie and down his vest were suggesting.

"You're so lucky to be here," she said with a smile.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[chef_chocobro]

"Mmmm," Ignis hummed, and if he'd been pushing his luck with the bold suggestion that they make their Supper Club appointment that afternoon, then surely it was now teetering on the edge with that hum accompanied by that smugness his grin had adopted far more frequently these days, "you know, there are some who say that luck is little more than preparation meeting opportunity..."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

"It's the opportunity that I'm referring to," Liliana said. "Here, specifically." The briefest moment where her hand curled around his tie like she was about to use it to pull him somewhere, possibly just close enough to kiss. But then almost as quickly as she grabbed it, she was letting it go, even smoothing it back out with her hand.

Just a taste. A little amuse-bouche before tea.

"It's possible I should have been a little more insistent earlier."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[chef_chocobro]

Ignis deeply appreciated Liliana's attention to his particular love of fastidiousness with that settling of his tie again.

"It is possible," he agreed, with that deepened drawl that he knew was just asking for more trouble. "But I do believe they also say hindsight is 20/20, as well. Just a little tea with our supper club friends to take our minds off the stress and distraction of party planning, my love."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

"Mmm, quite," she murmured in a drawl of her own. Then her hand stopped stroking, as she looked at him. "Is that what this is about?" she asked. "Distraction? From...?"

The rigors and stresses party planning, sure.

It would be an excellent strategy. Transmuting grief PARTY STRESS that could not be worked through into frustration that could?

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[chef_chocobro]

Ignis' expression softened, the hand that seemed so often just magnetized to her hip and the small of her back pulled her in a little bit closer, after a soothing brush of his thumb.

He lightly shook his head, smiling softly back at Liliana.

"You know it was all I could do to oblige in Miss Bennet's request for a little more pomp and circumstance this week."

He leaned forward to give a kiss to her (party-planning-inspired) trouble brow, and that gentle pull closer because something more of an embrace, and his voice dropped to a whisper in her ear. Not in the way he so often did, low and rumbling and intending to make her melt, but he recognized, now, that it might still yield somewhat similar results.

"Any resulting distraction," he added, "is truly serendipitous. "

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

For a moment, a single moment, possibly even shorter than the moment she had grabbed his tie, Liliana allowed her forehead to rest against his, her eyes closed. Just a moment, to take comfort in him, in the strength of his arms around her, in the ways that he understood what no one else alive could.

And then the moment was gone as if it had never been, and she was laughing, low and soft. "Well, I suppose then it is I who is lucky to be here, no? As the one benefitting from all this serendipity."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[chef_chocobro]

"I rather believe, my love," Ignis said, his voice still low and soft, but with all that warmth and comfort of that brief, fleeting moment finding ner purchase in it, "that those benefits are unrelenting mutual."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

And Liliana stole a page from Ignis' own book, eschewing words said merely for the sake of them, and, instead, reached out and slid her fingers between his, slow and deliberate, until at last their hands were tangled up in one another, a bit of metal of incredible significance resting against his skin and slowly warming up from the contact.