(no subject)
[mun takeover, again]
Hey, look, it's Henry/Victoria! Sort of. Except they're rather sad. And intensely short.
There was, she thought, something almost amusing about the way he lied to her. He would have been perfectly convincing to anyone who didn't see the way the fingers holding his cigarette tensed just slightly when he said it, or didn't know that the way he met her gaze was not quite usual-- that he never allowed himself to be searched that way unless he was, indeed, hiding something.
"Harry," she said, a hint of laughter in her voice now. "You weren't at Windermere's. I was at Windermere's, and I'm sure I would have seen you. Or if I hadn't, he would have told me. He always likes to tell me where you are, even when he doesn't know."
"You're laughing at me," he said. "Why is it you always laugh at me when I lie to you?"
"Because, darling," she told him, with a sudden, bright smile. "I would rather not cry."
***************
"You're leaving, then?" he asked, lighting a cigarette.
"Yes." She sighed. "You should have gone to the club, Harry. I could have written you a letter."
There was a long silence. At last, he asked-- "who?"
"His name is Darlington," she said, "you've met him. You liked him, I think."
He thought for a moment. "He played Chopin."
"Yes."
"It is terribly romantic of you, to leave me for a pianist."
"Yes," she said, her melancholy smile a mirror of his own. "I thought you would appreciate it." For a long moment, she watched the cigarette burning away. "Did you ever love me, Harry?" she wondered.
"Wildly," he said.
She studied him a while, a strange intensity coming into normally distant blue eyes. Suddenly, she laughed. "No wonder we could never be happy!"
(Also, I am beginning to wonder if I have ever written anything about Lord Henry where he isn't smoking. O_o)
[/mun takeover]