The office was quiet at this hour.
Lord Kavan had made a habit of late evenings precisely because of that quiet — the staff reduced to skeleton numbers, the corridors empty, the particular stillness of a building that had stopped performing for the day and was simply existing.
His wife had found him at his desk, and he had not sent her away.
She was in his lap now, her arms around his neck, his hands at her waist, the kiss between them unhurried in the way of people who had been together long enough that urgency had given way to something more deliberate and more intimate for it. Her fingers were in his hair. He had forgotten, briefly and completely, about the Supreme Council, the coronation, and the goddess he had been forced to acknowledge with his own voice.
The knock came sharp and official.
They broke apart.
