Chapter Text
Ophelia made three circuits of the Fortemps parlor in her new four-ilm heels before her ankle rolled and sent her flying into a sideboard. She clutched at it, only for her hands to lose purchase on the smooth mahogany before she went sprawling onto the floor.
“Rats,” she muttered, staring up at the elaborate ceiling.
She lifted her left ankle up and wiggled it experimentally. There was no pain, and all of her toes seemed able to move, although she couldn’t see them through the boot leather. Thank the Twelve. It would have been extremely embarrassing to ask Alphinaud to fix a sprained ankle she’d received in the comfort of a manor house. Her hip smarted from where she’d knocked into the sideboard, but that was all right. Once more onto the beach, as they say, she thought to herself.
She heard approaching footsteps and hurried to sit up, then relaxed as the parlor door opened to reveal Haurchefant, looking puzzled.
“I heard a crash,” he said. “Was that you? Are you quite all right?”
“Perfectly,” she said with a nod.
“And yet there you are on the floor. I know you’ve been fretting about being a well-mannered guest, but you are allowed on the furniture,” Haurchefant drawled. Ophelia grinned as he walked over to her and extended a large hand.
“I tripped, that’s all,” she explained as she took it, hoisting herself up on wobbly feet.
“I expect so. What in the world is that on your feet?”
Ophelia took a moment to savor being very nearly eye level with Haurchefant’s collarbone for a change. “New boots,” she declared, sticking out one foot and wiggling it, while keeping careful grip on Haurchefant’s hand for balance. His brow furrowed as he looked down.
“You could put an eye out with those heels. Is that the idea? A new combat style?”
She smacked his arm lightly; he pulled her hand into the crook of his arm with a grin, and began to promenade around the room. “I just liked them!” Ophelia insisted, feeling much steadier with someone to hold on to. Haurchefant raised an eyebrow, though, and finally she admitted: “I keep looking at the Elezen women who live here in Ishgard, and they’re all so elegant and glamorous and tall, and it got me feeling all stumpy and a little bit dowdy, so I thought…”
“Perish the thought,” Haurchefant protested, squeezing her hand. “My apologies. Had I known you were feeling that way, I would have sung your beauty to the heavens in front of all and sundry, and clothed you in silks and jewels until you were dripping with lustre…”
He punctuated every pause with a kiss to her temple, causing her to flush and giggle until she tripped over her own feet. He kept her from falling, though, holding her with one arm around her waist as easily as if she weighed nothing at all, then dipped her deeper and took her breath away with a resounding kiss to her lips. Ophelia smiled into him, pressing her hands against his broad, firm chest. Propriety and responsibility both had necessitated that they couldn’t spend as much time together in Ishgard as they had at Camp Dragonhead, where all she had to do was perch on his desk and smile at him to get him to abandon his paperwork for an afternoon; luckily, Haurchefant was so far proving excellent at snatching small, indulgent moments whenever possible.
“I’m taking those ridiculous boots off,” he murmured after pulling away, setting her gently down on the floor. “Ishgard needs your ankles intact, and I need you not to doubt how absolutely irresistible you are to me.”
Ophelia knew she was flushing up to her ears as he took her foot in one hand. Presumably one day she’d get used to the way he spoke to her, but as he seemed to delight in flustering her, perhaps he’d just become more bombastic in response.
“I don’t really want jewelry, you know,” she said as he ran his fingers up her leg to the top of her boots.
“Oh?”
“Well, my mother says that it’s a good idea to hoard it when you can in case you need to sell it in an emergency. But I don’t wear much,” Ophelia amended, even though she felt like she shouldn’t be taking about her mother as Haurchefant was untying her boot in a way that would probably violate obscenity laws.
“Clever of her.”
“And silk is beautiful but it’s a terribly hard fabric to maintain,” she continued, as he slid the boot off her foot, cupping her stockinged heel in his hand and sending tingles up her leg.
“I’d hire you an army of laundresses.”
“I still wouldn’t mind being a few inches taller, though. That way I could kiss you whenever I wanted, without having to find something to stand on first.”
She could tell she’d pleased him by the way his eyes got soft and the corners crinkled. He pressed his lips to the hollow just behind the bony part of her ankle, then to her calf; by the time her foot was over his shoulder and his lips were kissing the soft skin behind her knee, she was dizzy with the sensation of it.
She was also distracted enough not to hear footsteps in the hallway until the door swung open. She smacked the side of Haurchefant’s head and squeaked something unintelligible, pointing behind him.
“Is aught amiss?” he asked, looking over his shoulder. The door was shut again by the time he turned around, but very shortly there were several loud, pointed knocks.
By the time Haurchefant called “Come in!”, Ophelia was seated demurely on a chaise removing her other boot. The head manservant of the manor entered to discuss something about supper with Haurchefant that Ophelia couldn’t quite hear over the blood rushing to her ears, but— ever the optimist— she supposed she was glad it wasn’t Lord Fortemps who had seen her with her skirts up around her ears.