Free Scrivener's Tale by Fiona McIntosh

heard before. He took a private pleasure in thinking that Reynard had probably never heard her voice.
    â€˜Don’t like caffeine?’ he repeated with feigned despair. ‘How do you cope?’
    â€˜I manage,’ she murmured, almost playfully. She ran a hand over the coffee machine. Her nails were trimmed blunt, but neatly, with perfect half-moons above the cuticles. They were free of varnish but still they shone. He was one of those people who noticed. Unbitten, trimmed, buffed and well-kept nails spoke droves.
    â€˜You have lovely hands, Angelina,’ he said, before he could censure himself.
    â€˜I’m not vain but I do take care of them,’ she said, looking at her nails briefly. She gave a rueful laugh that sounded like a soft sigh. She walked away from the coffee machine and him.
    â€˜Are you warm enough?’ he asked solicitously.
    She nodded over her shoulder. He didn’t want this time to drift into awkwardness. They’d begun well and he needed to keep that positive energy bouncing between them if he was to make progress with her.
    â€™finish this. ‘Angelina, today we’re just going to talk. Like a couple of old friends, having coffee and,’ he pointed to the small table, ‘sharing some pastries.’
    She looked so small and alone he felt an urge to hug her as extra reassurance. It was obvious the young woman was starved of affection, but it was not his role to provide it. Instead he opened his palms to her. ‘Can I get you a soft drink? Mineral water?’
    She eyed him gravely. ‘I’m fine, really. Do you want me to sit down?’
    He nodded and looked at the comfy chairs by the window. ‘I’ll just
    She turned away but paused at the sideboard to look at his boxed quill. ‘This is very lovely,’ she said. ‘May I touch it?’
    â€˜Be my guest,’ he said over the sound of grinding the beans. He watched her pick up the quill and weigh it in her hand before she held it out to admire it in the light. ‘It’s old.’
    â€˜Antique, apparently,’ he replied.
    â€˜Older,’ he thought she said.
    â€˜It’s from a swan, can you believe?’ he called over the noise of the machine gathering steam. He tamped down the coffee and locked the bar handle into place, then pressed the button. The machine responded with its routine noises as the pump now wound up the pressure. He walked away from the groans and grinds for a few seconds so he could hear her properly.
    â€˜Only scriveners are given the swan quill.’
    Gabe was astonished by her remark.
    â€˜How would you know that?’ he said with a smile as he returned to the machine to test that it was ready to froth the milk. A burst of steam wheezed. ‘Oh, Reynard, of course,’ he said, before she could reply. It made sense that Reynard would have told her about the quill.
    Gabe glanced over and noticed her short skirt ease higher up her stockinged thighs as she sat and stared out of the window. Angelina had a far more voluptuous body than he’d imagined beneath all those layers.
    â€˜
Voilà
,’ he murmured to himself as he poured the milk into the shot of coffee.
    Gabe sipped as he moved to join her, and sighed as he finally seated himself opposite. He put the coffee on the table between them before he leaned back and nonchalantly crossed a leg. It was a series of deliberate actions to make her feel comfortable, to show that he was relaxed and that she should feel the same. At the same time he was thinking how she was beautiful in an almost ethereal way.
    â€˜It wasn’t Reynard,’ she said, brushing some invisible lint from her skirt.
    â€˜Sorry?’ He wasn’t sure what she meant.
    â€˜The swan quill. It wasn’t Reynard who told me. Everyone knows a scrivener needs the quill of a swan,’ she said airily, as though it was of no further interest to her. ‘It’s nice here. How long have