Lena hardly had begun to walk away before the door suddenly opened behind her and Samuel stepped out. She raised an eyebrow at him when she realized that he seemed nervous about something.
"I realized that I forgot something after you left." He told her as he tried to keep his voice as straight as possible while approaching her even though he was nervous about what he intended to do. He tried to convince himself however that he was eventually going to be getting used it and probably after tomorrow, he wouldn't be seeing her for a week or so anyways. Lena was about ready to ask Samuel what he was talking about, but before she had a chance to speak, he leaned forward and carefully placed a kiss on her lips.
It was completely different from how she kissed in that it didn't hold the same level of confidence and it was much quicker and shorter, but at least he did it this time without her saying something first.
"That was all, so I guess good night and I'll see you tomorrow morning if my parents agree." He quickly told her before retreating the few steps back to his room. He went back inside and closed his door a little harder than he had meant to, but managed not to slam it.
Lena stared at his door for a few seconds as she processed what had just happened before a smirk appeared on her face. At least if she was going to be in an arranged marriage with someone, it was at least someone who was proving to be more interesting than she had expected him to.
She knew that right then wasn't the time to be pondering over such a thing however. She still had to go speak with her father about the matter and tell him what she had decided. She didn't think that he would object to letting Samuel go home early if he knew that she was serious about following through with making the engagement official.
Zane was waiting for her in his study which was on the opposite side of the house from where the sun room was located. She didn't bother knocking before she entered as she knew he was already expecting her. She had caught him before going to talk with Samuel to say that there was something that she also wanted to discuss with him tonight.
He looked up from what the paperwork he was going over and set it to the side when he saw that his daughter had entered. He didn't miss the serious look about her, he had already guessed however what it was that she was going to want to talk with him about.
He motioned for her to take the seat at the opposite side of the desk from him as she reached into his draw and pulled out the pipe. Lighting it, he handed it to her first once she was seated. He knew that she was probably a bit too young to be smoking at her age, but he never objected because his late father had allowed for him to do the same.
The pipe was also a sort of sentimental item for the family as well. It was hand painted black and red and had been passed down for generations with little wear and damage having been done to it over the decades. Each generation did their best to preserve it and make sure it stayed undamaged no matter how many times they used it.
Lena had waited until the first few puffs of nicotine had hit her before she handed the pipe back to her father and started to speak. She wanted to get the matter over with before she ended up changing her mind as well.
"I talked with Sammy tonight. I told him that I agree to go ahead with the engagement, but I also told him that there are a lot of things that he hasn't been exposed to yet that might be hard for him to get used to right away." She explained to her father who nodded his head as he listened to what she said while blowing out the pipe smoke. He didn't speak though because he knew the princess wasn't done with what she had to say.
"I told him that if you agreed and his parents agreed, if he accompanied me to the gun range tomorrow, that I didn't mind if he went home early for the weekend to spend it with him family as I've already made my decision and I didn't think you would object." He stared at her thoughtfully for a few seconds.
"Why did you want to take him to the gun range?" He asked. He want to understand her reasoning behind this before he said anything else.
"Because even if I agree, there's no point in going forward with the engagement if he can't handle being around guns. It was just complicate everything." She explained as she took the pipe back from him.
"I don't have an objection to that as long as you use proper safety measures, but does this mean you've accepted him?"
"I wouldn't go that far. He's an interesting person that much I can agree on, but whether I accept him or not is still to be determined over the next six months when he's going to be exposed to a world that is vastly different even compared to what he was introduced to this week."
"I can handle that as long as you're not planning to drop the boy the moment that mutual feelings develop or you start to think that he can't handle the situation. She scowled at her father when he said this. Working so closely as they had, he always knew what she was thinking or considering even before she had said anything to him about it.
"I don't plan on doing anything unfairly to him. However, also won't stick with someone who would so easily break under pressure. If I find him to be like that in the slightest, of course I will send him away. There's no other option for it because this type of world isn't for someone who's like that." She retorted causing him father to chuckle. Feeling slightly irritated, she decided not to hand the pipe back to him yet.
"It may mean that you need to change your standards a bit for that to work. Your expectations tend to be raised at a level that is a bit too high for others to quickly catch up with. If it comes down to it though, I won't object to you breaking the arrangement if you think he wouldn't be able to handle his position of taking over with you." Zane assured her.
"My standards aren't the problem, it's other people who don't want to have to jump as high as is sometimes necessary to accomplish certain goals." She huffed before handing him back the pipe. "With a little bit of time and training, I'm sure he will do just fine, but he hasn't been tested yet so I'm not holding my breath."
Listening to the princess talk, her father couldn't help but feel that he was partly at fault for the way she thought and the perspective that she had situations from. It was both a positive and negative, but at this very moment he felt like it was something that was going to cause her trouble in the future.
"I'm sure that won't be an issue when it comes to it, something can be worked out that can ease him into it. Since you're here though, there's something that I want to talk to you about. Perhaps a reason why it might not be a bad idea to send him back home early either way." Reaching into a different draw he pulled out a large white envelope.
Lena didn't have to open it to already knew that what was inside was going to end up causing her a headache. It seemed like the world already knew what the plan moving forward should be even if she wasn't certain of it herself.
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