Prompt fic (original)

[icarus_chained]

Title:  Founders of Empire
Rating:  PG
Wordcount:  377
Notes:  Inspired by this image: http://www.teaspirit.com/teabagladies/uploaded_images/lady_in_victorian_black_dress_having_tea-756019.jpg, courtesy of bradygirl_12 

Founders of Empire

 

Her husband and Colonel Harking had adjourned to the front room for port, leaving the chess game unfinished on the drawing room table, and judging from the boisterous laughter they did not intend to move for some time. In fact, if the word she and half the house had just heard had indeed been 'monkey', and her husband was regalling his guest with that particular story, she might have an hour or more to herself. A blank period of time that might have daunted a lesser woman than she, especially since Harking had had the bad manners to leave his wife at home, but Mrs Portia Winters was made of sterner stuff. She looked back towards the door, and the lively sounds of her husband's retelling, and back to the chess board with the slightest of smiles.

An hour should be plenty of time to rectify the appalling strategy her husband seemed to be attempting to enact, with only the slightest of adjustments to the board, and Harking was just ignorant enough not to notice. If she did this right, of course, but really, there was no question of her doing anything else.

She was sitting by the sideboard when the menfolk returned to finish their evening game, a cup of tea held daintily in her hands, the very image of a proper, English wife. Harking, naturally enough, paid her little attention. He was that manner of man. But her husband saw her. He saw the knowing look in her eyes, the vague hint of mocking in the smile she granted the oblivious Harking, and his eyes went with natural suspicion to the chessboard. She felt an instant's powerful, familiar appreciation for this man she had married, watching his keen eyes note the changed pieces on the ebony-and-ivory field, watching his mind turn over the new strategy and recognise its superiority. She saw too his well-masked contempt for the opponent who never even realised the treachery, and nodded to herself when he declined to mention it. Harking didn't deserve such courtesy.

His eyes met hers as he placed the first piece in their adapted gambit, and her smile was vivid and full of knowing.

A man's position was all very well, but one must never forget the true founders of empire.