"I am a pleasing thought?" He inquires with a grin as he smiles down at her. He was such a large man that even when she was seated in his lap he had just a bit of height on her. "I always thought of myself as more of an actual person than a thought but I won't argue about being pleasing."

"Believe me, you are a thought constantly," she laughed softly, resting her hand over his heart and splaying her fingers. "You're a person too of course, but I mean to say that I think about you a lot. I have since we met." Her eyes were serious and she wasn't smiling now. "I feel like I can be more than a mere woman when I am around you."

"My dear, you are no mere woman. You are a remarkable one." He says with a grin as he feels her hand splay across his chest. Outside the English countryside whirs by at a rapid pace. Pastoral fields filled with fluffy white clouds on legs passed them by old stone fences dividing the land into individual farms and lives. But at that moment it was only the life within the little cabin on the train that really mattered.

A smile played at her lips once more, slow to come but not in a bad way. She gazed into his eyes, murmuring, "You think so? I think you're a remarkable man." Her cheeks filled with a gentle red. Claire wondered if she wasn't already in falling, for at that moment, it felt like she was freefalling through the sky down toward the Earth.

"Why thank you." He says and then he leans in and kisses her softly. Just a soft meeting of lips as his strong hand rests on the small of her back, his thumb rubbing softly against her spine. The other resting lightly on her waist as he holds her steady with gentle pressure.

The kiss made her belly clench. Her eyes drifted closed and she sighed into it. When she pulled away, it was only slightly and so she could gaze upon him again. "When you do that, I cannot think anymore," she admitted softly, "You addle my senses." She gave a chuckle at that and returned to kissing him.

"My dear, I do believe that may be a good thing for such a long trip."

With that, they settled into soft words and softer kisses enjoying a few hours of casual easy intimacy as they learned more of the other. Around noon there is a knock at the door and he calls for just a moment letting her rise from his lap so he can answer it. It was the lunch service and the porter had a tray of tea sandwiches and little mince pies alongside a pitcher of iced tea for a side drink, at Quentin's request as he preferred it alongside a meal.

He was so easy to be around, she thought as they shared another meal together. She would love to share meals with him more. He was a fascination and had her rapt attention whenever he spoke. She told him about her father and how she did admire the man, but how neither he nor her brother understood her need to stretch her wings beyond her little world. "Perhaps they will never understand that I just don't want to be the Belle of the ball."

"It is perhaps one of life's cruellest ironies that occasionally our parents are the ones that want us to grow the least," Quentin says with a solemn nod, well familiar with that particular feeling. Of parents that wanted you grown enough to sustain yourself but still be young enough and obedient enough to do as they wanted.

"You're absolutely right," she said. Her eyes met his once more, and she reached over to thread her fingers through his from across the space between them. She liked to touch him, she thought as her thumb grazed over one line or another, the creases that characterized his palm.