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I didn’t leave my house for several days after the tournament. Lady Delphine’s words played on my mind on an endless loop, her face invaded my dreams.
Prince Kaspar does not love me. It is obvious he loves another.
Was it obvious? Did he even really love me? Or was I just a distraction? When we were in the palace together, the sneaking around had been so fun. But now, with Kaspar married, was what we had just a game that had been overplayed? A mistake made too many times?
I had wanted Delphine to like me. I had wanted to entertain her. To make her smile. It wasn’t because I was being a proud performer. I wasn’t proud that day at the tournament. I had felt wrong in my own skin, and then Kaspar had kissed me and everything was better for that sliver of a moment.
I couldn’t believe Delphine knew about us. Was it luck that she responded the way she did? That didn’t feel right.
What was I supposed to do with this information?
Part of me wanted to never leave my house again. To curl up in front on my hearth and just wither away to nothing. But, as sick as I now felt with what we were doing behind the pure, beautiful Delphine’s back, I couldn’t lose what I had with Kaspar. Call me selfish, dear reader, but at least I am no liar.
Maybe you still do not understand what was at stake for me. So here is another flashback to strengthen your knowledge.
The hay scratched at my back through my shirt as I sketched. My muse – the handsome young black stallion – stood impassively in his stable, ears twitching every so often to bat away flies.
It was a cloudy day so the brightness of the parchment wasn’t so painful to look at. I had spent most of my afternoon on the pile of hay bales after overhearing a pair of knights speaking of the prince’s fondness for his horse, and how he liked to groom him himself. But I was mostly hanging around by the stables to perfect my drawing skills, of course. I was still struggling a little with dimensions.
“Has Bucky given you permission to use him as a model?”
My pencil slid from my grip and almost got lost in the hay. Fumbling, I managed to retrieve it and looked up to find the prince watching me with a smirk.
“We’ve come to an agreement. I’m paying him in carrots,” I replied, wiping my sweaty palms on my britches.
The prince sidled over to his beloved stallion and gave him a hearty slap on his flank. The horse leaned against him, pressing his head against the prince’s shoulder fondly.
“That right, Buck?” The horse nibbled his collar. “Good quality carrots, I hope.” The prince turned back to me and motioned me over. “Let me take a look, then.”
I jumped to my feet and hastened over, my sketch pad held out like an offering. The prince took it from me and studied the half drawn picture of his stallion.
“It’s not quite finished. I still need to add shading,” I explained, my heart stuttering. I was close enough to feel his body heat. His blond hair was sweat-darkened against his brow and neck.
“This is quite something, Wally.”
Several nights had passed since our drunken evening eating cheese and talking nonsense. There was a part of me that thought maybe the wine had warped, or possibly even erased, the night from his memory. But the way he said my name – not even my name, his nickname for me, with such easy affection, it made my breath shake.
The prince tilted the page as if to show it to Bucky who was more interested in the wall behind the prince’s head.
“You really love him, don’t you?” the question left my mouth before I even thought about it.
The prince smiled and patted his stallion’s shiny coat. “We’ve been through a lot together. We look after each other out there.”
I had heard the stories. The prince wasn’t just a pretty face waiting for the throne. He was out in the thick of it. He had even been ambushed by assassins sent to kill him and weaken the kingdom. It was general knowledge that his mother had died giving birth to him, and his father treated the prince like he was his own heart. King Cedric simply would not live if anything was to happen to his son. And that was a glaring weakness that neighbouring lands targeted with ruthless abandon. I figured it was part of the reason the king was so eager for the prince to marry. Perhaps marriage would make him settle? Would he not be so quick to battle and put his life on the line if he had a wife waiting for him in the palace, possibly a child? Or perhaps, with a princess in the kingdom, the king had another successor to lean on. Whatever the reason for the marriage was, it definitely wasn’t love.
The prince passed the sketch back to me. “I was about to go for a ride. Would you like to join? You can take Theo-” He gestured to the chestnut stallion half hidden in the shadows of the neighbouring stall. “He needs to stretch his legs.”
“I’m afraid I do not know how to ride.” The admittance came out as a shameful whisper. I looked down at my boots.
“You don’t know how to ride?”
I shook my head. “There weren’t many horses in Greysmarsh. And the ones we did have were working horses. The only time I have ridden one was on my journey here, and I had been on the back of a knight’s.”
A silence followed. My heart hammered in my chest. Did he think of me to be a simpleton? I pressed my lips into a thin line, hiding my grimace, as I looked to him. The prince was frowning down at me. He exhaled sharply through his nostrils and my shoulders stiffened to deflect an oncoming smack. Perhaps Mrs Treager’s heavy-handedness in my childhood had left a lasting impression.
“Well, we shall have to fix that. We can’t have you living in the palace not knowing how to ride. That is absurd. We shall start tomorrow, at first light.”
“What?” I blurted, my cheeks flushing instantly. “I mean, excuse me, sire?”
He bit down on his bottom lip to suppress a smile and grabbed a saddle from its perch on the stable wall. “Training. I’m going to teach you to ride a horse. But for now, you will join me on Bucky. I’ll get a stable boy to exercise Theo.”
I watched with bated breath as the prince affixed the saddle, my mind reeling. I had settled on the hay bale to hopefully catch a glimpse of the prince, possibly have a chat, maybe even make him smile in that goofy lopsided way he did – never had I even imagined he would invite me to ride with him.
He jumped onto his stallion with such grace I took a step back to reassess the situation.
“You’ll be fine.” Sensing my apprehension, he reached out a hand to me. “Just put your foot in the stirrup and flip your leg over. With long legs like yours, it will be easy.”
Did the prince just comment on my body? Was it a compliment?
He smiled down at me, fingers wiggling. I took his hand and his muscles flexed at the touch of my cold skin but his smile didn’t falter.
He guided me where to place my hands for the best support and when I struggled on my way up, he grabbed my hip and helped me settle behind him.
My breath caught. My whole body hummed. His back was so broad, his shoulders spanning almost double the width of mine. There was a smattering of faded freckles on the exposed skin of his neck, the red material of his loose cotton shirt clinging to his shoulder blades.
“Are you all right back there?” I registered the prince’s question the way someone noticed birds singing in the trees. My mind was somewhere else entirely. My hands, damp with sweat, grabbed at my collar as I studied the prince’s back, his belt, the saddle. What was I supposed to hold on to?
“Wally?”
“Huh?”
The prince turned, the sun lining his profile. His cheekbones were incredible. He chuckled softly. “Are you ready?”
“Uh, yeah?”
And just like that, we were moving. Bucky’s powerful body shifted beneath me as he gently picked up speed. My whole body lolled backwards like drying linens caught in a breeze. Reflectively, I reached out and grabbed at the first thing I found to stable myself, which just happened to be the prince’s waist.
My throat instantly dried. In the back of my mind, I knew I should drop my hands to his belt. It was a much more appropriate place to hold. But my hands refused to move. I could feel the heat of his skin through his shirt; the strength of solid muscle.
The prince guided us out of the stables and onto the palace’s expansive training grounds. Once we were free of obstacles and there was nothing but the stretch of empty grass before us, Bucky’s easy trotting became a controlled canter. My fingers curled into the prince’s shirt as our bodies rolled and bounced together.
The wind whistled in my ears, sending my long hair spiralling about my head. At one point my vision was completely obscured by the invading red tendrils so I ducked my face, pressing my forehead against the prince’s firm back.
He called back to me several times, laughter in his tone, as he masterfully controlled the stallion. In all honesty, the jostling was so far in the back of my mind I didn’t even register I was on horseback. The prince consumed my senses. My fingers uncurled from his shirt and splayed over his hips. His musky scent of wood and perspiration enveloped me like a welcomed hug.
Too soon, we were returning to the stables. I lifted my head and blinked up at the sun that had now escaped the clouds. Carefully, my hands reached for my hair to push it back and arrange it into some semblance of order.
The prince found the ground again with practiced ease and offered his hand to help me down. It wasn’t until I was alone on the horse, gazing down at him when I realised just how large Bucky was. Suddenly the ground felt too far away. My foot struggled in the opposite stirrup, but I awkwardly managed to slip it free. I am not actually sure what happened next, but something went wrong. As I lifted my leg to flip it over and slid down, I manoeuvred my body in a way it did not like and I ended up taking a tumble.
Crumpled on the ground, I coughed up dust and winced at the burning sensation tingling my arm. I had scraped it on the stones and bits of hay and dust had made home in the bloody mess.
The prince was beside me, helping me into a sitting position. Concern pinched his features and a laugh bubbled out of me.
“Are you all right? I tried to catch you but-”
“I’m fine. My body has a mind of its own sometimes. A puppet cut loose from its strings, as Mr Treager used to say.”
The prince’s lips twitched. “Ah, so that’s the excuse you’re going with?”
The knowing look in his eyes had me flushing from head to toe. My eyes drifted to his sides and then quickly to the mess of my arm.
“Come on, let me help you up.” The prince hooked his arm under my armpit and hoisted me up to my feet like I weighed nothing. “The court physician gave me a salve for stuff like this. It works wonders. It’s in my room.”
I chewed my lip to suppress a smile as the prince guided me through the palace. I noted that we passed the physician’s quarters and continued on in silence. If the prince wanted to take me to his rooms, who was I to argue?
Heads turned as we made our way through the palace. We must have been quite the sight. I was almost positive hay had worked its way into the nest atop my head. After climbing several stairwells and striding through corridor after corridor, we made it to the prince’s rooms. They were almost directly below mine.
I remember holding my breath when he swung the door open and gestured me inside. I’m still not sure why I did that. He swooped over to his bedside drawers with sudden immediacy, leaving me to wander about with my damaged arm still lifted and my other hand cupped beneath so the blood didn’t drop onto the array of fancy rugs that covered the marble floor.
His room was surprisingly similar to my own. It was slightly larger and had an adjoining washroom, but was furnished in the same dark wood and feather cushions. The main difference was that my ceiling was vaulted to a point, being at the top of the tower, whereas the prince’s was high and flat.
“Ah, here it is.” The prince turned with a circular tin in his hand. He took my arm, his fingers feather-light against my skin. He frowned. “I’ll have to clean it.”
He guided me to the washroom and carefully wiped the dust and grime from the cut with a damp cloth. I watched his face as he worked, elation dancing so wildly within me it threatened to escape in ways I did not know. The prince was nursing my wound. We had walked straight past the physician’s quarters so that the prince could tend to me himself.
When the cut was as clean as it could be, he took me back into the bedroom, his hand loose on my wrist as if afraid to lose contact. He stood me on the plinth that his monstrously over-sized four poster bed was raised on and grabbed the discarded salve.
My nose scrunched at the sensation as he applied it to the wound. It was slimy and wet, cold but then curiously warm.
“How does that feel?” His eyes flicked up from my arm and found mine. It was then I realised I hadn’t spoken in quite some time. I opened my mouth to reply but words wouldn’t come. I nodded, a gratified smile filling my face.
A silence rang out between us. It swelled in my ears. The heat from his gaze was too much. I had to look away. My eyes landed on the desk by the window and my heart stuttered. There, perched beside a stack of letters, was the little paper rose I had tucked behind his ear at the banquet.
“You kept it.” The words rushed out of me in awe.
“Of course, I did. You gave it to me.”
I looked back at him, a soft laugh escaping me. He watched me, face bright and open. What did you say to that? What was there to say? Under his gaze, I quickly forgot what words were. What everything was. The itchy pain in my arm, forgotten. Everything was nothing. There was nothing but this, here, with him.
A bead of sweat trickled from his hairline. I watched as it slid over his temple, tracing the strong lines of his face.
He took a small step towards me, closing the distance between us. Reflectively, I leaned back and my heart jumped at the press of the bedpost between my shoulder blades. His jaw clenched as his green eyes roved over my face. My pulse thrummed. I don’t know what came over me, where this sudden confidence came from, but I grabbed his belt and pulled him closer. His hip knocked against my own and then his hand was cupping my jaw and his lips were on mine.
The kiss was soft at first. As tentative as his nursing hands. I pushed myself onto my tiptoes and kissed him back eagerly, hands lost in the material of his shirt. The kiss deepened, fervent and hungry. Our bodies rolled together once more, chest to chest, heartbeat to heartbeat. His hands were on me, under my loose shirt, his palms burning my frozen skin. Fingertips running along my ribcage.
I was on fire. Heat burning savage and wicked, thawing the ice in my chest I didn’t even know was there. I had always thought I felt alive on stage performing, that those would be the moments that paved my life, but I had been wrong. It is this moment right here that I hold onto with trembling fists, clinging to the heady mix of desperation and passion and terror coursing through my soul.
It was this moment, in Kaspar’s arms, when I finally felt like I truly belonged.
When the kiss broke, the prince stepped back so quickly he collided with the bedside drawers. I reached back and grabbed the bedpost behind me, legs trembling and mind reeling. The prince went to touch his reddened lips but then ran his hand through his hair and looked about the room.
“I-I have a council meeting I have to get ready for,” he said, gesturing to his casual attire.
“Right.” I blurted, pushing myself to my feet and propelling towards the door. “I’d better leave you to it. Thank you for the-” I lifted my injured arm. “Can hardly feel it.”
He smiled, still looking dazed, and sent me an affirmative nod.
I shut the door behind me and stormed down the corridor, my mind separate from my body.
The prince had just kissed me. The prince had just kissed me. A sudden, hysterical laugh peeled out of me and echoed around the marble walls. A scribe stuck his head out of a nearby room. I waved an apology. He tutted and disappeared again.
I’m going to be honest with you, dear reader, I skipped around the whole bloody palace that day.