A Queen’s Marriage - Part 3
The Wooing
Continued from Part 2: The Meeting (read here)
Or begin the story at Part 1: The Praying (read here)
Lord Temple’s voice rang in her ears, and she let herself laugh now, now that she was almost alone again. How satisfied he sounded! How pompous.
But the mirth did not hold her long, and her mind returned to the prince’s eyes. Such eyes!
And his voice had been just right - powerful like a lion’s, deep like a river, gentle like a breeze, soft as lamb’s wool. His eyes were brown as a fawn’s side, and she smiled to remember them, smiled to think that they had looked at her with such respect and admiration, as if he saw something no one else had ever seen.
Dismiss him? Never. She knew she would never be able to dismiss him.
“I will go to the gardens,” she murmured to herself, “and perhaps he will find me there. He will not want to speak before the courtiers, and neither, naturally, do I.”
She let her handmaidens drape her anew, after she sat upon the rose garden bench, but then she bid them return to the palace and prepare the dining and music rooms for entertaining. “We shall dine with the Master of the House and his Mistress, and we shall invite the prince to join us. But speak of this to no one, not even his highness, until I tell you.”
They giggled and tripped away like little mice, and she smiled to see them go. How fresh and still the garden breathed, how peaceful the buzzing of the bees. The wind ruffled her veil, and blew it into her eyes, so that she caught its light weight with her fingers and stretched her hands to the sky with a quick gesture to drape again upon her hair.
But when her hands were half-way up, she saw the prince across the walk, and her arms froze.
She blushed, and had an insane moment of temptation to wrap the veil all around her until nothing could be seen, and then flee far away from those all-seeing eyes.
But the very admiration that filled her with such fear kept her rooted, inescapably, to her seat.
“I’m so sorry. I did not mean to startle you,” he said, and she learned something new about him. That his voice, though it matched his eyes, was more approachable than they, and filled her with peace, whereas his eyes filled her with fear.
“Will you take a seat?” she invited, and letting her veil fall down her back, she indicated the bench beside her.
“I’m afraid I am simply too impatient to sit long,” he laughed, and the laugh was even more personable. “But I will give it a try.”
“You cannot sit still?” she asked, as with quick, light steps he threw himself upon the bench, then squirmed to readjust his coat. He looked up in the middle of pulling it out from under him, to answer her, and an instant calmness fell upon him.
Slowly, his mouth lifted into a mirthful smile, and she realized she had not noticed his smile before. It laughed all by itself and glinted like gold flecks in his brown eyes.
“I never could before,” he answered, as though attempting to wake from a spell, “but I find an inexplicable calmness upon me now. How do you explain that? Have you bewitched me?”
Bewitched me. She had heard such sentiment from many men, in many variations, and always, it had peeved her beyond endurance. But he did not ask it sentimentally. Although he asked it with a laugh, it was intermingled with fearful awe, and she put her hand upon his, to reassure him.
“We must not speak, now, of casting enchantments over one another. I am not your mistress, or a sorceress - I am only a woman in a rose garden, asking her friend to sit down. That is all we are to one another… as yet.”
She had calmed the fear when she began, but she saw it flicker again when she said, ‘as yet.’ She blushed, and pulled away, staring at her white hands folded and trembling in her lap.
“I do not mean… I do not presume… I mean to say…” she was stuttering, and she never stuttered, and she did not know what to say.
Suddenly, he clasped her folded hands and knelt before her. “I know it is not your will to exert power over me, but your very stumbling pulls at my every member. I can hide nothing from you - I see that, and it terrifies me, for what shallow depths will such exquisite eyes explunge in my heart? I am only a man, yet you look at me as though I am more. Oh, madam, you do not know me. You do not know my frailties and failings, or the depths to which I fall short. Do not uplift me anymore with your eyes - such bewitching eyes - but think of me only as a faithful dog. Only that. I presume nothing - it is enough to rest like a slave in the stillness of your eyes.”
She was tempted to rebuke him for such strong language, but after a moment, she laughed instead.
His eyes widened, and his looked sharply up at her. “Do you laugh at me? Do you scorn me? Do you see now how wretched I am, and have I fallen forever from your favor?”
“No, never, but I must laugh all the same. A dog, do you call yourself? A slave? Even a dog is a friend, and did I not say that is what we are? Oh, my dear friend, I could never scorn you. Never, for I knew the instant I saw you the goodness of your heart. Oh, though you berate yourself, what evil have you really done? We all have our failings, but you have awoken joy in my heart which I do not understand. Do not elevate me so, and degrade yourself, but respect me. And I forgive you for your exaggeration. Can I not see that it comes from a heart which does not have the language to express itself as it desires?”
What shallow depths will such exquisite eyes explunge in my heart?
Such bewitching eyes…
He sighed so deep it seemed he would swallow the world, and fell back upon the cobblestones as if in defeat. “You see me, to the very depth of me, your majesty. Yes, I exaggerate just like you say, and exactly because of why you say; but you speak with such sincerity, and how I envy that in you! My lady, my friend - for I dare to call you that, since you have called it of me - let me speak plainly, and I will do you the courtesy to believe that you will hear me right.
“I am a poor prince, though many think me rich. My kingdom has been sold to another, and my parents live as councillors in a stranger’s court. But I am handsome, energetic, and of royal blood, so in spite of my poverty, many have taken an interest in me. This is why I have been brought here. And I have allowed for such a charade, such a false manipulation of pretenses to transpire in your court, because, I must confess, I have been made curious about you.
“How well they speak of you in every country! The queen who reigns so young and is so cold. I thought, when I first heard of you, ‘She is not cold. She is only alone.’ But then I heard it again and again: the ice queen upon her icy throne, who scorns all suitors, and I wondered if I had been wrong. So I came here to decide for myself.”
His story had fired him up, and though he looked upon her many times in his speech, with intensity and passion, he had risen on account of his deep feelings, and pacing, cast his eyes every which way.
“I knew, the moment I saw you, that all were lies. Who can have spread such words about you? Does no one see the heart that burns like a beacon beneath your chest?”
Tears rose unbidden in her eyes, for his words pierced her like arrows. No one had ever seen her truly, and yet he had suspected the truth before ever they had met.
She smiled quietly, contemplating his words, and spotting it, he stepped forward eagerly, “Does it not anger you that they spread such lies? Such a falsified reputation?”
“Those who lie to themselves can hardly be expected to tell the truth about others,” she answered.
“Huh! I had not thought of that. Such liars and scoundrels, they have no right to speak of you at all. For their judgement can never be sound, and so your reputation ought not to be in their hands to begin with. What shall we do about them? But I forgot,” he caught himself with a blush. “I will not ask such questions, as a friend. Your reputation lies in no one’s hands but your own, as yet.”
“And the Lord’s,” she smiled, gazing upon him with a promise that, soon, it would not be so.
Part 4 - The Blaming COMING SOON
Cover Image Credit: Florence Small, The Bride - 1900
Interior Image Credit: Elizabeth Sonrel (French, 1874–1953), "Cordelia"