When there are italics, they're speaking English. Otherwise they're speaking French.
"Ah-ah-ah." One of Marianne's feet pressed against Arthur's shoulder, pushing him back down on his knees. She had long, narrow feet, veiny and pale as unwoven cotton. They smelled faintly of lavender, as she had just been rubbing lotion into them.
"Marianne." Arthur did his best to keep his voice from becoming a whine, but it was a challenge. Lounging against her pillows, Marianne just smirked.
"Tell me a poem, Arthur," she said, slouching further down the pillows.
"Marianne!" Arthur's impatience didn't ruffle Marianne in the slightest and she just looked at him expectantly. Sensing she wasn't going to budge, and without the desire to try to outlast her or outwit her, Arthur drew upon the first thing that came to mind: Shakespeare. He began to recite in his own tongue: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art—"
"In French," she interrupted.
"Marianne!" Now he sounded half put-out, but she was still smirking on the other end of the bed.
"Go on, my dear," she purred. "I know you know at least one." Arthur wracked his brains for whatever French poems he might've come across; with all the word games they played here in Versailles, he had to remember something! When at last he grasped something, he began to recite, hoping very much she didn't intend for him to reel off the whole thing. Slowly, the foot slid down off his shoulder and then she beckoned him, quivering with excitement, forward. He was on top of her in a second, the poem slaughtered in a deep kiss as he pressed her back into her plush pillows. He could feel her warmth through the thin material of her shift and the intimacy of it—of their relationship, emotional, as well as physical—was thrilling. When he drew back, she was giggling and he frowned.
"What are you laughing at?" he asked.
"You," she admitted freely, smiling up at him. There was no malice in her gaze, but there was amusement, and his frown deepened.
"What's so funny?"
"You are, of course." She grabbed onto him and rolled him onto the bed next to her, propping herself up on an elbow so she could kiss him. "You know, I remember a time when you couldn't even admit how fetching you found me," she teased when she pulled back.
"Yes, well…" Arthur's eyes flicked away and the faintest color crept into his cheeks. "Times change."
"They certainly do, my dear little English," she agreed, running a hand down his bare arm. She leaned down and kissed him again, a gesture he returned. They were both smiling when they broke apart. "How do you say it in English?" she asked suddenly.
"Say what?"
"Je t'aime," she said.
"I love you," he replied, watching her face. Her hair was only half down from the fantastically ornate do she'd worn it in for that day, pinned up in curls and buns on top of her head. He would help her take it down later, to run his fingers through her smooth, silky locks. She snapped at him for pulling it when they were passionate, but she loved having it stroked.
"Eiyy lov yoo," she echoed. The words were clumsy and turtle-slow on her lips; it was a bit of a jolt for Arthur, who knew Marianne to be one of the most eloquent, quick-witted and clever speakers he'd ever heard (frequently she triumphed in the verbal sparring games of the court, to Arthur's secret delight), to hear her sound like a schoolchild just learning to read. He couldn't help but snort at the way she butchered the words. In response, she slapped his arm.
"Don't laugh! As if I had any reason to learn that brutish language," she sulked.
"I wasn't laughing at you, love," he said, his lips twitching. Marianne gave him a reproachful look. "Alright, I was laughing at you," he admitted. "I'm sorry."
"No you're not," she scoffed.
"I'm sorry if I upset you and you won't sleep with me tonight," he answered candidly. Marianne grabbed a brocaded pillow and whacked him with it while he laughed.
"Cad!"
"What?" he asked, giving her a closed-lipped grin from over the pillow. "It's what you want too, as you so kindly whispered in my ear in the Mars room."
"Maybe I've changed my mind," she asserted, tossing the pillow aside and settling back down. The heavy curtains closed around the bed swayed slightly with her movement. "Maybe I just want to lay here and talk about how much we love each other." She put emphasis on the word 'love', drawing it out and fluttering her eyelids.
"No you don't," Arthur suspected.
"I absolutely do," she exclaimed haughtily, before adding: "After we have sex." She came to life from her reclined state and straddled his lap, much to Arthur's delight.
"I can agree to that," he said, raising his hands to rest on her hips.
"If you don't fall asleep two minutes after," she accused quietly as she kissed him again.
"I'll see what I can do."
Two weeks later, Arthur sailed back to England, as he was prone to do, to report to the king in person. Marianne wrote only to tell him there would be a ball in mid-June and unless he wanted to miss the party of the summer, he ought to be back in Versailles for that. He returned a week in advance of the aforementioned party and went to the gardens, where he suspected he might find his French sweetheart.
Marianne was there, with a few other ladies, walking along around the big fountain just out behind the palace, featuring Poseidon and several nymphs. Water burbled quietly from the fountain, splashing into the water below.
"Mister Kirkland is back," remarked one of the ladies, merely tilting her head so the others might follow her gaze, rather than pointing. Arthur wasn't surprised to hear a foreign accent on her tongue: Marianne had lost quite a few of her French friends when it got out that she was unironically sleeping with the British ambassador.
"It seems he has." The ladies approached the railing of the stairs to look down at him below. "Tell us Arthur, what draws you away from us so often?" Marianne asked, leaning her elbows against the railing. A broad, white hat flopped over her forehead, shielding her face from the sun. The lace on her dress matched that which decorated her hat; something fine and imported. Her dress was a pale pink and white, which complimented her quite well, Arthur thought. "Whatever London has that Versailles doesn't, we'll fix it."
"It's the weather I'm afraid," Arthur called up. "It's much too nice in France. If an Englishman doesn't get a chance to complain about bad weather, he might just combust."
"I daresay you find ways to complain about the French weather as well," Marianne replied, amused.
"The English call us frogs, but they can half breathe water with all that rain," said the woman on Marianne's left.
"It's hot in Versailles today," Arthur said to Marianne, approaching the stairs.
"It is," she agreed with a shrug. "The summer has been very warm so far. You should come take a boat ride with us."
"And what makes you think I don't have anything more important to do?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Because I'm here, of course," Marianne said with a sly smile as the ladies descended the stairs. The conversation was public, but she looked at him in a way that told him their words were private, that her attention was all for him. He grasped her hand, cloaked in a white glove, when she got close, and pressed his lips to her knuckles.
"The first flawless argument you've ever presented, my dear," he said quietly with a little smile, lifting his head.
"Far from it, darling English," she said, "but I do know how it wounds your pride to lose, so I'll let you keep that thought."
"How kind." He matched his step with her slow drift and they all made their way to the big pond where servants with fake gondolas were waiting for them. The two ladies took one boat and, predictably, Arthur went with Marianne. She found no end of amusement in the fact that he was an ambassador when he was so socially inept. He could manage to negotiate treaties and convince foreign powers of British strength to be sure, but when it came to mere talking or making himself likable he failed dismally. Marianne had loathed him when they first met, before she realized at least half the time he was rude or dismissive he didn't mean to be—he was really just that bad at coming off pleasantly. The other half he absolutely did mean to be, that was just Arthur. Since she had come to understand these things about him so well, she was one of barely a handful of people who passed through Versailles that Arthur was comfortable with and he would always take her company above a stranger's.
In the narrow craft, Marianne stretched out, leaning against the prow and watching the green water pass by less than a foot from her face. The sun hit the water from slightly west and highlighted the algae blooms beneath the surface.
"You like to sail, don't you?" Marianne glanced back at Arthur, slouched in the center of the boat, watching her and the shore with lazy eyes.
"This isn't sailing, Marianne," he said. "This is…floating."
"I'm afraid I wouldn't much know; I've never been sailing," she said with a shrug, turning her attention back to the water to see if she could spot a fish.
"Never been sailing?" Arthur asked, practically aghast.
"Don't say it like that; I've never had much cause to leave France," she defended herself.
"But you've been other places," he said. Surely she must've; she had the money.
"Oh yes. Spain, Portugal, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy—we have family there…even Russia once," she said. "Met a dashing fellow in St. Petersburg. But none of those require sailing."
"For me to go anywhere I have to sail," Arthur sighed, wondering what it would be like if his trips back and forth between England and France didn't require the boat ride. He did rather like it though; he found the rocking of the boat soothing, the salt air in his face bracing and the sound of the waves enticing.
"That's what comes of living on an island, English," she said. They lapsed into silence. Everything felt slowed by the heat; Marianne's eyelids hung lower and lower until Arthur couldn't catch a glimpse of her brilliant blue irises anymore. But then she turned herself halfway, gesturing to the servant in the back with her fan. "Monsieur, sing for us," she requested, her voice almost sleepy.
The servant, poling them along the bottom of the pond, began to sing O Solo Mio, to give them a Venetian feeling.
"Does it feel very much like Italy?" Arthur, who had never been, asked her as she unfurled her fan and began to flap it slowly.
"Not at all," she said. "It's a lovely place, Italy. You should go sometime. Carnival is something everyone should see." Suddenly she sat up, snapping her fan shut, and looked back at him. "We should go together!" she exclaimed, excitement sparking in her eyes. "It's such a good time; even you would enjoy yourself!"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, I'll arrange for it, maybe next year," she went on as if he hadn't spoken. "Won't you come with me? We'll get masks and eat Italian food and have a lovely time." She reached out to clasp his hand and his eyes softened.
"If you insist, my lady," he said, squeezing her hand. "We'll go to Carnival."
"And then we can go by Rome," she sighed dreamily, leaning back against the bow once more, facing Arthur this time. "See the Coliseum and St. Peter's Basilica…we can stay at my cousin's house even," she said. "She and her husband have an absolutely beautiful villa, the garden is gorgeous."
"Better than Versailles?" Arthur asked, wishing their hands weren't quite so sticky; Marianne's glove was slightly damp with sweat from the heat of the noonday sun.
"Of course not," she dismissed it immediately. "But it's still very lovely. And it has a much different feel than Versailles' gardens." Again, Arthur found himself too warm and lulled into placidity by the movement of the gondola and the sun to reply or start a new train of conversation. Marianne, in a similar state, eventually pried her hot hand free of his and resumed her half-hearted fanning. "Have you chosen an outfit for the ball?" she asked at last, hiding a yawn behind her fan.
"I hardly plan a week in advance on what I'm going to wear," he said.
"That's why your outfits are always so dreadful," Marianne said. Arthur stiffened in offense, but even his outraged expression was half its usual strength. "Let me help you, so you can wear something decent."
"I don't need help choosing what to wear for a bloody ball," he grumbled.
"It would make me happy," she said, nudging him with her foot. Arthur gave a gusty sigh.
"The strangest things make you happy, Marianne."
"Not so," she disagreed. She offered no explanation though—a sufficient one might've said she wanted to show Arthur off to everyone else, looking his best, of course. Another might've claimed allowing her such duties as a wife might undertake was a display of their commitment to each other, or something else silly like that. But Marianne wasn't about to admit either of those things, regardless of which one(s) might be true. "Come, my sweet duck, let me help."
Arthur conceded in the end. Marianne put together the outfit, explained it in detail to his valet, and then steadfastly refused to tell Arthur what it was.
"You are the most impossible woman I've ever met," he swore.
"You've told me that already," she said, sounding so smug it reminded Arthur what had annoyed the hell out of him about her at first (and still did, sometimes).
"I don't know why I bother with you," he said in a vague attempt to wound her.
"Because," she said with a lascivious grin, leaning forward to whisper in his ear, "I fuck good." Arthur's face colored and he covered his eyes with one hand.
"You're never going to let that go, are you?" he groaned quietly.
"Never," she promised, referring to a drunken incident in which Arthur's praise for her had included such elegant phrases as the previously mentioned one, which, to his dismay, had come up during the act itself at a later date and time, and made Marianne laugh so hard they had to stop until she got it together. He got the feeling it was going to plague him until he died.
It was only on the evening of the ball itself that Arthur was allowed to see the outfit Marianne had put together and, to his annoyance, it made excellent use of what he'd brought, although a few pieces were distinctly not his. She had to add her French flair and it was difficult for him to complain, when he was working with the French court, but Arthur always did love a challenge.
She was dancing with a Spanish noble when he arrived, a man with whom Arthur famously clashed with (although, frankly, there were quite a few of those; Marianne had been one and still was, to a degree), but with whom Marianne had been friends even longer than she'd known Arthur.
He felt no guilt about spiriting her away for the next dance.
"Not that you disapprove," she goaded him lightly as he guided them around the dance floor.
"You know I don't like him," he said simply.
"You know that I do," she retorted, entertained by the idea of his jealousy or disapproval. "Besides, you could say that about more than half the people at court. You just don't like people, Arthur."
"That's not true, I love people," he said. "I just don't like having to interact with them."
"Or hear them. Or see them. Or breathe the same air as them." Her eyes twinkled in the candlelight. The sun was setting outside, the natural light rapidly fading and thankfully taking with it at least a portion of the heat.
"Point taken," he muttered, looking away at a particularly enchanting floor tile. He couldn't argue with that. But not liking people was hardly the end of the world! Right? Marianne shifted them to a closer position.
"Don't worry, it makes me feel special to be tolerated." He didn't have to look to know that half-smile was on her face, the eternally amused harlequin.
"Well it ought to, you give me quite the challenge," he declared. He met her eyes again and she knew that he far more than tolerated her. The smile shifted into fondness and a comfortable silence settled over them while they danced.
"Arthur, how long have we known each other?" she asked suddenly as they passed by the windows looking out over the darkening gardens. He had to think about that.
"I believe…four years?" he speculated. "Five this fall?"
"And how long have we been together?" she asked. He wondered if this was a trick question.
"Two years, I believe," he said.
"So when are you going to leave this ambassadorial job and come live with me, hm?"
"Is that a proposal, Marianne?" he asked. It was something they had joked about on more than one occasion, when Marianne pointed out she had a vast, very available apartment here in Versailles, should Arthur ever decide to cut ties with England. He usually responded with something similar to what he'd just said.
He wasn't so much against the idea of getting hitched with Marianne (actually, it seemed quite appealing sometimes) as they both shied away from a true display of commitment to each other. Despite her teasing, Marianne had never seriously prompted him to propose to her, as she had with other steps in their relationship (usually the physical ones). And Arthur, never being one to care for stirring the pot with relationships, was happy to let it lie for now. Should he sense Marianne getting restless, he might have to reevaluate, but, being so poor at reading people's softer emotions, he failed to notice they were approaching that point already. Marianne had never remained monogamous with someone as long as she had with Arthur, particularly with him being gone as frequently as he was. That, in her opinion, made this more than the temporary "you're here so why not" fling it had started out as.
"Only as much as you take it to be, Arthur," she said.
"I have good news for you though," he said, after a few moments of silence between them. "Or bad, I suppose, depending on your view."
"Oh?" Marianne looked mildly intrigued.
"Barring the king needing my immediate attention later this summer, I should be here until next spring," he said. He didn't like to sail the channel in the winter, if at all possible, so if he made it through the summer without any crises back home, he'd be here most likely until the snowmelt.
"Is that so?" Marianne's tone was nonchalant, but a smile spread across her face and Arthur wondered how hard it would be to just never go back to England.
Technically he had his own apartment for when he was here in Versailles, but it was occupied less often than one might think since the first time Marianne had caught his wrist as he started to rise from her bed and asked him to stay. This visit he spent even less time there, though he found himself suddenly quite busy—France was in the middle of reforms in an attempt to appease an increasingly angry public. The king's own financial advisor had been fired for publishing an inaccurate account about the nation's debt and making it available to the public.
The heat of summer continued to rise and so did the tension in Paris and Versailles.
Arthur was in a meeting with the king and several of his advisors when a herald burst in, panting and red-faced. Everyone looked up at him and the king gestured for him to speak after a moment; whatever the news was, it had to be important to interrupt a meeting of the king's.
"They've stormed the Bastille," the man said breathlessly. The French public was in open rebellion against the crown.
The fight for the Bastille lasted only a few hours before the governor, despite ordering a cease-fire to prevent mutual massacre, was caught and beheaded by the furious French peasants. Parading his head about on a pike, they called for the end of the hated ancien régime.
"It's a disaster," Marianne said when they'd gotten the latest news from a herald. "The king has no choice but to back down, or things will only get worse!" Arthur's job, of course, was to protect British interests—which in this case, would be the crown staying firmly on Louis' head. A French revolution would do no one any good, especially with what the peasants were saying—a lot of blather about every man being born equal and the right to self-determination. Arthur blamed America. If this spread, there was no telling what might happen.
"Let us hope the king knows that," Arthur said dubiously. Louis seemed to Arthur far too naïve and withdrawn from the people to grasp the subtleties of such a situation. All Arthur could do though, was offer his own council—but it would be tainted by his nationality. By mere virtue of his title, Arthur was thoroughly disliked by plenty of the French court. Marianne herself had openly mocked the British around him whenever she got the chance and accused him of acting only in his own self-interests. Which in a way was true, but that was partly his job—making sure the French government acted in a way that was also beneficial to the British crown.
The atmosphere in Versailles remained curiously untouched by the proceedings. There were the tense meetings of advisors and military officials, and there were moments of nail-biting anxiety amongst the women and noblemen, but outside that, things largely went on as usual. There was, however, a sense of everyone being tensed to see what would happen next. A preparation for a flight-or-flight.
"You could come with me to London," Arthur suggested as he walked in the gardens with Marianne in mid-August.
"Me? In London?" Marianne laughed derisively. "Oh, that's cute, my flea. I don't speak a lick of English and I have no desire to spend the rest of my days on some rainy island."
"It is my home, you know," Arthur said stiffly.
"Half your home," she said. "You spend more time in France than you do in England. Don't you like it here?"
"I like it better when people aren't beheading government officials and making a celebration of it," Arthur said. When Marianne made no reply, he said, "At least think about it? We don't have to be in France to be together."
"Is that a proposal, Arthur?" Their eyes met and neither of them spoke for a long moment.
"It could be, if you wanted it to be," Arthur said cautiously at last. Marianne smiled and came to a halt, leaning up to kiss him for a long moment.
"Well, I am intrigued by this proposal and I suggest we take a closer look at our options once this chaos dies down," she said when she drew back, still smiling. Checking first to see that they were relatively alone, Arthur drew her closer and kissed her more deeply.
"I'll agree to that," he said, stroking her cheek. They continued their slow, stately walk through the gardens as if they both weren't on the verge of bursting into song along with the nearest handful of garden birds.
On the grounds of him more or less proposing and Marianne more or less agreeing to say yes when he finally actually propose, he went to bed with her that night intending for them to make sweet love, but it didn't quite work out.
They got most of their clothes off and Marianne was kissing his neck, which she knew he liked, while he rubbed her back, but then she just flopped back on the bed.
"What's wrong?" he asked after a moment.
"It's too hot," she whined. "I can't do it." Arthur considered this for a moment and wiped his brow.
"I can't either," he admitted, shaking his head. They both just lay there, trying to summon some sort of energy or motivation to do anything, but it took a while. Eventually Marianne got up and went over to crank open the window.
"Not even a breeze," she complained.
"Marianne come away from the window," Arthur sighed, rubbing his eyes. "You're not wearing anything and someone will see."
"I don't care," she replied. She ameliorated this problem—he was sure that was what she thought she was doing, in her twisted logic—by robbing him of a pair of his own under things, which, of course, still left her entire upper half bare and only covered down to her knees. He looked at her like one might at a misbehaving child. "I think they look better on me," she said, posing in front of a mirror.
"I think you could try on anything in my closet and make that argument," Arthur pointed out. Even free of her make-up and with her hair hanging loosely down her back, Marianne was gorgeous. Maybe even more so now, because he knew how few people got to see her presented so simply. She flashed him a grin and sauntered out of the bedroom to her sitting room. Arthur dragged himself into a sitting position in time to see her come back with a bottle of wine and two classes. "Is that chilled?" he asked longingly.
"Unfortunately not," she said, uncorking it and pouring them each a glass. "But come have some anyway." She held one glass out to him and he got off the bed to come get it. Relieved of the glass, Marianne went over to the window and in another display of her completely inappropriate behavior, climbed onto the sill and sat there sideways with one foot flat against the sill.
"Marianne for God's sake get out of the window," Arthur reproached her. "You are not a cabaret girl!"
"It's hot and this is the coolest place to be," she argued. "Besides, it's the middle of the night. Who's going to be walking around in the garden looking for half-naked ladies sitting in windows?" He looked at her sitting there, skin lit aglow by the moonlight, her hair a thick dark curtain over her back and shoulders, and thought that if it came down to it, he would forsake London forever to stay here with her.
He sighed as he wandered over to her to look out over the grounds. "Sometimes I think you're a complete lunatic," he told her.
"Someone has to balance out your rigid rule-following," she said, flashing him a little smile. Too hot to argue much, he just gave her a dry look and she drew him closer to press their foreheads together. "I like to think we balance each other perfectly," she said more quietly, a content look resting on her face.
"My sweet enemy." She laughed and let go of him.
"Yes! I am your sweet enemy, and you are mine." She took his hand and kissed his fingers, but let go quickly enough: it really was too hot for physical affection. He leaned against the wall and they watched the moon climb across the sky until they'd finished half the bottle of wine and were able to get to sleep despite the abominably sticky heat.
It didn't subside as August drew to a close and neither did tempers in Paris. Early in October, the women of France were tired of the exorbitant prices of bread and other economic hardships they had been dealing with.
It was nighttime when they arrived at Versailles. Without a satisfactory answer from the Hôtel de Ville, they had come directly to the king.
Marianne and Arthur were woken from an early slumber by the chaos outside. Arthur got up first and hurried to the windows, but it was hard to see what was happening out front. He could see vague torchlight in the distance and, opening the window, the faint sound of shouts drifted in.
"Marianne." Arthur thought of the last letter from London, advising him to be wary of the situation here and possibly to return home before winter set in, in case things turned for the worse in France. He had dismissed the latter, but even he knew his response was biased—he didn't want to leave without Marianne. His voice now was low and filled with caution.
"What's going on?" she asked, sitting up. Her hair was a mess and any other time he'd have paused to make fun of her for it, but now he barely glanced away from the window.
"There's trouble at the front gates." They both pulled on dressing robes and emerged into the hall—they weren't the only ones. Confused nobles and courtiers were stumbling out of their rooms, wondering what was going on. Tentatively, but unwaveringly, they made for the front windows to look out at the crowd.
It was staggering—there had to be upwards of seven thousand angry women in the courtyard—many of them with weapons. They were shouting and as the guards tried to subdue them, one was pulled into the crowd and didn't rise again.
"My God," Marianne said softly, unable to look away from the ugly scene. "They're going to kill us."
"They have canons," someone else cried. Arthur just stared. He had never imagined he would be witness to the slaughter of the French nobility—or that he'd be a victim of it.
As it turned out, that was not the goal. Several guards were killed before the crowd was subdued, while the denizens of Versailles quaked behind windows or doors, waiting to see what fate would hand them. Lafayette, who commanded the National Guard, convinced King Louis to agree to move the royal family back to Paris as the crowd demanded and the furious women backed off.
"I thought they were going to kill us all," Marianne said, pressing a hand over her heart as they made their way back to her apartment. It was early morning now, the sun just starting to peek over the horizon as the crowd made their way home. She threw herself down in an armchair as Arthur closed the door behind them.
"It certainly didn't look good," Arthur admitted. His own heart was beating a bit faster than usual and he felt exhausted from the night spent in anxiety and apprehension. He made straight for Marianne's supply of wine and poured them each a glass. She accepted it gratefully and they watched the sun rise through the windows. Eventually, Marianne got up and went around behind Arthur's chair to wrap her arms around him and press her cheek to his.
"We should go back to bed," she murmured.
"I'm not sure we'll get the chance, love," Arthur said, putting a hand over hers with a sigh. "If the royal family is moving right away, Versailles is going to be quite busy today." Marianne groaned and rested her forehead against his shoulder. She couldn't deny that truth.
Later that day, the royal family moved to Paris, as a gesture of goodwill and responsibility towards the people of France. Many nobles, Marianne included, returned as well—Versailles without the king was nothing more than a trumped-up vacation home. The gesture by the royal family temporarily soothed the French public and, when travel was safe, Arthur was immediately recalled to London in light of the situation.
"Marianne, come with me," he begged openly, trying one last time to convince her to accompany him. They were in her new quarters, much smaller than the set at Versailles, and colored more darkly. Marianne sat at a chair by the window, determinedly looking out at the city and not at him.
"I can't," she said. "If I leave now, I'll never be able to come back. The court will remember who fled when danger threatened."
"For God's sake, isn't your life worth more than your repute in court?" Arthur demanded, pacing agitatedly back and forth with sharp movements.
"They haven't killed anyone," she argued.
"No one important!" Arthur clarified, stupefied by Marianne's loyalty to the crown, or France, or whichever she thought she could support by staying in Paris.
"The king has given in to the people," she said placidly. "He recognizes the need to satisfy them; they want to work on a new constitution. To have a constitutional monarchy."
"What if it doesn't work? What then? What about when the people decide the king hasn't placated them enough?"
"If you want to talk about what-ifs, let us talk!" Marianne snapped back. "What if Enlightenment ideals come to the British peasantry as well? What if British citizens also decide they're tired of the monarchy? What if we end up in the same situation in London as we are in Paris?"
"There are no revolts currently going on in London," Arthur argued.
"I have to stay in France." She wouldn't budge, so Arthur tried one last desperate tactic.
"Marianne, please. If you love me, come with me," he said, putting his fear and frustration aside as much as he could.
"I do love you, Arthur," she said, piercing his heart. It was the first time she had said it so bluntly. If you loved me you'd come with me and we could live together, away from all this, he shouted in his mind. She came over and touched his cheek gently. "But I can't go with you." He looked away, knowing if she wouldn't come for that, she wouldn't come for anything. She had so much faith in the outcome of this. Stretching her arms up and around his neck, Marianne kissed him sweetly. "I love you," she whispered. "And when things calm down, I'll see you again."
Arthur's arms wrapped around her waist and he held her tightly, crushing their lips together like he could convince her that way.
"I love you, Marianne Bonnefoy," he said, his eyes pleading. She didn't waver. "Don't make me come and rescue you," he teased weakly. "You wouldn't make a very good damsel in distress."
"Nor you a knight in shining armor," she retorted, the corners of her lips quirking up. They kissed again and the heat had begun to subside, so Arthur took her to bed and they stayed there a very long time.
Arthur left for England later that week.
The atmosphere in Paris remained tense and while the people's anger may have subsided, their radical ideas only grew. The constitutional monarchy wasn't satisfactory enough, but the damning blow came with the king's attempt to flee the country; from there, things got worse than he could have imagined.
Across the sea, Arthur could only sit in frustrating helplessness, chewing his nails and wringing his hands at every bit of news that came from the continent. Conflicting stories came every which way; Austria was furious, Spain was terrified and the only thing anyone seemed to be able to agree on was that France had descended into utter chaos.
Impatience broiled in Arthur's gut; sitting around here did him nothing; Marianne could very well be in danger and he was sitting on his arse poorly feigning a laugh at the king's pathetic jest! He passed frequently between his apartment in Winsor castle and his small estate in Northumberland. Neither place offered him any solace. In Winsor, he was nothing but a bundle of frayed nerves, straining his ears for every bit of gossip and hearsay about what was going on in France, and in Northumberland he was beset with visions—seated by the fireside late at night, reading a book, he felt the ghost of fingers tickle his shoulders and he grasped desperately for the scent of familiar lavender perfume; curled in his bed, he heard quiet sighs behind him and warmth from a body that wasn't there, he swore; in the morning, when he came down for breakfast, he could just see her standing there, by the table, with that crooked, impish smile, her eyes all softness and affection.
He wrote to her, but that was only the barest minimum to relieve his anxiety. It was enough to assure him she was still alive and relatively well, despite the threat by the Holy Roman Empire and Prussia to invade France in order to restore the monarchy, much to the shocking enragement of the French public, who had mobilized quickly enough, it seemed, to deter that threat. No one had forgotten the strength of the French army under Louis XIV.
Christmas rolled around and seemed hollow, somehow. He had spent it more than a few times in France, and he recalled with an uncharacteristic wistfulness the vast, tall Christmas trees, the great big feasts, the laughter and the parties. Some of the same things were going on here in England, of course, but the French did know how to throw a party. He went, anyway, because it was what was expected of him, but each party seemed increasingly dull without the promise of one of Marianne's hands closing over the rim of his cup while the other pulled him from his comfortable seat to go dance a dance he didn't want to (a fact she'd make him forget in mere moments). He ended up going back to Northumberland before the holiday even rolled around, and spent Christmas night sitting in front of his fire, watching it pop and crackle disconsolately.
"Can I bring you anything?" one of his serving girls asked, her hands fidgeting in front of her apron. Still young enough, probably impatient to be off and not spending time around Arthur's dreary company, he thought. "Ale, perhaps? Or a smoke?" she suggested, when Arthur didn't respond. It seemed an awfully poor way to spend Christmas, she thought, sitting alone without even a nice drink.
"…no, thank you, Rosalind," he said, shaking his head. "You may go. Spend the rest of the night with your family, I'll be fine here."
"Are you sure, my lord?" she asked.
"Yes. I daresay I can manage to change into my bedclothes and make some tea in the morning on my own," he said, attempting to jest, but with too much sourness for her to take it as such. She shifted uncertainly from foot to foot, until Arthur waved a hand dismissively. "Go, Rosalind, please. I'd rather be alone tonight." She took no more encouragement and dashed off with a quick nod.
The second Christmas he spent alone, he was considerably angrier about it. With no one at whom to direct this discontented rage, he drank himself into a dull stupor and dreamed the dream about Marianne standing by his kitchen table in the morning again, only this time, there was a poignant swell to her stomach that he had never seen before and she seemed to glow, even in the dim early light. When he laid his hand on her belly, she leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder, and her thick locks tickled his neck. She murmured something too quietly for him to make out and put her hand over his.
I want to call him Pierre.
By that summer, children had begun to feature in these dreams and Arthur could no longer deny, at least to himself, that he craved that life with her. Only this stupefying, painful separation could have convinced him of that, and allowed to admit it to himself. He never would have done so before, but now he felt he would drop to his knees as soon as he saw her and beg her to marry him and come to England with him—for surely, he knew, he would perish without her. In the day, he told himself he was being foolish and that he needed to lessen the amount he drank. At night, he swore to himself he would propose to her the second he saw her and damn her protests, he would drag her back here were she would be safe.
Arthur's moods did not go unnoticed by the court, as his long bachelorhood had not in years past.
"You need to settle down," his friend William told him. "I never thought I would be saying that to you. Find a wife, Kirkland, and be happy." Arthur merely tugged his gloves on tighter as they walked down a chilly street strewn with freshly-fallen leaves.
"I have been happy," he said.
"Where? In France? Because it surely hasn't been here!" William frowned. "I daresay it's been years since you last had a good laugh in England." Arthur didn't reply, but fixed his eyes distantly ahead of them, elsewhere. "Look, now." William gave him a very serious look, his brow furrowed with concern, his frown deepening. "If there was some Frenchwoman…it's best forget her, Arthur. Find a nice English lass and forget about that place. God only knows what's going to happen to it."
"Perhaps God does know," Arthur muttered, looking up at the ashen sky. "But He surely isn't telling us."
Four years would pass before Arthur was to return to France, and before then, the people voted to execute Louis XVI—Citizen Louis Capet, they dubbed him. With the execution of the king, Arthur's fears for Marianne's safety were once again set ablaze and he was restless in England. It had been years since he'd last seen her face-to-face, last held her in his arms, and her promise to marry him still echoed in his mind. She had written him in as many words—speaking of their home, their life, their union. Their letters took so long to arrive though, by the time she got his letters, whatever he'd written in it was old news. It was such a wearisome affair.
Even before he had been in love with Marianne, being away from their constant bickering made him feel that something was lacking. London, the first time he had returned after meeting her, had been a strangely disappointing thing. It had seemed duller than he remembered. Now, he longed for her all the more; he found himself watching the window by his desk remembering her sitting in the window sill in Versailles, wearing nothing but his knickers and somehow managing to look elegant as she sipped her wine in the summer heat. He longed to turn now and see her there again, for her to look at him and throw him a mischievous smile over her shoulder, daring him to tell her she was acting inappropriately.
Arthur, she wrote him, it's so surprisingly dull that no one is here to scold me anymore. I had gotten used to having a governess again. I'm going over my finances again; when you come back, I shall have a lovely place for us in Paris. Or if you're ready to leave the service of the king, we could go south, where the weather is always nice. Oh, I'll go anywhere! Just so long as we go together; my dear heart, I miss you like the breath from my lungs. Come back and scold me again; I would gladly take your disapproval over nothing at all…
His own letters were far less an outpouring of love and longing than Marianne's, but she could read between the lines and into everything he said to see that he ached for her as much as she did for him. Eventually it became clear to him he had to get her out. He'd convince her—or he'd drag her back to England regardless of what she wanted.
That was how it went in the stories, wasn't it? Arthur had always loved a good story, and what was better than noble heroes fighting against the odds, and even their own personal demons, to claim victory in the name of a righteous cause? What cause could be more righteous than love? Perusing through his library disgusted Arthur of late; how many times had he read about such things, and yet now, when the woman he loved was in her hour of greatest peril, he stayed moping around his manse and did…what? Drank? Brooded? Let advice from his friends pass in one ear and out the other? Some noble fellow he made!
The king had advised him to stay away, but Arthur had obeyed that directive long enough. He booked passage to France. Tensions between the two countries were high, but that was nothing new. Marianne might not make friends in London, but no one would try to imprison her.
He dressed very down for his trip to Paris. Keeping a low profile was key; having been away from France for so long, he was no longer in tune with the politics and temperament of the region as he once had been. When he arrived in Paris, it was nightfall, so he booked a room at an inn and waited until morning to head for the former royal residence.
Years spent in France gave him enough memories of Paris streets to be able to navigate with some confidence, although each time he found he'd taken a wrong turn he grew more frustrated with himself. The closer he got, the more frantic his need to complete his task and be on his way. He wouldn't breathe easily until he and Marianne were both on a boat back across the Channel.
The bustling city seemed less crowded, or maybe he was imagining it. Maybe too, he was imagining that a pallor seemed to hang over it, and beneath that, a dim, vaguely angry buzz. The whole place felt threatening, like at any moment it might close in and crush him. But that was merely paranoia, he told himself, and unbefitting of a man of his education and fortitude.
As he passed through the Place de Louis XV, he was halted be a truly gruesome sight: a wooden platform with a guillotine had been erected in the center of the place. A basket sat beneath it, ready to catch the dispatched heads. As people passed by and he got a clearer view, he saw that wasn't all—there were several bodies laid out beside it, heads set a few inches above the neck, all lined up. Fixated in horror, he approached. There were five, three men and two women and—no—
The world couldn't have gone quieter if Arthur had spontaneously gone deaf. There was a rushing sound, like the ocean and the distant sound of Marianne's laughter. He clung to that sound, to that reality, rather than the one staring him in the face.
She, like the other woman, was dressed in nothing but a simple shift that might've once been white. On her feet were ill-fitting canvas shoes, torn and battered like they had been through many other people before coming to her. Her arms had bruises: whomever had hustled her up the steps to the National Razor had not done so gently. She'd gotten to keep her hair, but it was matted and dirty; distantly, he wondered how long she had been kept prisoner before they killed her. There it was—her pretty white throat cut clean through. Ripped flesh and open arteries where he had once kissed her tenderly in the early morning. She was even paler than usual and he realized dimly that the dampness on the stones was the blood of the dead. Too thin, he thought—he could see her collarbone even more prominently than usual. Arthur remembered how much she loved—what a cruel thing that "ed" was, that past tense— food and fine dining; he wondered if they hadn't fed her, or if she had refused to eat what was given due to poor quality, because he could see either one being true.
Marianne. Oh, Marianne…
So pale, like she was made of marble. Her lips used to be redder, he thought. Her eyes were shut tightly and he had a hideous image of her neck against the wood, the blood in her veins pulsing against the unyielding surface, and her eyes squeezed shut against the sight of the basket below. Nothing could block her ears from the chants and screams though, the cries for the death of the nobility and the end of the monarchy.
If there had been something of hers for him to take, he would have. But there was nothing, not even an earring or a necklace. She'd been stripped of everything was hers—he knew the shift wasn't, he'd seen all hers. Had stripped them off her, seen them pooled on the floor and draped over the backs of chairs, had seen her dance about her chambers in nothing else and watched her slowly pull them off over her head to tempt him. He would know if it was hers.
"If you love me, come with me."
"I do love you Arthur. But I can't. When things calm down, I'll see you again!"
"You said we would go to Carnival," he whispered to her. "I never got to see Venice." How long? How long after her last letter? He hadn't even realized…She had been alone. She had died alone, humiliated, hated and derided and he could only imagine what had happened before they had killed her. Later he would hate the French for what they had done, but right now he felt too hollow to manage hate or even anger.
"They better clear those out," remarked a passing fellow. "They've got another round coming soon, if news serves."
"Yes…" Arthur nodded dumbly. The words began to shake him from his stupor though; France wasn't safe. Arthur might be dressed simply, but everything from the way he spoke to the way he ate gave away not only his class station, but his nationality, neither of which would earn him any friends here.
He truly had no memory of the return trip to England, only being tortured by the visions that he had had on the way there—of getting to kiss her again, of seeing her face light up when she saw him, of the relief in his gut when he saw her safe and finally managed to convince her to come with him to England. Those images battered his mind relentlessly and sometimes he was plagued by the feeling that he had gone to the wrong France, that it was a dream or a terrifying glimpse at an alternate universe. Surely if he just went back and checked again it would all be fine and he'd be able to whisk Marianne away before anything happened to her.
Arriving home in London had never been so empty; even in the past, when he'd been angry and frustrated about having to leave her, there had been the promise of returning to her. Today, there wasn't. There never would be again. It took all his strength to hold it together, but he managed long enough to go the king and renounce his position. As far as he was concerned, he was never going to set foot in France again. What was good from there was gone.
In the following years, he retreated further north, to Scotland, as wars between France and the rest of Europe raged. He never did go to Carnival. He never got married either.
When a couple of his neighbors, many years down the road, discovered his body in his living room armchair, he was clutching a bundle of old letters, the faded ink almost impossible to read. The only thing discernable at a quick glance was the massive, flourishing M signed at the bottom.
"Look at the dates," the young woman remarked.
"Hm?" Her companion turned from the corpse in the chair.
"How strange to think, they're dated before the Napoleonic Wars!" She showed the letters to the young man with her.
"Isn't it odd?" the man commented. "They never knew what was coming."
"Poor souls," the woman said, shaking her head. "Well, we'd better tell someone about Mr. Kirkland. I doubt he has any living family; he was such a solitary fellow…"
Title reads "Though I may depart, life goes on" and it is a throwback to the strip "Though I may depart, you shall remain", which came from the quote "I may depart but the state remains forever" from Louis XIV.