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Clarisse surveys the piles of work before her, noting how the in pile of what she has to do is growing and the one that she has completed is shrinking. She leans forward, sighs, and then lifts her pen again. Just behind her eyes a headache is pressing against her retinas, making it difficult to focus. And damn them, but the Parliament has an insufferable habit of wording documents in the most verbose and incomprehensible way possible.
"Your Majesty," his voice flows from behind her. She never forgets he is there, yet it is so comfortable that when he speaks sometimes she is startled. She does not lift her head from the notes she is making but he knows she is listening as he continues.
"Perhaps a break?"
She sighs lightly and shakes her head, "I can't possibly Joseph. I-"
Suddenly he is behind her, the distance that he maintains usually is shattered as he takes 2 maybe 3 steps at the most. He presses a hand to her shoulder, mutters something into his mic, then bends down beside her – one knee on the carpet. He literally wrestles the pen from her tense grip and lays it down on the paper in front of her. He is crouching beside her, so close that his knee is pressed to her calf. She draws her leg away.
"It's 9 pm," he says kindly but firmly, "My shift finished an hour ago. You may be superhuman. I'm not."
"Is that the time?"
She is genuinely shocked as she examines the antique bull clock on her desk. She turns to him, marvels in his smile for a moment, in the nearness and proximity he has to her.
"You have to rest Your Majesty," he opens the top drawer of her desk and drops her favourite pen in.
She wants so fully to protest what she can only consider as insolence from an employee – no other person under her employ would dare take a pen from her hand and command her to do something. Then again, he isn't just her employee. From her friend though, it is so much more about concern and consideration for how evidently exhausted she is. And from the man who kissed her the night before; she is simply not sure what to make of it.
"Joseph," she protests, "When I am back home I promise-"
"You are lying," he states simply, letting the drawer slide closed.
She smiles in spite of herself, "You're trying to be smart but if you knew me as well as you claimed, you'd know I keep that particular pen in my handbag."
He scoffs at her teasing, "Clarisse, you can't expect me to have a detailed understanding of your stationary."
She grants him a smile then, "How are your knees?"
"Aching."
"Get up," she motions with her hand, "I can't afford to have you useless as well as insubordinate."
He laughs lowly and that look passes across his face again. The only thing she can do is tear her eyes away because it is so uncomfortable – it is visceral. He holds her gaze though and defies her to cast her eyes away.#
"I am worried," she watches as he gets up and pushes her chair away from her desk. He rubs his knee gingerly and grimaces slightly. He won't take time off, she knows, because he's frightened to leave her.
"About Mia?"
"About a number of things," she answers, standing and removing her jacket. She feels horrible – the entire day she's been stuck behind this desk, preparing for their return to Genovia.
While the princess has accepted her role, and the crown, she is asking a lot of her and she can't help but ask a lot – that is, perhaps, what she finds most frustrating. Today the princess cried during the introductory lesson to her country's economy. After the high of the ball, and her acceptance, Clarisse was suddenly again aware of how tentative it all was.
"Just because she has said yes," she continues, "Doesn't mean she will always say yes. It's so...so tenuous."
He holds the door of the library open for her. Aside from Anton at the front door, the entire consulate is abed. There are suitcases piled at the door and the skeleton staff they are leaving behind are glad to see them go. Clarisse, for one, will be very glad to go home. He offers his arm and she threads hers through it.
"I know Clarisse," he answers kindly, "But you need to have faith in her. You know how young she is and you can be...demanding."
She chooses to ignore the explicit accusation.
"I do, I do have faith," she lets him lead her to the kitchen, "But it is so hard to..."
She trails off, not sure what she wants to say. He won't push her, he never does, and she thinks that's what makes it all the harder to resist sharing everything with him. She sits at the kitchen table and lets him serve her a cup of tea. It is perfectly brewed and perfectly made and she enjoys the sensation of wrapping her hand around the ceramic (she doesn't drink from china privately) and watching him as he cooks for her.
"Omlette?" He asks, holding up the frying pan.
"Only," she responds, "If it's Spanish."
He laughs wryly and sets about making her dinner, "What else?"
There is a clean silence across the consulate, the only thing breaking it is the cracking of shells or the soft hum of the gas burner. She enjoys watching him go about his task. He rolls his black sleeves up revealing tanned, solid forearms. An understated watch that he sticks by religiously. He works with dedication, with precision, as he does in every area of his life. He gets warmer as the kitchen starts to heat and removes his tie and sits it beside her. All of this he does in silence until he slides a plate to sit before her and says "Bon appetit ma reine."
She smiles up at him and does not have the heart to say that she's not hungry enough to eat it because the use of that affectation has left her mute. As soon as the smell of the rather simple fare invades her senses though it is another matter. She marvels in the fact he can cook, simply because she can't and because it seems like such a skilled thing to be able to do.
"You're very good at making these," she says as he sits down beside her, pulling his own plate across the table.
They eat in contented silence for a while, until her plate has only the remnants of her half of the omlette.
"Why," she suddenly says into the silence, "Do you always defend her?"
He wipes his mouth with his napkin, and takes a gulp of his water before he answers her.
"What do you mean?"
His tone is not accusing, simply curious.
"You used to do it with Phillipe too," she answers, "You never did it with Pierre, I suppose you never had to, but you did it with Phillipe and you do it with Amelia."
He pauses for a moment and then smiles, though it is clear he is a little disconcerted by her question.
"Can I ask you something?"
"I believe you should answer me first, as I was the first to ask a question," she counters, merely smiling at him.
"Ok," he sighs lightly, scooping up their plates and carrying them to the sink. He twists the taps and drops them in. he is her chef, her councillor, her friend, he even washes dishes for her. She pays him monthly but what he does for her is far beyond the limitations of the Renaldi coffers, or her own private bank account. She often wonders why he stays and puts up with all of it. He has his very own, sizeable, financial independence. She has never had the nerve to ask him, for fear he might suddenly realise he doesn't need this job any more and get up and go.
She waits patiently for her answer, though she is rarely inclined to wait on anyone, and she does not mind waiting for an answer from him. He is reliable for good advice and true counsel always and, she allows herself a moment of childish fancy, he is a divinely good looking man. She thinks of being in his arms and pushes it from her head.
He finally divests the two cleaned plates on the rack, where the soap drips off of them. He turns round and leaning against the sink, begins drying his hands with the near by dish towel.
"I do it because," he shrugged, "No one else does."
She looks at him for a moment then shakes her head, signalling she does not fully understand. He slings the dish towel over his shoulder and moves towards the fridge in the kitchen. He swings it open and pulls out a half-bottle of wine from the ball last night, scooping two glasses from the top of the fridge as he does so. She should say no, we have an early flight tomorrow, but she doesn't.
"Something to loosen my tongue?" She asks as he pours the wine into her glass, the sloshing noise seeming much louder than it should.
"Amongst other things," he answers, twisting the bottle over his own glass.
She feels a blush climb onto her face, wishes it would go down. He startles a little, and stares around, as he hears the thump of her shoes fall onto the tiled floor below. He bends to look under the table, realises what caused the noise, and straightens up again.
"Always vigilant Colonel," she quips, lifting her glass to her lips as he sits beside her, "You have to help me understand what you mean...you're being evasive."
"I'm not being evasive," he responds, swirling his wine around the glass, "I'm being tactful. I do not want to hurt you."
She looks him in the eye, "You hurt me often because, unlike anyone else around me, you are honest. The truth, as they say, hurts."
"It does," he nods.
"So what do you mean?" She doesn't like being hurt by his words but she knows, now that she has asked, that she has to understand what he means.
"You've explained it, very succinctly, already," he says, "The truth hurts. No one around you tells you the truth – no one. You don't have any objective advisers and honestly...it is easier to lie to you, to tell you you're doing the right thing, than tell you you're not. I defend them because no one else does – no one else dares to. I defended Phillipe because I cared about him a great deal – I empathised with him a great deal. He could not be with the woman that he loved."
She does not miss the meaning behind his words. She looks at him, attempting to see into the darkness that fills his eyes.
"Do you think I'm formidable Joseph?" She asks, both pondering and amused.
"Absolutely," he answers, "Formidable and majestic and-"
"You're diverting into flattery in order to distract me," she says quickly, placing her fingers over his.
"I told you; I only ever tell you the truth," he answers seriously.
"I know, I have always known," she stares into the glass, "What comes with this title. Being queen made me formidable, long before I was. Then it was just a very easy, very real, transition. I am hard on her-"
"You are hard on yourself Clarisse," he interrupts softly, "You are so hard on yourself that you forget just now wonderful you can be with her."
"I know," she nods lightly, "I want you to be her defence counsel," she takes a large gulp from her glass, "Because god knows she needs it."
"Is that all you want me to be?"
"No," she looks him in the eye, feeling truly braver than she is, "But you know that."
"Will you always tell me the truth? After all, if it is what I do for you..."
He leans closer to her, as he asks his question, so close she can smell the wine on his breath.
"Yes," she says and realises it comes out in a rather strangled manner.
"I defend them then," he says, "Because they are yours. And I love them, because I love you."
There is little left to say then. She knows he had tried to tell her the night before, as he had escorted her from the ball, she had heard the words in his mouth before she could let them slip out. But the kiss he left her with had made quite clear how he felt. She had lay in her bed later on, surprised by the intensity of the kiss and what a simple kiss could convey.
"Will you kiss me, as you kissed me last night?"
He stands up and comes towards her, pulling the arms of her chair as he does. The noise is harsh across the floor and it reverberates around the room.
"How did I kiss you?"
He leans over her, his arms on either side, trapping her. She feels imprisoned and liberated all at once.
"With..."
"With?" He runs his fingers across her lips.
"With passion," she stutters.
"With so much more," he kisses her forehead, along her jaw, across her cheek, "Than just passion. Passion is so very easy..."
He scoops her up forcefully, bringing his lips crashing to hers. Her mind is numb and can think only of inconsequential things, like the pen that is still in the drawer. It is heated and frozen all at once in the kitchen. He is kissing with an intensity she has never felt before; she is returning it with an intensity she never thought she was capable of. Her hands are pressed to his chest, under which she can feel a thumping heart. His hands are all over her, hands where no employees hands should be and she lets him. She enjoys him in a way she has enjoyed no other man and no other kiss she has ever experienced. He pulls back, gasping for air, and she finds herself pressed between him and the kitchen table, one of her legs wrapped around his waist. One hand is tangled in her hair, another is holding her neck in the most possessive manner.
They are pressed against each other, the only sound the deep and staccato gasps for breath. They stare at each other for a long, long time. Time though, the time that he stick so rigidly by, has paused in the small kitchen and stopped moving and imposed nothing on them.
"The truth is," she feels braver than she is, "I need your honesty. I need -"
She swallows, trying to regain her confidence, "I need you."
"How do you need me?"
She knows what she wants to say but whether or not years of shackles will let her say it remains a mystery to her.
"In every way..."
It turns out that with him it wasn't difficult to say at all.
"Let me take you to bed."
She is both shocked by his bravery and impressed by it. He has never failed to be honest with her, just as he says. The kiss the evening before betrayed something else far more.
"When we go back home," she mutters because she can't help herself, "It cannot be like this."
"I know," he grasps her forearms, "Forgive me, I shouldn't have asked that of you. I would never be disrespectful to-"
"Stop being so honest," she laughs softly, attempting to dispel the discomfort.
She sees then that he is embarrassed and reached out to touch his cheek, stalling him. Her mind is whirring with possibilities. Possibilities that have been plaguing her since he turned away from her the evening before. She wanted, then, to be so very honest with him.
"I respect you, you must know. But forgive me my dear," he steps back, almost stumbling as he does so. She has never saw him so flustered, "The carnal side of me just couldn't resist the request at least."
"Could it resist the granting of such a request?"
She can't believe her own courage as she lifts her eyes to look at him. She notes how her language has become convoluted – diplomatic. She is slipping back in to what she knows to ask the uncomfortable questions she needs to ask.
"No."
It sounds like a growl. Is she enjoying this sort of teasing? She doesn't know. She hadn't intended it to sound like teasing, but now that it is, she supposes she is liking the effect it is having on him.
"I am being honest," she whispers.
"No," he looks at her, already taking her hand, "You're being evasive."
"I'm a diplomat," she answers as he leads her across the foyer and she finds herself at the foot of the stairs, "It's my job to be evasive."
She watches as they climb, counting her steps. They left the glasses, she thinks absently, in the kitchen. He is leading her through dark hallways, his steps quiet and measured. His hand burns around hers.
"You promised me honesty."
She realises they are outside the suite in which she has been staying for the last 4 weeks. The same door in front of which they had stood the evening before, lingering on the same precipice, dancing on the same edge. She looks into his face. He is a man...he is so much more than that. He is a man that she wants. It is pure and simple and carnal and like nothing she has ever felt before. It feels uncomfortable and dangerous.
"I can't ask you," she lets him hold her then, his hand firm on her back, "Not in as many words. You know who I am."
"But you do ask me..." his hand lingers on the handle of the door, "In as many looks and as many glances, my dear."
"You know my tells," she whispers, her hand landing over his to press the handle down. It feels forward. Her mother would have scolded her for it. She pushes that thought to the back of her mind, where it needs to stay. The click, and the door falling open, seems unbearably noisy.
"I've watched you forever," he stops her in the doorway, "Everything you do, for me, is honest."
"Only because you know me..." she attempt to walk with confidence across the threshold because she doesn't know how else to do it. It draws from him an approving smile. She can feel it burn her back. Her senses are heightened – he has not crossed the threshold of her room. The metaphorical threshold is far larger. So much so that it involves much more than just a decision to put an expensive leather brogue over a carpet runner.
She waits for him to follow, standing in the darkness of the room. She hears him close the door lightly, hears the soft steps as he comes to stand behind her.
"The truth is," she whispers as his lips land on her neck, "I love you."
"I know," he finally turns her to kiss him and all thought is gone, "I can feel it."