Author's note:
Ah, so this is entirely unlike the kind of narrative I'd usually publish. It's more about imagery, far less detailed and character driven than I'd normally publish, and a bit odd to my mind. In saying that, I got into writing it and really enjoyed it, and I hope you do too.
The title seems a little negative for the story, and the idea of violations can mean so many things. at first I had Clarisse's perspective describe them and why she felt them, but then I decided that was too easy. Who's taking advantage of whom? was more fun to my mind.
Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me. I make no monetary gain from writing, and acknowledge Disney and Meg Cabot's rights.
She feels a laugh bubble into her own throat; it is uncontrolled and completely unlike her. Perhaps it is the bright sun, the punch that has no alcohol but feels like it should. It's definitely her sons, free and entirely hers, for six weeks.
Phillippe is trying, vainly to convince her, to play him at tennis. She could not abandon the mountain of paperwork on her desk, so she'd had her secretary bring it down here, to the edge of the tennis court, as her sons played.
He sidles up to her, his tennis whites a perfectly bright gleam – with the exception of the smear of green on both his knees where he slid dramatically to hit the ball – and pouts perfectly.
"Mama, I insist."
She pretend to be lost in the document that is fluttering between her fingers.
"I don't think so," she says gently, "I'm hardly dressed."
"Go and change."
"Phillippe," Pierre says, from where he is fiddling idly and patiently with the net, awaiting his brother, "Leave mama alone."
Her youngest stalks off with a disappointed glare and sets his racket up again, slamming the ball towards his brother.
She gets lost, pulling her hat down a little further as her observations slide between the document and her sons' game. Pierre is roundly trouncing Phillippe, despite the effort the latter seems to be extolling where Pierre seems to be giving none. They are mismatched in determination, and that's where the disparity seems to lie, yet the one with less effort seems to be winning.
She feels eyes on her, and the thumping of a ball against rackets tells her it's not her sons. It is him, the new advisor to the Head of Security. He has sun glasses on, and they cover his face, but she knows he's watching her. He must be on fire under all that black.
The scrutiny is one which makes her feel uncomfortable. She feels it acutely and it is disconcerting. It's not inappropriate, as such, but she feels it intensely and that makes her feel untethered. It feels, for all its intensity, like a violation of something. It borders on insubordination.
Sometimes, even when she is in bed alone at night, she is left with the lingering feeling of his scrutiny. His eyes don't crawl like other men's (she doesn't consider herself particularly attractive, but she has to acknowledge that her power is attractive, and it is that they lust after) but they do take her in in a speculative manner, as if he's measuring her up.
He's around her a lot more than he used to be and yet that intense gaze feels, still, unfamiliar.
The panic, she realises, as she tries hard to read the line she's been reading over and over again, is that she enjoys the scrutiny.
She can only admit that to herself.
She feels it climb now, over her shoes, her legs, the pretty blue sundress she'd settled on this morning, then onto her face.
She snaps her head up and he looks away.
-0-
She wraps her arms around herself. The winter is coming, and the chill is seeping into her bones. She should have brought a jacket, but it runs deeper than that.
She feels tears threatening her eyes. She sucks in an icy breath, and it fortifies her in a way she finds, and always does find, startling.
It stutters out, a gasping breath, and he misinterprets it. He's thinking of course, of the gossip he's no doubt heard. Hers is a marriage that is not easily navigated, and today the sailing has been even rougher than it typically is.
His footfalls pick up pace and he's beside her. He is removing his jacket, and even in the stillness of the late afternoon, it swishes past her and she smells the scent of oranges and leather and freshness.
It disconcerts her.
"My jacket, Your Majesty," he says, "I insist."
She drapes it around her shoulders and that striking, decadent smell envelopes her.
It's the most he's ever spoken to her, and she's afraid he's said too much already.
-0-
She wouldn't usually indulge in this, but she's tired and no one knows apart from the security that she has to have. And he's discreet, and never speaks, she knows. She doubts if he speaks at all.
It's a stupid, screwball comedy and she would never be seen dead watching it under normal circumstances. Tonight, the boys have gone back to school, and she needs something to cheer her up.
She's laughing and it's coursing through her, travelling all the way from her mouth down to her toes. She hasn't laughed like this in however long, and it feels tremendously good to let go in a way that simply isn't possible.
As suddenly as she's laughing, she realises someone else is too. Immediately she stops, sobers, but she's pleased, in some odd way, when she realises it's him.
She motions to the couch.
"Join me Colonel. It must be painful standing there."
She likes that he doesn't argue, it's refreshingly bold, but he's uncomfortable about how to sit and where to sit and how near to be on the couch beside her. She slides as near the arm as possible, so he doesn't feel uncomfortable.
"Thank you ma'am."
She simply smiles.
-0-
She paces across the floor, her heels dragging rather than clacking, and she wants to bite her nails into oblivion. She won't, of course, because that's a habit she's long outgrown. She wrings her hands, straightens her blazer, and wrings her hands again.
It's not a constitutional crisis, but it feels almost as insurmountable.
He coughs just behind her, distracting her from her panic almost instantly.
She turns to him.
"Forgive my boldness, Your Majesty," he says gently, and she is almost calmed completely by the softness he seems so at odds with, "But I think I might have a solution."
She's almost appalled at his forwardness, but she's admiring of it too. He is unafraid of her. He's the only man she's ever known that will hold her eye contact without squirming.
That's exactly what he's doing right now, ensuring she can't look away.
She sighs, "Very well Colonel. Take a seat."
-0-
She knows it's appalling rude, and she wants to say thank you to him for everything he's done this week, but she can't remember his name. Her secretary, Violetta, is sitting across the desk from her.
"Violetta, you're going to think me terribly ignorant but…"
"Which member of staff?"
Her secretary doesn't even lift her head. Clarisse feels a blush rise over her collarbones and onto her neck and coming to rest on her cheeks.
"The Head of Security. Colonel…"
"Joseph."
"That's it," she promises she'll never forget again, "Joseph."
Later, when he is escorting her to her chambers, she gets up the courage. He's only a pace or two behind now, where he used to be five.
"Joseph?"
She feels and hears him stop, miss a beat, and then he recovers.
She doesn't know if that was the desired impact, but it's a startling one nonetheless.
"Your Majesty?"
She stops and turns at the door. The footmen are there, just a second away from her night alone.
"Thank you for everything this week," she says, "It's been particularly taxing."
He bows lowly, not at all facetiously, and then when he lifts his head up his eyes are dark and unfathomable.
She feels faint.
"It was my pleasure, Your Majesty."
-0-
She is running late – she's never been punctual – and today she is dazzlingly late. She knows she's particularly tardy when Violeta starts to get short with her, and that's exactly what has happened today.
He does it naturally, instinctively, but she nearly runs from him when it happens. He's ushering her past a particularly brazen ground of paparazzi, and his hand lands suddenly on the small of her back.
It's never happened before. There's never been a moment where physical contact, for her, has been so jarring.
It burns through the linen dress she's wearing, and behind her sunglasses she feels her pupils dilate. She moves away instantly, but his hand is a natural extension of her body as it moves with her.
He doesn't seem to notice, but the next time he does it, she feels as if she was missing it all along.
-0-
"Happy Birthday, Your Majesty," he says gently.
She straightens up. She had bent to smell one of the particularly fragrant roses as she indulged in an afternoon walk – a birthday gift she truly wanted, and not the dinner party which was to be thrown tonight.
She points to a mauve, blooming one, beside the deeply red Spanish breed she's just been admiring.
"This one is named after me."
"The Clarisse rose?"
She is shocked to hear it – she's so unaccustomed to it that she almost forgets that it was once the only name she knew. And from him it seems alien. The only person who truly uses her name is the king.
"The Queen's Rose," she corrects, "I didn't think you knew my name."
He smiles and his eyes are hidden behind those sunglasses he is so fond of.
"It is a shame," he continues, "That your name isn't used as frequently as it should be. It's a lovely name."
She doesn't know what comes over her. Maybe it's a confidence which comes with age, or the desperate need to feel valued as the person she knows she can be.
"If it's so lovely, perhaps you would use it more. I should like you to use my name…" she feels her own face flush naively, "If you are comfortable."
"I am…Clarisse."
It's the smile that seems to go with it, the way he rolls the 'r' out immeasurably, that feels truly as if she's made a dreadful mistake.
But she can't take it back now.
-0-
"Clarisse, you will do as I ask," Rupert slams down the tumbler he's been nursing.
She bites her tongue, and her grotesque remark, "You can't force me to do anything Rupert. I can't abide the prospect of dinner with that man, let alone having him as a guest here."
"You're bloody impossible," he cries, "And a real thorn in my side."
She tries to suture her own wound immediately, telling herself he doesn't mean it. But if she's his thorn, then he's her spear.
"You're not much better yourself," she screams, "And I won't stand here and trade insults with you. Goodnight."
She slams the door and strides out, her confidence evaporating as quickly as her ire. He'll come later, and apologise, and they'll forget what they said because that's the only way they can get through this.
"You shouldn't put up with that."
She stalls.
She'd forgotten he was right behind her. She turns to him, her face conveying her anger.
He almost recoils.
"It's not your place to say so."
She can see him fighting the urge to speak. He loses.
"I don't like watching you, like this."
She turns away from him.
"Well it's a good thing I am only your employer Colonel. Goodnight."
"He doesn't deserve you."
The words follow her, crawling after her down the corridor.
-0-
"I would like to speak with you," he says gravely, and the early morning sun suddenly seems to disappear.
She was fine when it was only her own secret, but now it's everyone's knowledge.
She can't bear to look at him, "If this is about the affair, Joseph, I know."
He doesn't look either, he keeps his eyes on the painting of her and her husband behind the desk.
She finds it somehow worse, that Joseph knows.
"Yes, and no. The story is going to break tomorrow. You are going to have to be prepared, Your Majesty."
She doesn't answer.
"Clarisse," she corrects.
"You're going to have to be ready, Clarisse."
"I've been preparing for a long time," she shrugs, "It feels inevitable."
There is a pause and she knows he wants to speak.
"He doesn't deserve you."
She says nothing. There is nothing she can say.
-0-
"He's always been so…pious."
She feels a vengeful (and an utterly maternal) stab of fury.
He says nothing.
"It's a ridiculous concept."
His patience seems to waver, and he's suddenly responsive;
"I think his grace is admirable," he says, "And I think his honesty has been too."
She feels humbled by his honesty.
"Am I being selfish Joseph?"
She risks a sideways glance at him.
"Yes, you are."
She walks with him quietly through the gardens, shocked that she doesn't feel offended by his honesty.
-0-
"When he dies…"
The words die too, and she knows Joseph cannot bear to look at her.
"If you need to cry, I will-"
"You are so kind to me."
He finally looks at her, and she knows it's more than kindness that motivates him.
She's known for a while now.
And like him, she's ignored it in herself.
He shrugs, "What I mean-"
"I know what you mean."
"Can I stay, after he's gone?"
It's been on the tip of his tongue since Rupert's diagnosis. She's dreaded his asking it, because the answer implicates her in something she isn't brave enough for.
"I couldn't cope without you."
He begins walking again. This time, she follows.
-0-
She feels her body come apart, deconstructing around her frame. She feels the soft carpet under her, her legs having lost all their power.
A wail rips from her throat, tearing from her chest, leaving a cavity so huge she knows it will never be filled. Her son is gone.
Her son.
She is dying, from the inside out. Her life is flooding out of her, and she aches with the terror of it all.
He is beside her in an instant, as low on the floor as she is, and he is scooping her into his arms.
He is muttering in her ear, intangible, unutterable words. He is rocking her.
She comes apart in his embrace, and screams herself into oblivion.
-0-
"She's going to love you," he promises.
She hates that he can read her so readily.
His fingers inch onto hers, across the mahogany of the table in between them.
His hand remains, his fingers sliding soothingly over hers.
They both turn to look out into the vast, endless sky over the Atlantic.
"I hope so."
"How could she not?"
-0-
The music fills the air. The ungainly footsteps of her granddaughter still fill the ballroom, but she is long gone. The world spins, then grinds to a halt.
She's tired of wearing black, and it's as if he's giving her permission to realise it's alright to move on.
He is unflinchingly close to her, and his closeness has suddenly changed into something entirely new. Her skin prickles as he moves her effortlessly, fluidly across the floor. The music flows into her conscious in fits and starts – she's too concentrated on not missing a step, on ensuring her feet don't go at the same pace as her heart, that she can't quite let it into her mind.
Her mind, right now, is full of him.
When the music finally fades and he pulls away, she feels the lack of contact as if she has been abandoned.
He bows lowly.
"Joseph…"
She used to struggle with his name, she used to - absurd as it is to imagine – forget it.
Now she can't imagine forgetting it.
He touches her cheek softly.
"No more black."
"Mmmmm."
-0-
He takes her hand in his, as casually as she can imagine, yet it feels so monumental to her. With a flick of his sure wrist, his staff disappear into the darkness of the consulate.
In the darkness at the top of the stairs, he leans towards her.
Her breath is shallow, though it has nothing to do with the ridiculous dress or the climb or the champagne she may have had too much of.
"I want to kiss you."
"Please do."
-0-
It simply happens one night. Maybe it was the heat, or the roses in the garden.
They start and they don't stop like the countless times before.
Of all the violations, the tiny, minute steps towards this over agonising years, this seemed the most inevitable.
From the moment he looked at her, she'd known one day she'd end up here, like this, with him.
She is just surprised she's resisted the temptation for so long.
He holds her so tightly, she is afraid she will shatter in his embrace.
And she does too. She shatters into a million different pieces, comes together again, screams his name into the palm of his hand, the pillows of her bed, the muscles of his shoulder.
She screams it in her head, in every fibre of her being.
She doesn't just feel young, unencumbered by age or duty or baggage in his arms, but she feels alive too.
Author's note: Since it's so unusual for me, I'd be very grateful for any feedback (critical or otherwise). If not, I hope you enjoyed it.