I don't own Clarisse. I don't own Joe. I am not trying to pass off quotes from Shakespeare's "Sonnet 116" as my own work. (You'll find them woven in here and there, somewhere about two-thirds of the way through.) I'm just writing this stuff because it makes me happy.
THANK you...for being here today. ;)
Involuntary reactions are simply a matter of biology for most people, but not for queens. Blushing, sweating, strange abdominal rumblings – a queen must be in control of these phenomena at all times, especially when she is sitting on the dais in front of every member of Parliament, save one: a senior member who had succumbed to the ill effects of a late season flu virus. He was able to do that because he was not the Queen.
Clarisse had had a close encounter with such a vile bug in early winter, but due to a well-promoted public appearance, she'd had little time to wallow in its miserable wake. After only a day and a half and two full nights, she had appeared at the banquet for Pyrus's annual celebration of Volunteer Appreciation Day. No one had known the color on her cheeks was mostly artificial, so expertly had her lady's maid applied it. No one had known she spent the duration of her flawlessly delivered speech battling nausea induced by the smells of the food being served at the tables.
Duty first. Everything else second – and that included the flu. If one was a queen, anyway. She frowned internally, not wanting her frustration to be evident on her face as she considered her husband's state at the moment. Rupert was in no better shape than the missing parliamentarian. Three days, and he was still in bed with a fever. She was trying not to be judgmental.
Since Rupert had given into the flu, she was sitting to the right of the Prime Minister and listening to a bunch of ornery old men prattle on indignantly about things she suspected they did not completely understand. Clarisse, on the other hand, was well acquainted with the main issue of contention, having stayed up half the night to read up on it. She would have studied it during the day, but her schedule had been packed with the unexpected addition of the King's unavoidable duties. Now she was very tired, and her body wanted to show it to the world. It wanted to betray her by undermining her carefully arranged façade of calm and attentiveness.
It wanted to yawn.
It was a desperate battle. Her mouth strained to keep closed, her eyes struggled to stay open, and her nostrils flared slightly as they sucked in a rush of air. So far, Clarisse was winning, but the Yawn kept coming back, its force and determination increasing after each defeat. Clearly, the Yawn took failure as a deeply personal thing.
Clarisse smoothed her skirt over her knees in order to take a surreptitious peek at her watch, then turned an exasperated eye roll into what she hoped looked like a thoughtful inspection of the chandelier in the middle of the room. These jackasses had been arguing for argument's sake for two hours. She was still ten minutes away from being saved by either the introduction of reason into the debate, or the dismissal for lunch. Her guess was it would be the latter.
The Yawn, taking no chances, brought back-up this time. It struck fiercely, and it had hardly retreated before another one charged up and took its best shot. She nearly gave in, but her queenly sensibilities were stronger, reminding her that nothing delighted the political reporter from the Pyrus Post more than catching a monarch looking bored at parliamentary proceedings. Her face remained forward as her eyes flickered casually toward the reporter slouching in his chair and playing with the cord that dangled his press card around his neck. Sure enough, he straightened up and sought her out, feeling her eyes on him. He was having as much trouble following the "discussion" as she was, but that wasn't why he was there. Camera tucked onto his lap, notepad on his knee, and an uncapped pen behind his ear, he was ready to spring into action if the politicians' attacks turned deliciously personal or if emotion cracked the Queen's countenance.
Feeling a sigh coming on, her lungs gathered a deep breath, but the Yawn felt it, too, and latched onto her inhalation. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the reporter stop fiddling with the press card.
Damn, she thought. She must be slipping.
After fighting it off again and delaying what she feared would be the inevitable, she stole another glance at her watch - just in time to see the minute hand tick forward. One. Notch. A minute! Only one meager minute had gone by. Oh, the horror of it all!
Her lamentation was punctured by the sounds of a crowd getting riled up at the bombastic speech of a nobleman practically frothing at the mouth in his fit of self-righteous anger.
Please, God, make him stop or I might have to throw something at him!
Desperation washed over her and she found herself wanting to scream. Her hands, folded neatly on her lap, balled into fists, and her feet started tapping out an anxious rhythm even as she kept her knees still. At least, the excitement throbbing around her would keep her from…
No! Thinking about the Yawn had been a mistake. It came at her again, but this time she gave it a mental glare, directing all her pent-up frustration at it so that it cowered momentarily before slinking off.
Yes, a queen must be able to rein in involuntary reactions and thoughtless habits. Eye rolls, foot tapping that didn't shake the rest of her frame, anger that wanted to spill out of her like the insides of a volcano – it all had to be tamped down and tucked away out of sight. She stilled her feet and resisted the urge to fidget in her seat.
Then it happened. The one thing she couldn't control. Her one unconquered impulse.
She looked for Joseph.
Keeping her head straight, she moved her gaze past the rows of blustering clowns and saw her bodyguard leaning against the doorframe. As usual, Joseph was wearing black, down to the sunglasses. He knew wearing the sunglasses indoors over a stern, clenched-jaw expression strengthened his dangerous vibe. She knew he wore them to hide his eyes as they reacted to the farce playing out before him.
The glasses also hid the fact that he had shifted his eyes to meet her covert glance, but she knew he was looking at her because one corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
When it had started, she couldn't say, but she sought him out when she needed strength or peace or to exchange a knowing look with a kindred spirit. At first, it had vexed her immensely, discovering a compulsion that could not be mastered. She had fought it, had subjected it to her usual rigorous discipline, but it would not be altered, it would be neither bent nor removed.
He had become for her an ever-fixed mark, and she had eventually come to accept it.
It was an indulgence for sure, a decadence of unprecedented proportions. For once he felt her eyes on him, he would look at her, and for the space of a glance, her abdomen would host an explosion of butterflies, her heart would skip a beat, and heaven only knew what else. Perhaps her pupils dilated, and she was certain she had felt on occasion a wretched glow of happiness warming her cheeks. When they caught each other's eye, her defenses were smashed. Her walls crumbled. She would relax...
The Yawn felt her relax.
It was the worst assault yet, and took every ounce of her will to prevail against it. Through watery eyes, she tried to bring Joseph back into focus. Much to her dismay, he looked vastly amused.
That happened, too. Sometimes he found amusement in her predicaments, and she was seriously irritated with the man who was her Unshakeable Star. What made it even worse was that irritation didn't stop the butterflies or her heart from doing somersaults. She consoled herself with the knowledge that she was an expert at concealing the extent of her infatuation.
She broke their visual contact abruptly and somewhat haughtily. In her periphery, she saw him purse his lips. His expression seemed apologetic. While someone whacked a cane on a table and the Prime Minister responded by banging his gavel and the reporter continued to look bored with the run-of-the-mill drama, she tuned it all out and looked back to Joseph.
She should have turned away when his eyebrows lifted above the rim of his sunglasses. She should have known better when he smirked. She should never have relinquished her attention to him.
Because he yawned. A humongous, jaw-popping yawn that was barely covered by his hand.
Bastard.
There was no point in trying to resist any longer. Amid the shouting, the banging, and the display by one member in the center of the floor who was the literal definition of hopping mad, Queen Clarisse gave in to the Yawn.
Above the stomping, sputtering, and cursing, she heard the click of a camera.
Beyond the crowd, her bodyguard wore a satisfied smile untouched by the rollicking wrath of politicians and the promise of retribution in his employer's furtive glare.
Beneath the layers of anger, self-reproach, and exhaustion, Clarisse felt the whispery tingle of a thousand butterflies taking flight.
The End
P. S. Did you yawn? I yawned every time I read through this during the editing phase. Every time.