"Keep your distance from her. No one is worth dying for," his mother spoke evenly, her eyes trained on him with authority and a hint of pity.
So that was it, then... His life was to be ruled by their dictates. He had to heed her, and Francis, and the Catholic Church. As a bastard, he had no chance to even venture to reach out for Mary's heart, a prize altogether too worthy of him.
Sebastian ran a hand through his hair, trying to avoid Diane's pointed gaze. He'd have closed his eyes to shut her out, were it not for the other woman in his mind, a figure that pained him more than his mother's lofty airs and assumptions.
He nodded curtly and strode past his mother, following a corridor toward the anteroom of the Great Hall. He needed to get out of his head, away from the warnings that treated him as a willful child, and away from his own desires, which felt far from childish burning deep within him. Of course, he was not a child - had not been for a while. Would he have been naïve, his heart would have hinged on the warnings that implied he ruled Mary's heart as well.
Why else would his brother, her fiancé, be so worried about her?
Bash had his trust. But that Francis - the rest of them, all of them - did not dare give Mary an opportunity to move past a potential love for him - a more naïve Bash could have made something of that. That is what they were all implying, after all. That he had a chance, that he was winning her heart!
But Sebastian was not the sort to hang on to the good news. Especially when the guilt and suspicion of the love that remained unvoiced was weighing down on him. His temples burned. And as he closed his eyes, the pressure went away. For there was Mary, in a gown of silver trimmed with pale green, her skin flushed and rosy in contrast. She looked up at him breathless, smiling and happy to see him.
The Great Hall's doors opened and guards poured out with as much flourish as their armor allowed. Their clanking snapped Bash out of his reverie.
He looked up to see his brother, the Dauphin, following the procession.
"Bash!" Francis greeted him enthusiastically.
'Has he forgiven me?' Dash thought, grasping his brother's arm firmly.
"Bash, I've had the most... exhilarating day! So much is happening! Mary agreed to... well... marry me!"
"Did she?"
"Yes. Now! We agreed to do it now!"
"So soon?" Bash tried to hide the unease in his voice.
"Ah, well, tomorrow, really. If you're going to be technical about it," he said, clapping his brother on the shoulder. "Send us the official congratulations before supper, will you?"
"Where are you going?" Bash called out after him.
"I've left my bride unkissed and it is a duty I must attend to with great haste!" Francis replied, bounding down the hall happily.
—
A thrill ran through her body, before he even touched her lips. Lost in his blue eyes, Mary could give herself to him, maybe all too selfishly. In these moments she was not thinking of Scotland and of her claim to England and the cogs that turned the rest of the world.
"Say it again, Francis," she whispered to him breathlessly.
"Ours. Our family."
"Oh, it sounds so grand," she smiled, kissing him.
"Our family. Which we will begin building after our wedding. All ours," Francis assured her with little kisses on her neck.
"The family may be ours, but the wedding will be all your Father's. The whole court awaits his orchestration of our union-" Mary found herself suddenly cut off as the lips of her betrothed covered her own.
"Enough talk of my father," Francis broke the kiss with a smirk. "Why don't we go straight to the part where we are making our family?"
Mary's light laughter escaped from between them, bouncing to the corners of the long corridor where they found themselves. Trapped against a square column, with Francis against her and his long blond locks framing her face, she felt that thrill of the promise of "our.
Looking him in the eyes, she felt that thrill run through her body. She was elated to be there, under his gaze, assured that both their hearts would be in this. When Francis dipped his head to make up the empty space between them, she lost her breath to him. He deepened the kiss and she reached out, wrapping him in her arms.
She thought of nothing more than Francis and his dreamed-up life for them. Francis and his warm, searching lips and gold-spun hair. In her mind, there was no room for diplomacy or other people in their world. Only Francis. At first.