Prince Rainier
Week Two. Day Six.
It seems I've come to a great many realizations of simple truths. Small, minute little clues that I ignored before when my head was still spinning, but now it would appear that everything has become suddenly clear.
She lets me spin her around and lift her into the air and she's not smiling because she doesn't seem to be terribly fond of dancing, but the fact that she's dancing for me is a good sign. She'll come out of her comfort zone for my sake. So there's some hope that I can convince her to come tomorrow. Would it be terribly difficult to ease her out of her comfort zone once more and break her schedule?
She doesn't have much to say to me, as per usual. She glimmers in gold, though. She's made me the envy of half the ballroom. And she dances fluidly and easily, like she'd been born in a ballroom, which is funny when you stop to consider just how much she hates being in one.
When the dance is over, she walks out of the room. Not to the garden. Through the halls. She takes my arm and looks around at all the paintings on the walls. I could tell her. I could. I should. But I can't.
"I know you have a...schedule," I say slowly. "And I know that you prefer to...keep to it. And I'm not sure what it is that happens to you outside of this palace that keeps you from coming every day. But...do you think...you might..."
Dammit, Rainier, out with it.
"Hm?" she eyes me.
"Do you think you could come back again tomorrow?" I ask her. I hope she can't see the desperation in my eyes. Desperation is not attractive. But it's not easy to mask and I truly am grasping at straws here. "I know it's a lot to ask, but tomorrow is the last day. There's going to be a massive fireworks display, and I have something else I want you to see. Could you?"
She's silent as she thinks it over. Her eyes move from painting to painting, to the decor, to the doors of the ballroom, to the balcony overlooking the grounds. She walks on slowly.
"Fireworks, you say?" she asks at last.
"Fireworks. Brought in from the far east."
"I've only ever seen them once," she tells me. "When I was very little. It would be so sweet to see them again. Tell me, Rainier—have you ever been to the far east?"
"I've gone as far as the middle east," I say. "But never farther."
"Well, that's farther than I've ever gone."
"You've never travelled?"
"I've never wanted to."
"What do you want, then?"
"Very simple things," she says.
"Such as?"
"Home," she says quietly. "And peace. Or perhaps a peaceful home."
Her husband is a brute or a beast or most likely both. And clearly she's said all that she intends to say about him tonight. She takes her skirts in a careful sweep of the hand and sinks into a curtsey that I truly hate to look at.
"Farewell, my prince," she says.
"You'll be back tomorrow?" I ask as she turns back towards the stairs.
She pauses, her hand on the railing. My eyes linger on that fabric coated left ring finger. Please don't let whatever rests on that finger during the daylight hours stop her from coming back. I know it's wrong to ask for this, but I'm still praying that whatever it is she's got waiting for her back home doesn't mean more to her than what she could have with me if she just comes back one more time.
She turns halfway, seems to look at nothing.
"At least...consider it," I say. "Consider me."
I've just jumped off a cliff. My heart is pounding. I've never been this scared before. Which is funny, because there haven't been a great many moments in my life when I was scared of anything at all. Dammit, Rainier. You're not new to this whole 'love' thing. You've been scared and thrilled and ecstatic before. But you've never been this scared or this thrilled or this ecstatic.
She seems to almost nod, and then she is gone again. It's not much. But like everything else she's done, it's enough.