A/N: School is closed. I'm desperate for mental stimulation since I'm away from my students and my state isn't yet allowing us to teach new material online. I'm in severe writer's block for the piece I've been focusing on. Frary comes easy. Let's write more Frary! Olivia drama, handled better.
Then don't let me stop you!
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Mary had made her way around the lakeside. She'd had little to eat that day and more than enough wine. She had never been drunk before, having lived most of her life to this day in a convent. She still wasn't sure she was drunk. What was the term? Tillby? Totty? Whatever it was, that's likely what she was. She liked this feeling. She liked the way her head felt lighter and everything seemed less doom and gloom. She was furious, to be sure. At Kenna. At Francis. At Olivia. At Francis. At Catherine. At Francis.
And as she rounded a small cluster of trees, she spotted a lone figure sitting on the shores of the lake, canteen of what she assumed was not water clasped in his hand.
"Bash!" she called, but he didn't hear her. Gathering her skirts, she plopped down on the low wall beside him, "I could use some of that." She held out her hand expectantly.
"Is everything all right?" So did it run in the family with these men? Being incredibly dense?
"If everything was all right, I would be back in that marquee, preparing to write simple regrets to tie to a small ship." She made a slight snapping motion and Bash handed over the canteen.
She took a deep pull and- uggh- she had been right. It certainly wasn't water. But it wasn't wine either. She made a face as she handed it back.
Bash chuckled at her, "I should probably tell you to slow down."
Wiping her mouth on the back of her hand in a most un-queen-like fashion, Mary cheekily responded, "but you won't. What's in there anyway?"
Smiling as he took a swig himself, Bash replied, "Brandy."
"Ahh," she held her hand out again, "Well?"
Bash leaned back against the grass, "How about we make a deal?" the look on Mary's face told him she was in no mood for games. "Nothing difficult, just tell me what's troubling you between gulps." He wisely handed over the drink.
"Your brother." She took a drink.
"Olivia?" She nodded and took another drink. Bash tugged gently and it came out of her hand. He took his own drink. "Mary, they have a history of being close, but your engagement is common knowledge and now that you're back-"
Mary cut him off, "I will go find another supply of drink and ear to listen if you're going to take his side."
Bash sat back up and put both hands in the air in surrender as Mary took the brandy back. She was slurring her words and gesticulating wildly, getting more tipsy by the second. He wanted to kiss her. She was beautiful, all of court could see that. But there was more. She had a magnetic pull to her. Power by station of her birth, but a humility from being raised by nuns. She was innocent in so many ways still as she was so young. She was still rambling as Bash brought himself back to the present. This was his brother's fiancée, he couldn't kiss her. Francis trusted him and he couldn't put himself in the middle of this drama, no matter how deeply he wanted to.
Mary paused, looking at Bash. At his lips more precisely. She leaned forward, as if to kiss him, but lost her balance and fell against him. "Oh, Bash I'm sorry." Her face was tucked against his shoulder and he brought his arms around her. Berating himself as he allowed himself to take in the scent of her hair. He could feel her shoulders shaking, trying to refrain from sobbing. "I'm so sorry, it's just that life is so different here and with what Kenna's done I don't even know if I can trust my ladies, I know I can't trust Catherine, and Francis is going off with Olivia, I just need one person I can count on!"
He knew what Kenna had done, but he wasn't sure how Mary had found out. He thought it best not to trust Catherine as a general rule, and if Francis had actually said that he could take Olivia as his mistress, well that had been a low blow. He patted at Mary's back as she continued talking.
"I know it's not fair to say any of this to you," she sniffled. "You're Francis' brother and your loyalty is of course to him, but you found Sterling and you've been so, so kind to me. I just thought-" she broke off and took a deep breath.
It was then that Bash looked around and noticed Francis standing up the hill from them. He couldn't quite decipher the look on his brother's face, but they locked eyes and Bash gestured with a nod that Francis should come closer.
"Mary," Bash tried to nudge her off of his shoulder.
She lifted her head a fraction, "what?"
Slowly moving his hands from her back to her shoulders, Bash gently put space between them, "I think my brother wants to talk to you."
Mary's head snapped around as she heard a twig snap under Francis' boot. "I don't want to talk to him," she sprang up, looking and sounding much more sober than she had just a moment ago. She dashed off around the lake in the other direction.
"Mary!" Francis called after her, but she continued to run as he pulled up level with Bash. He turned to give his brother a cold stare, "May I ask what it was you were doing with my fiancée just now?"
Bash stared back just as coldly, "She came and found me and we were not exactly enjoying a drink. She's hurt, Francis. And I think you know why." Bash sat back down, checking on the brandy, seeing if Mary had left any for him. To his luck, she had.
Unexpectedly, Francis sat down next to him, "What should I do?"
Bash gave a rueful chuckle, "Well, I would say kissing the girl you used to be in love with and then threatening to take her as a mistress to prove just how not like Father you are was not the right course."
Francis swiped the now empty canteen from Bash and turned it disappointingly upside down. "Thanks." He thrust it back, "that's incredibly helpful. What was that embrace I saw at the end there about? It looked like I was interrupting quite the private moment." His tone was icy and Bash realized that he had to tread carefully around his future king for possibly the first time in his life.
"Well, as you can tell by the empty canteen, she had quite a bit to drink, and she wasn't sober when she came down here. She lost her balance and then started sobbing." He dropped the mocking tone and grasped Francis' shoulder, turning the younger man to look at him, "She feels alone, Francis. She's not sure who to trust and just when she felt secure in your relationship, you decide, against her wishes, to house the woman you had sex with for the first time. How should she feel?"
Leaning forward and putting his head in his hands, Francis rubbed at his eyes. "This isn't how I want her to feel. I was coming to find her to apologize, but then I saw the two of you and I got angry and jealous, which means that I know exactly how she feels with Olivia. And then she ran away from me." He gestured off at the point where they had lost sight of Mary.
Suddenly, Bash stood up and started walking back toward the forest. "Well, you have fun with that conversation, little brother. I'm off to find a way to refill this before tonight."
Francis asked a few people if they had seen Mary and was eventually directed toward a low wall around the other side of the water. It was where Mary had first suggested that they were just a boy and just a girl. She turned and saw him, so he decided it was best to call out again, "I'm here to apologize."
She stilled, looking over the water. If he hadn't gotten to know her so well over the last few weeks, he might not have noticed the change.
"Well, apologize, that's new." Her tone was clipped, but she had unclasped her hands and turned to face him.
He gently reached for her hand and laced their fingers. "Mary, I never should have said anything about taking Olivia as my mistress. I have no intention of ever taking a mistress because I want the life we lead together to be one of mutual trust and respect. I want it to be of us united, as rulers and as a couple." He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles, "I want us to grow to love each other so much that the thought of being with anyone else is utterly ridiculous."
It all sounded sweet, but Mary's mind was pulled out of the haze of his dreamy words at the last one, "I'm sure you intended all of that to be romantic, Francis, but what I just heard at the last bit there was that you want me to not care that Olivia is here because I care for you even though I know that she isn't going to stop trying."
He dropped her hand and tilted his head back in frustration. They had already had one blow-up today because she was insecure and he had responded with anger. He had to not let that happen again. As he had said earlier, she was infuriating. "Mary, I promise you, I am going to find a place for Olivia to go. I have no intention of being in a situation where I could be alone with her and no intention of ever kissing anyone but you ever again. But I need you to understand that she was a very good friend for many years, even before we were more than that to each other, so I still care for her and I need to know that she's being kept by a good family that doesn't feel like the crown is making demands on them to take her." He moved closer and cradled Mary's face between his hands. "Mary, please, I have no ulterior motives here."
"I get that, I do, Francis." She stepped back and turned away. "It's not the helping her part that I have problems with. I was being perfectly friendly to her, even offering her a gown for tonight's party until she made it very clear that she wants you back and that she thinks she can make it happen!"
"She can't, Mary." He said, near desperation.
"She's beautiful." Mary whispered, trying to hide her sniffle.
Hesitantly laying a hand on Mary's shoulder, he turned her to face him. "You're beautiful, Mary. No woman compares to you. And even if your physical beauty wasn't enough to stop a cart and horses, watching you push and negotiate with my father, watching him actually have to grapple for power against you, that was the moment I looked at you and thought, 'this woman is my destiny and I'm the luckiest man in the world for it.'"
For the first time in this conversation, Mary broke into a smile, but it faded quickly, "Francis, I can't have her here." She leaned into him, though, which he took as a good sign.
He tilted her chin up to look into her eyes, "Someday, Mary Stuart, I promise you that you'll feel secure enough with me that it won't matter. But for now, there are cottages on the grounds here, would one of those be far enough away until we find a place for her to go?"
"I don't like it."
"I know."
"But I suppose it will do." She sank against him and let him wrap his arms around her.
They heard a horn sound back by the crowds and broke reluctantly apart, "Come," Francis held out a hand, "I believe there's a small boat, with your name on it."
Mary smiled and took his hand to be led toward the ceremony.