As soon as Prince Alan Stuart realized that his mother had given him a potential exit from his lifelong loneliness and bachelorhood by offering him a chance to win over the lovely Lady Katarina Claes, he threw himself into the many strategies he could possibly enact to woo his would-be lady love.
But very quickly, Alan realized that the problem with trying to woo a woman when you were a lifelong shut-in with almost no social experiences with the opposite sex was… well, rather self-explanatory. But it certainly did not help that he was about as socially inept as a cross-eyed kitten and the very thought of going up to a woman his age (as opposed to one who was roughly three times older, as with his physicians and nursemaids) to speak to her sent him into convulsions of terror.
("Honestly," his mother had muttered after his third swooning fit at the thought of a casual chat with his possible future bride. "We should socialized you more when you were younger.")
So in lieu of actually – oh horror of horrors! – speaking to Lady Katarina as though they were – dear God! – acquaintances, Alan pondered how he could woo her while keeping himself far from her view… at least until she grew accustomed to spending the rest of her life with his hideous self.
And for that, he had to comb through what little he knew about Lady Katarina, both from his well of misty memories, his mother's careful words, and overheard snatches of conversation from various servants and courtiers.
Naturally, Alan had never had any actual interaction with Lady Katarina – or indeed, any young women of about his age. From early on, he had been so sickly a child that his parents had given up on the thought of introducing him to any eligible young ladies, since those of commensurate stature to be his wife generally had better prospects who were more likely to live to maturity. But nonetheless, from an early age, Alan had taken on a habit of overhearing the conversations of servants and even of spying within the palace.
Indeed, given all the time he had on his hands, Alan had ended up mapping out many of the secret chambers and vents and airways and sewer systems that crisscrossed the palace whenever his body felt capable of doing so. And thus, though he had never actually been introduced to the Lady Katarina, he certainly had seen her from afar several times over the years – and even knew a bit about what her personality supposedly might be.
The last time he remembered seeing Lady Katarina, she had been only fourteen and on a visit to the royal palace to see Jeord, who she treated as nothing less than the man of her dreams. Before that point, Alan could recall seeing or hearing of Lady Katarina visiting the palace at least once every week, faithfully attending to whatever of Jeord's needs were not already being assured by the palace staff already. Indeed, Lady Katarina seemed determined to assure Jeord of what an excellent wife and queen she would be by showering him with presents and praise and taking on his hobbies as her own passions. And during each of her visits, Lady Katarina had been sure to pay attention to the rest of the royal family, bringing all of her would-be future in-laws both prettily prepared presents and pleasant letters as well.
(Even now, Alan still had a little… well… a little shrine of sorts, he supposed, of the thoughtful little gifts and cards that Lady Katarina had remembered to bring even for him. And though he had no particular reason to try on the fine sword or gauntlets or other bits of armor that she had sent him, it was kind of her to remember Jeord's stunted twin long thought lost within the palace).
But sometime around the age of fourteen, Alan had overheard a rather… nasty confrontation between Jeord and Lady Katarina – one that had apparent sent the poor lady fleeing from the palace entirely. And that it had happened just when Alan had been lurking in the vents of the sitting room where Lady Katarina usually visited Jeord was a coincidence indeed!
(Because of course, Alan had far better activities to partake in besides listening in to every conversation Lady Katarina had with his brother and wistfully wondering what she would say to him if only she were Alan's fiancée. After all, given Alan's busy routine of lurking, falling ill and vomiting, taking medicine, listlessly doing schoolwork, and staring at Jeord from afar as his twin outshone him, clearly Alan was too busy to nurse an unrequited devotion for a pretty, vibrant, interesting, and incredibly loving young lady who would overlook him entirely!)
And even after all of these years, Alan could still remember the stricken look on poor Lady Katarina's face when Jeord had sent her away. Because after all, when did Jeord not take all that was good in his life for granted.
"Please do not imagine," Jeord had said to Lady Katarina that day, "that I am trying to… dismiss you of my own free will. But you know precisely why it is that we cannot keep meeting together at the palace, don't you?"
"I," Lady Katarina had said in response, blinking hard as though to hold something back. "I – I am sorry to hear that my – my presence in the palace was so disruptive to you, my prince. If – if you could just tell me what I did, I swear, I will be sure to avoid making those same mistakes in the future. All I need is some direction as to what to do!"
"Oh, but my dear Katarina," Jeord had purred, coming close enough to take her trembling hands in his own, though his eyes remained hard and icy. "It is not something you have done so much as what you are. Do you understand what I mean?"
"Forgive me," Katarina has wanly replied, her usual vitality driven away from her stricken face. "I – I do not understand in the least."
"It is just," Jeord returned, still smiling but with that chill that Alan knew all too well lurking beneath that sunny exterior, "that as lovely and gracious as you are, it demeans me to know that you are pursuing me so fervently. It is men who should pursue and women who should be pursued. And to have the natural order overturned by my dear fiancée makes a fool of me."
Poor Lady Katarina had looked near fit to faint away, although she forced a smile on her face nonetheless in a show of great bravery that Alan would be hard-pressed to reach.
"I see," she said at last, bowing her head in contrition. "I am sorry to have caused you so much trouble, Prince Jeord, and to have not given you the chance to… to woo me. I suppose I truly wanted you to know of my feelings –"
"In that case," Jeord said crisply, cutting her off, "you have certainly succeeded. I know you adore me – as do my parents, my siblings, my servants, my courtiers, and likely even random pub-goers in other countries. You certainly do not do anything with any degree of demureness, do you, Katarina? No, your feelings are always aired out for everyone to see. Which is quite humiliating for the object of your affection. Especially…"
"Especially?" Lady Katarina echoed, her trembling fingers now crossed in front of her skirt.
"Especially when you are driving his own affection away with your flagrant displays," Jeord calmly finished, his eyes fixed on her white face.
After that, even Alan could not be surprised when the poor lady stayed far away from the palace, even her notes and presents to their family ceasing.
(It was a pity – she was the only one who had ever bothered to write to him. Not that he blamed her for stopping).
And though that was about the last he had directly seen or heard of Lady Katarina, Alan had still picked up bits of gossip here and there about her – usually with people other pitying or laughing at the poor lady for how she hung onto Jeord's every word and deed, despite him making it clear he did not care for her in the least except as a shield to wield against other ladies.
Yet pitiable though Lady Katarina's clear and unrequited love for Jeord was, Alan's last impression of her – even after all of these years – was how she had left the palace for the last time with her head held high though her shoulders shook slightly. And he had no doubt that even after the last round of humiliations she had endured due to Jeord – the ones so grave even his mother had only sketchily mentioned something of them to Alan – Lady Katarina would come back to the palace with all the pride and dignity due to a once-possible queen.
Given Alan's own lack of pride or dignity, he could only admire the strength and bravery she was sure to show, regardless of how difficult her circumstances might be.
And from that memory, Alan came up with an idea at last of how to appeal to her eventually.
After all, while Alan might have the social skills of a sea cucumber, any sort of positive attention might be a step up from the cruelty that Jeord offered her – especially since Jeord's actions had culminated in him throwing Lady Katarina away for the sake of some commoner girl he met at the Academy. So if Alan could just find a way to woo Lady Katarina at a reasonable distance – such as through the kind of presents and cards and poetry and music of the sort she had once lavished on Jeord – perhaps she would accept Alan's attentions as sincere even if he would not meet with her in person!
And ultimately, not only would this brilliant plan give Alan some time to work up the nerve to speak to Lady Katarina, but it might also soften her up enough so that she did not flee screaming into the night once he unveiled his face to her.
In any case, since Lady Katarina was due to come to the palace after four years away and live in Alan's own wing to "compensate" her for her past suffering, Alan would need to act fast to get on with his plan. And thus, absent more time to prepare and more ideas on how to win her, Alan was determined to marshal all of his skills – meager though they were – to seduce Lady Katarina.
If nothing else, perhaps the enormous wellspring of compassion in her heart might allow her to give Alan a chance after her perfect prince had betrayed her. Surely her standards might have fallen just a little since the time she was engaged to Jeord?
And in any case, it wasn't as though there were other age- and station-appropriate women flocking about Alan. Marrying Lady Katarina might be his one and only chance to not die a sad bachelor – and by God, he was going to take it with all of his heart, mind, skills, and soul!
…Even if the thought of actual face-to-face conversation with a pretty woman of his own age sent him on swooning fits still.
And so, the good Lady Katarina came to the palace after only a week had passed since Alan had heard of their possible engagement. And though she came in with her head held as high as ever, Alan had been quite dismayed to see the changes that time had wrought on her already.
It was not that he expected Lady Katarina to be some majestic beauty. Given his own looks, he would have been grateful for a possible-bride no matter what her looks might be – and in any case, he had always thought that in the past, Lady Katarina had a certain distinct sharpness and steel to her. While her appearance did not emulate the soft, milky, rounded qualities so prized within the women of Sorcier, there was something fascinating about the angularity of her features and the fierceness of her smile. To Alan, she had always resembled a naked blade – shining with a kind of extraordinary purpose, no matter what it was she went through.
But at the age of merely eighteen, Lady Katarina looked more than a little ground down by the humiliation of all she had endured after a decade with Jeord. Though she kept her spine straight and her head high all throughout the process of moving into the "desolate" wing of the palace that everyone knew housed the spare madmen of the Stuart Dynasty, Alan could not spy even a trace of a smile on her face or a hint of sparkle in her eye through the whole process either.
He could recall that as a younger girl, Lady Katarina had seemed to possess a remarkable vitality that showed just how eager she was for life, love, romance and adventure – and though Jeord had always seemed to disdain as much in her, Alan had always admired her eagerness and bravery.
But now, merely a few years after the last time he had seen her, Lady Katarina seemed as though she had aged far too much in far too short a span of time. For though her face was still lovely and her figure had… well… had become even more… well… even more than it was before… the vitality seemed to have drained out of her, leaving a kind of hollow sadness that Alan could understand all too well.
Perhaps it was for that reason, even more than wanting Lady Katarina for himself, that Alan ended up doing as much as he could to woo Lady Katarina and bring back a smile to her cheerless face.
And much to Alan's enormous surprise, his attempts at making Lady Katarina happy again within their first month together seemed to actually be… working.
On the one hand, Alan was truly gratified to see that the lady in question seemed receptive to his careful and timid advances toward her, for god, he truly was doing his best to make her happy. Granted, his best was rather like the best a one-legged man might be able to devote to an arse-kicking contest, since Alan was about as socially inept as a cross-eyed kitten and had precious little human interaction to draw upon when it came to wooing a woman – let alone one as wounded as poor Lady Katarina happened to be.
And of course, Alan was greatly hobbled by the fact that despite his deep desire to make her happy, he simply could not bring himself to do something as audacious as have an actual face-to-face conversation with Lady Katarina, especially with his hideous face. Indeed, the very thought of speaking to her within a mere ten feet of her was terrifying, especially to a shut-in like Alan who had only met a good dozen people in all of his years of life.
(God, he really was a pathetic wreck of a human being).
But nonetheless, Alan did his best to compensate for his hideousness and complete lack of social grace by throwing all the love tokens and efforts that he could at Lady Katarina, his mother and many guidebooks alike reassuring him that such would truly please her. And though Alan knew he was no genius – and perhaps even below average in his intellect, especially compared to the likes of Jeord – he had a bit of an artist buried in him. And in any case, he was more than happy to exercise his meager artistic talents to make Lady Katarina happy.
After all, it wasn't as though being a recluse left Alan much time for hobbies other than reading, writing, composing poetry, and working frantically on his music. And if those were the sole skills he had ever managed to cultivate in eighteen years of largely wasted life – by God, he was going to use them as much as he could!
So from almost the start of Lady Katarina's time at his wing of the palace, Alan began to woo her with all the poetry and music that he could manage. On her very first day, he had had his retainers slip her a few simple couplets that he had written to welcome her – as well as a sheet of music that he had composed for her so that she could play on her new piano in her personal sitting room anytime she wished to.
(After all of these years, he could still remember how happy and contented she would look every time she played music in the palace observatory – even if her smiles tended to die when she realized that Jeord always left her recitals early).
And though that little gesture did not exactly coax a smile back into Lady Katarina's face, Alan did note that she seemed a little lighter and less burdened by the gesture. And so, heartened by that small and early success, Alan had continued doing what little he could to make Lady Katarina happy.
Thus, over their first month together, he and Lady Katarina had ended up falling into a kind of pattern of engagement, where he did his best to woo her from afar while she carefully respected his boundaries and returned his gestures with gracious ones of her own, much to his relief.
For even as Alan wrote her poetry, Lady Katarina did the same for him – and even if her rhyming schemes were sometimes a little questionable (truly, did she have to rhyme Alan with plan and man, even when those words simply did not scan?), he could not help but giddily await every single verse she sent him through servants who could not smiling at his obvious glee. Indeed, after just a few days, Alan began to get excited at the thought of waking up every day to see what new poem – questionable though the rhymes might be – that Lady Katarina would gift to him eventually.
It certainly was a damn sight better than waking up every day, only to wonder what new aches and pains might greet him eventually.
After a few days of this, Lady Katarina even began responding to the musical compositions he played to her by sending them back with lyrics on them. And though Alan had to wince again at some of her attempts at cadences, he had to smile at the way her lyrics ended up creating a most hilarious and brilliant series of stories.
Eventually, about two weeks into their little war of poetry and roses – for of course he sent her some blossoms he carefully snipped from his mother's prized garden, even as Katarina returned his favors with a few tokens of her own, such as embroidered handkerchiefs and cufflinks – he had sent her a note in response.
My Dear Lady Katarina – he wrote – have you ever thought of leaving aristocracy for a debauched life of bohemian creativity? I truly do think that you have the makings of an opera composer inside of you, given how clever your lyrics can be!
Shortly after, she had returned a note saying: My Dear Prince Alan – what favor you bestow upon me with such kind words! I confess that I have never previously thought of running away and living a bohemian life as an artiste. But if you believe it suits me well, perhaps I should try it. Though perhaps we should consider attempting to write an actual operetta of our own before running off together to compose them for a living?
Feeling a little fevered with excitement, Alan had swiftly written back to ask: My Dear Lady Katarina – are you implying that we ought to try collaborating together? Because I am most welcome to attempting as much – if you truly are open to such an activity!
In response, Katarina sent Alan a surprisingly thick sheaf of papers detailing her interesting new take on the story of the Beauty and the Beast – only in her telling, both parties in question seemed to be more Beast than Beauty, even as they ended up gloriously happy by the last act though neither Beast had even changed physically.
Alan had sent her back a composition for the very early part of the story – the one where the prince was cursed to become a Beast by a fairy intent on teaching him a lesson about true nobility – and when she responded with lyrics attached, he laughed and decided that if she was going to challenge him to exercise his intellect for once, he may as well throw himself merrily into the fray.
After a while, he had even relaxed around her enough to play the piano for her in the observatory, she singing along to his tunes with a surprisingly pleasant voice as they tried out the songs that they were composing. And while Alan was still too shy to show his face, Katarina was surprisingly gracious about letting him wear a mask that completely obscured his foul features – and indeed, was even kind enough to keep her back to him at all times.
She had even allowed him to refrain from speaking in her presence. Indeed, it turned out that many years of being with Jeord had taught her a great deal about the art of holding up a one-sided conversation! And, as Katarina had wryly said, at least she knew Alan was listening from the notes he ended up having one of his personal servants carry back and forth to her.
Truly, even if Alan did not already know what a kind heart and accepting soul the Lady Katarina had, he would have learned as much from how evenly she put up with his eccentricities. For indeed, even as they grew closer and closer by inches over the weeks, she still had to deal with a great deal of… oddity from him. She even let him join her – if such was the phrase – at the breakfast, lunch, and dinner table – though his way of "joining" meant that he usually lurked about watching her eat from the rafters, she conversing about their budding operetta and what happened to her during her day while he dropped crumbs and notes alike from the ceiling.
(Lady Katarina even managed to comb out breadcrumbs from her shining length of brown hair with style. What a woman indeed! Though it made Alan wonder with increasing curiosity as to how on earth Jeord had managed to overlook a woman capable of dealing with bizarre situations with such calm, given how hectic royal life could be).
Over their first three months of conversing through notes and penning their opera together, Alan was pleased to see more and more real smiles gradually bloom on Lady Katarina's face. And he in turn felt as though he was blooming back to life himself. For while spending time – however oddly – with Lady Katarina was hardly a miracle cure to all of his ongoing health issues, she did give him something to look forward to every day that was not yet another dreary mass of reading and vomiting and falling ill and wishing he has been born into a far healthier body.
Even his mother was delighted by the change in him, as she ended up fondling his cheeks with vigor she had not shown for many years, even as Alan had protested.
"Don't tell me that I can't manhandle my own son for a bit," his mother had blithely replied in response to his dissent. "And I haven't seen you look so very happy in – well. Ever. Lady Katarina is a brilliant match for you after all! What a stroke of luck it is that she was made available after your idiot twin treated her so badly!"
"Oh mother," Alan had groaned, even as his heart had skipped a beat from the hope her words offered, and he had run off to send Lady Katarina his latest composition with a rather undignified haste.
Indeed, though Alan remained hobbled by his crippling lack of social skills and deficit of any qualities a woman might want in a swain, he was at least proud to say that he was doing his best to coax the joy back onto Lady Katarina's face – and sometimes, he even succeeded!
And at long last, three months into their most unorthodox process of court, he was ready to take the next step. Which is to say, he meant to have an actual conversation with his lady love – one that was not mediated through notes or compositions – at last.
So, after issuing his invitation and getting her sincere note stating she would not miss speaking to him in person at last for all the world, Alan gathered up whatever courage he had ever had and prepared his private – and never before used – sitting room for their first conversation together.
Granted, he was keeping a very large screen that a pair of deadpan manservants had bought in between them to make sure Lady Katarina could not see or run screaming from his hideous face when they spoke. But he prided himself on knowing that at least this was a start!
So, after taking a deep breath, and then clearing his throat, and then coughing a bit, and then clearing said throat some more, Alan finally began their first actual conversation.
"H-hello," he said, and hoped his awful croak of a voice did not unnerve Lady Katarina. "I... I am Alan. Prince Alan. Of the Stuarts. The Royal Family. Of this land. Hello. For the first time. In person."
After quite a pause, during which he could see Lady Katarina's silhouette shuffling a bit, likely wondering how on earth to respond to such inanities, she thankfully responded.
"Hello to you too," she said, her voice light but with some real fellow feeling (so he fancied at least) to it. "I in turn am Katarina. Lady Katarina. Though no longer quite of the Claes. Since I have been removed as their heiress. In anticipation of the idea that the person who keeps writing me such amazing poetry and composing such astounding sonatas will eventually approve enough of his brother's discarded fiancée to marry me. And I am delighted to get to speak at last with you. For the first time. In person."
Alan almost sagged in relief once she finished speaking in her calm and composed voice, as she thankfully did not sound much like a woman who was about to run away screaming in horror. Although granted, he was quite sure that had much more due to her deep inner well of fortitude than with any possible charm on his part.
But the problem was that once she had returned his words, he had started panicking over what to do next.
Well, the sole sensible voice in his head told him, perhaps you could respond back?
But that's terrifying! He cried back. What if I sound like a total idiot now that we are actually talking with one another?
That same sensible voice returned: And are you covering yourself with glory right now by sounding like a half-wit who goes to pieces around a pretty woman?
And so, despite the nerves clawing at him, Alan went on to say the most elegant and graceful thing he could.
"Me too!" he cried, in a voice that might have gone beyond joyous and into manic. "I am so very excited to – to talk to you as well! Face to face! Even though my face is hideous! Which is why I have not yet shown it to you!"
Oh my God, his sensible inner self said, and he agreed with it far more than he truly wanted to.
Thankfully, Lady Katarina responded quickly, and with the delicate politeness that marked all of her words.
"Do not worry," she said bravely. "Even if you are truly hideous, I am sure that a horribly ugly face will be exciting in a fiancé also. In fact, if you are horribly ugly enough, you shall be a far more exciting groom than a simply plain one! I am very sure that I will be enchanted in one way or another, however your face goes."
My God, Alan thought, even as his sensible inner voice exhaled in relief. Mother really might have found the perfect woman for me after all.
Granted, Lady Katarina was probably a saint upon the earth for being willing to exchange the gloriously handsome Jeord – who Alan had caught even his personal servants sighing over – for the hideous abomination that was himself.
But apparently, she was the kind of woman who liked excitement in a complete lack of beauty! Which made her perfect for him indeed!
Certainly, her love for the outré would explain why she took so well to him lurking in the rafters and dropping love notes and crumbs alike on her with such alacrity.
If mother was with him now, Alan would have hugged her for introducing him to his perfect woman. As it was, Alan could only do his best to express his enthusiasm in an appropriate way.
"Your preferences are very good to know!" Alan cried, bobbing his head so frantically that his would-be bride probably thought it was spring-loaded even from his silhouette. "Because I am hideous after all! I look rather like... have you ever seen a scarecrow? Made out of chalk? And then topped off with the hair of an elder"
It was not the most pleasant of descriptions – but then, he was hardly the most pleasant looking of people. And then, taking a deep breath and deciding that if she truly was fine and even glad by how hideous he was, he inquired:
"Would you... like to see a bit more of me? The top of my head, at least?"
Surely... surely just a bit of him would not be... so terrible. And if she ran screaming from the least ugly (though still graceless) part of him, at least he could tell mother that he had tried his best.
Lady Katarina's graceful silhouette seemed to… become a little more active at that, her knees taking on a decided jiggle to them. Alan could only hope that was her excitement for the hideous coming forward, instead of her bravely masked fear of as much.
"That would be – be most lovely!" she cried, even as her jiggling intensified. "And obviously, I am perfectly calm and quite reasonably and appropriately interested in seeing the very top of your head in a way that will not cause you to run screaming from my enthusiasm!"
And then, as though she had said too much, her jiggling abruptly ceased.
Oh dear, the sensible voice in Alan's head pondered. Have you really been strange enough to make poor Lady Katarina think that you might somehow run screaming should she view even an inch of your hideous body?
Then again, Alan supposed that given his... eccentricities, it was only sensible of poor Lady Katarina to brace herself for the worst. While she had clearly been dealing with his bizarre behavior with the calm demeanor of a true daughter of nobility, he could hardly blame her for still being wary.
But... perhaps showing her his head and then not acting like a feral animal would help? At this point, he felt he rather owed her as much, given what she had already put up with.
So slowly, barely needing even to elevate his feet given his tremendous height, Alan pushed the very top of his head into view, over the tall screen.
Little other than his fluffy mop of hair – snow white, even paler than that of the rest of his tow-headed family, dyed that way from many long bouts of illnesses and the long-running use of light magic – came into view at last, along with a sliver of his pallid forehead.
"Uhm," Alan said, into the sudden deafening silence. "This is… this is me. I am quite tall, you see. So are most of the men in my family. I... I hope you do not mind, Lady Katarina. Although it sometimes does make lurking in high places uncomfortable indeed."
There was another long pause and then finally, Lady Katarina sighed as though life had delivered all that she had ever wanted and needed.
"Oh," she breathed, her voice dreamy in a way that Alan had never heard from a young lady before. "How happy I am to see you at last. And your hair is so wonderfully fluffy!"
There was another long pause, as Alan tried to frantically figure out whether or not he truly was being complimented by a young lady for perhaps the first time ever.
"As in," Lady Katarina continued in more dignified and cultivated notes, "I am feeling very fluffy in my throat, from being overcome that you have trusted me with seeing so much of yourself. Including your hair which, believe me, I am not tempted in the least to lunge at and run my hair through and telling you how delightful—"
Was – was this a compliment? Alan frantically wished someone could tell him before the blood pooling to his cheeks somehow burst out altogether.
On the other side of his screen, Lady Katarina cleared her throat. "But do not worry, my dear Prince Alan. I would never compromise your regal dignity with any such nonsense actions because I am calm and reasonable and an excellent fiancée who appreciates you sharing your exciting hair with me –"
…Alan had not even known that hair could be exciting previously. What an education Lady Katarina was bestowing on him now!
"—And I am very grateful to be granted such excitement by you. Especially since your brow also manages to be very exciting and you are also so wonderfully tall –"
…Did that mean she did not think he was so very hideous after all? Or was he so hideous that it somehow made him all the more exciting to her and thus, made his horrendous looks somehow more appealing to her?
Unfortunately, before he could inquire, Lady Katarina's voice shocked him once more.
"But oh! Your height! Does that ever give you any difficulty? Do you ever find that the palace's ceilings are not high enough to accommodate your lurking?"
And then, Lady Katarina's silhouette straightened proudly as she seemed to find the solution to his possible problems with lurking.
"And if such is the case, just let me take care of it! If necessary, I can tell builders to come to this wing of the palace and install even higher ceilings than we have already. After all, I don't want you to hurt your back by lurking uncomfortably!"
There was something building inside of Alan that he had never felt before.
Pain, he had felt plenty of times, as well as aches and fevers and all sorts of other discomforts.
But what he felt right now was... it was a cousin to pain, perhaps, but a distant one. And most of all, it was a sensation that felt almost like pleasure as it coursed over him, down his spine, into his stomach, tightening muscles that he had never before thought capable of tightening at all –
"Thank you," he managed, remember his manners even as he pressed his hands against the top of the screen, figuring that if she could deal with his hair, she would also be gracious about his long, bony fingers. "I... well... the ceilings are usually fine but... the palace has a lot of secret hallways and corridors and air vents that I like to go through and the taller I get, the harder it is to go through them. Though you're... you're much smaller than I am and so... slender and... pretty and..."
Oh God, what was he saying? The last thing he needed was her to run shrieking into the night because she thought he might make unwanted overtures at her!
"I could show you someday," he finished in a rush. "The air vents! And the secret corridors! Not – not –"
The inside of my trousers? A serpentine voice he had never heard before suggested.
Alan could feel his face turn even more crimson in an instant and wanted to know whether this signaled the beginning of the end of this evening had already surprised and delighted him.
But in any case, before the inevitable crash happened, Lady Katarina seemed hellbent on surprising him yet again.
"Do you think," she said, after a long pause, her head bowed for once, "that I am… pretty?"
He had never heard her sound so… lost before, not even when she had come into his wing of the palace with her head held high despite the humiliation that had been poured upon it previously.
"Yes," Alan answered instantly, feeling baffled by the question. "Why wouldn't I? If anything—"
Here he paused, shuffling his ridiculously long feet while trying not to sound like a fool.
"I am truly lucky that you are willing to even entertain the notion of marrying me," he admitted at last. "It is not as though I am some great catch, compared to someone as... as smart and strong and sensible as you. I am the last dregs of the Stuart line, you know. And I am – am most grateful that you are even willing to even spend time in my company."
After all, though royalty was taught to be proud from an early age, Alan knew he had very little to offer to any prospective bride besides perhaps the prospect of a comfortable living. Given the weakness in his body, he would be lucky if he could even give his future wife a child in the future – and what woman would not balk at being in a fruitless marriage with a man who fell ill often and might even die early?
But perhaps he had found such a woman at last for Lady Katarina did not shirk from his words – not in the least.
Instead, standing up abruptly and placing her hands on her hips, Lady Katarina said her next few words with a voice that rang with both passion and sincerity.
"Well, I happen to disagree with you completely, Prince Alan. And in any case, you really should not put yourself down when it comes to how amazing you happen to be. You are a brilliant pianist and composer and poet and probably can even sing – so if you are the dregs of the Stuart line, then the main course must be poisonously delicious! And I am here and willing to swallow you up as soon as I can!"
It was then that Alan's last nerve failed on him and he ended up fainting away completely, pulling the far-too-heavy screen down on him with a thundering crash that sent all the retainers stationed right outside their door to them in an instant.
And though Alan would not know it until much later, his personal physician did let him know that even as the last bit of consciousness had fled from him, he had been smiling.
And a day or two later, once Alan finally regained his senses, he opened his eyes and realized that come hell or high water, he would succeed in wooing Lady Katarina... and perhaps even – after some time spent building up his nerve – speak to her again in person.
Someday, maybe, even on a regular basis.
After all, she was probably the most audacious woman he would ever meet, especially given his limited social skills and circle, and he would be damned if he let go of the chance that she so kindly offered him.
And then, smiling, Alan consumed the medicine that his retainers pressed on him and wondered what Lady Katarina – no, he would be audacious at last – just Katarina happened to think of composing the grand love duet for their version of Beauty and the Beast.
Author's Notes:
As always, comments and questions are welcome!
Additionally, I wanted to note that the last scene between Alan and Katarina was co-written with Palhinhaea, who did a beautiful job scripting Katarina's every move. Thank you again for being such an excellent co-author, my dear muse!