III. in which there is a wedding, and various royal siblings are read for filth
Alice thought the conversation had gone rather well. True, Jasper wasn't exactly the charming and eloquent sort of person she had always imagined herself marrying, but that was all right—Alice could be charming and eloquent enough for both of them. In fact, her own sparkling manners would stand out all the more beside his taciturn stiffness. She would be such a great help to his public image!
At least he was good-looking. And she comforted herself that although he hadn't been charming, he had been kind. She knew he was kind. Hadn't he given her his handkerchief in that very same spot twelve years ago? (The same handkerchief that was even now folded neatly in her reticule, waiting for the right moment to be returned to him?)
Only a kind person would deliver that stammering little speech promising to take care of her. Not that Alice had needed that sort of reassurance. Of course not. But it was nice, all the same.
As she turned down what she thought was the right corridor, Edward detached himself from an alcove. He had been watching from the balcony walk, along with her parents and King Henry and (a careful twenty feet from Edward) Princess Rosalie, but Alice had checked to be sure the sound of the fountain would drown out her conversation with Jasper.
Of course, she would still have been able to feel Edward's disdain from leagues away. She hadn't needed to look up to confirm he was sneering down at her as she arranged herself beneath the roses—that was just Edward. As they drew closer to Alice's wedding, his determination to assume the worst of everyone and everything had eclipsed his relief at not having to marry Princess Rosalie.
"Well that was a disaster," he said, pronouncing the last word with relish as he fell into step beside Alice. "You're lucky they've given you a chance to call off the wedding."
Alice ground her teeth, but wasn't about to let him faze her. "To what disaster are you referring?" she asked coolly, lengthening her steps to sweep past him. "Of course I'm not calling off the wedding."
Edward stopped dead for a second, then had to trot to overtake her again. "You can't be serious," he scoffed. "I didn't have to hear the conversation to tell he's a violent boor who can barely string two words together."
Something burned in Alice's chest. It wasn't the pure, righteous anger it should have been—an ugly, pathetic emotion was diluting it. She wanted to defend Jasper, to tell Edward about the handkerchief, and about the haltingly sincere speech in the garden just now, but that would be a mistake. Edward would mock her for pinning all her hopes on a meaningless childhood interaction and an awkwardly delivered promise. She knew exactly the pitying, patronizing expression he would adopt under the guise of comforting her, the silly little girl who needed rescuing from her silly decisions, and she absolutely wouldn't be able to bear it if he looked at her like that. Not about this.
How could she explain to him that she knew—just knew marrying Crown Prince Jasper was the right choice? He would laugh in her face.
"You don't know him, Edward," she snapped instead, hating the inadequacy of the response.
"Neither do you!" Edward pointed out. "Yet you're all too eager to chain yourself to him for the rest of your life!"
Alice opened her mouth to protest—then closed it. It was true. She didn't know Jasper, and by the time she did, it would be too late to go back—he would be her husband.
Edward pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alice, you're nineteen," he said, from the wise and worldly age of twenty-one. "No one is forcing you to do this—Mother and Father would never expect it of you, they said so themselves," he reminded her.
"No one can 'force' me to do anything," she fired back. "Including forcing me to break my word."
"Your word?" Edward's eyes narrowed. "Since when do you care about that? Or about 'maintaining international peace,' for that matter?"
This was ridiculous. Of course she cared about peace! "Are you forgetting why I gave my word in the first place? That I stepped in to save you from having to marry Princess Rosalie? You should be thanking me. You should be shoving me down the aisle and throwing rice in my face!"
"Why won't you answer the question?" Edward challenged. "Truly, Alice, what could you possibly have to gain from becoming Queen of New Haland?"
The corridor was not as lavishly carpeted as the ones back home, so his voice echoed off the marble walls and floor: Queen of New Haland. Queen of New Haland.
Silence for a moment. Then Edward barked out a single, derisive laugh as he came to a halt.
"That's it, isn't it?" he demanded, throwing out an arm to bar her escape. "You were serious, back in the council chamber. That's why you're doing all this. You want to be queen." The single syllable was a masterpiece of incredulous scorn. "Oh, Alice."
There it was—the patronizing look, turned on her in full force. Alice bristled. "And why shouldn't I be queen?" she challenged. "I'll be good at it."
"You're signing your entire life away for a title he doesn't even have yet," insisted Edward. "All because—what, being a princess wasn't good enough for you?"
"I'm not a—"
"Yes you are," Edward corrected. "Our titles may be different, but yes you are. And still all our wealth and power and comfort isn't enough for you. You're determined to play at being queen, even if you have to wed a complete stranger to do it. Unbelievable."
Alice could feel her face turning pink, and she hated it. No one ever took her anger seriously. If only she were bigger, taller, more imposing—then they would have to listen.
"Oh, grow up, Edward," she snarled. "This is how life works for us! If I don't marry him, I'll only have to marry someone else in a few years—some minor baron with an adorable little estate close to home, so Mother and Father can keep me under their thumb forever!"
He started to speak, but Alice was far from finished. The nasty emotion had reared its head.
"Just as you'll still have to marry a stranger," she cut him off. "You may have wriggled out of it this time, thanks to me, but what do you think happens next? You think you'll fall in love, and Mother and Father and the whole kingdom will applaud and wish you well as you wed someone completely unsuitable? There are all of ten eligible women for you in the world, Edward. Which would you prefer to marry: one of our cousins, a thirteen-year-old, or a thirteen-year-old cousin?"
She'd hit the mark this time—Edward's face had gone pinched and pale. "That's not—"
"Look down on me all you please," snapped Alice. "At least I have the courage to go after what I want!" Pressure burned behind her eyes, and a lump was forming in her throat, but she refused to cry in front of him. "At least I'm making my own decisions before everything is decided for me! You're moping about doing nothing, and you have the nerve to scoff at me while you wait for a fairy tale!" She broke away from him with a vicious shove, leaving her free to barrel down the corridor.
His final, pleading shout chased her up the staircase:
"I'm trying to look out for you, Alice! It's your own life you're ruining!"
With her vision clouded by stupid, childish tears, Alice failed to notice the blonde figure disappearing around a corner on the second-floor landing.
Rosalie was waiting in Jasper's study, because of course she was.
"So?" she demanded, sliding her feet hastily off his desk.
"So what?"
She rose from his chair, oozing exasperation. "So are you going to marry her?"
"Of course." That part had never been in question. Were Grand Duchess Alice hideous as a troll and twice as vicious, he would still have agreed to marry her.
But some tiny, weak part of Jasper was relieved she wasn't. He had meant what he'd said: when she was his wife, he would take care of her. It would be easier if he could find a few things to like about her.
"Such a little doll as that!" huffed Rose, somewhere between disdain and grudging admiration. Jasper went to fetch his copy of the treaty back down from the shelf.
"Are you so certain she wants to marry you?" said Rosalie out of nowhere.
Where was this coming from?
"She said so," said Jasper, flipping open the document case a little too sharply.
"Hmm."
He shut the document case again. "What is it?"
"It's nothing," said Rose in a way that made it quite clear it was something. "Only…on my way here, I passed her on the stairs and it looked like she was crying."
Crying? Jasper's stomach sank into his boots as he replayed their conversation, searching for anything he'd said that could possibly have made his betrothed cry. But she had seemed so resolute—even eager about the arrangement. There had been that single, solemn moment, when he had reminded her she wouldn't be going home…but he had attributed that to ordinary homesickness. Was she so patriotic that the prospect of leaving Olympias had made her cry?
When he looked up, Rosalie was watching him fret with an expression of shrewd, poorly-concealed satisfaction—the second cousin of a smirk. It rankled.
"What did the two of you talk about?" she asked, turning too-casually away to feign interest in his book collection.
He found he had no desire to tell her. "You," he said.
"What?"
Rosalie could never sense when Jasper was joking, probably because he did it so rarely. He decided he could reveal some of the truth in order to distract her with her favorite subject.
"I promised to keep you away from Grand Duke Edward at the wedding."
Her mouth fell open in an indignant O. "You didn't!"
"Should I not have? Would you like to sit next to him at the feast?"
"You bastard." A paperweight came flying at his head.
Jasper was only teasing, of course. On the day of the wedding, he kept his word to Grand Duchess Alice and made sure her brother was plagued by neither snide remarks nor pudding projectiles. Keeping an eye on Rose was a welcome distraction, truth be told—it gave him something to do other than dwell on what was about to happen.
And when it did, it seemed to happen incredibly fast. After an interminable morning of welcoming flocks of fawning New Halander nobility and an endless stream of foreign dignitaries, he found himself standing at the altar in Montchester Cathedral, surrounded by pageboys and attendants while the massive organ boomed out its processional march. Jasper had never liked the cathedral—it was cavernous and yet cramped, every inch covered in frescoes or carvings or maximalist gilt ornamentation. Today there were towering sprays of white roses bursting out of every crevice and lukewarm acquaintances whispering to each other from the packed pews. (None of the colleagues he actually respected—all modest, rank-and-file military men—had been invited, of course. He would have liked to have Peter and Charlotte, at least, but knew better than to ask to invite them.)
The whole thing made for a dizzying swirl of competing sensations—the nose-tickling sweetness of the roses, the throb of the organ ringing in his head, the garish light streaming through the stained glass to glare off the golden trim. The collar of his starched dress uniform dug into the back of his neck, where sweat gathered to trickle down between his shoulder blades.
Distracted by this discomfort, Jasper was a few seconds late to notice the hush that fell over the crowd. When he looked up they were all—even Rosalie—craning their necks to the back of the great aisle, where Grand Duchess Alice had just made her entrance.
She seemed to float rather than walk down the aisle, miraculously unencumbered by the embroidered silk layers of her cream-and-champagne gown. Her little round face was radiant with triumph as her eyes roamed over the glittering, teeming chaos of the cathedral.
His stomach did an odd sort of flip at the sight of her. This was real—she was real. This was really happening.
She was twenty feet away when their eyes locked, and, for the merest instant, she faltered, her serene expression slipping ever so slightly. Jasper's heart slammed against his ribcage—what had he done? Did he look severe enough to scare her off now, at the very last minute? He had been aiming for an air of solemn dignity.
He struggled to compose his face into something calm and reassuring. Was it his imagination, or did Grand Duchess Alice seem to deflate with every step she took toward the altar? Another flicker of unease played over her features as she passed through the gauntlet where Rosalie and Grand Duke Edward stood in the front pews, competing to see who could project the most haughty disdain at the other.
Then his bride was at the altar, and Jasper was taking her small, cool hands and silently praying that his own were not too clammy. Someone was trembling—whether him or or Alice, he couldn't tell. It radiated through their tenuous connection.
Looking down into her eyes made unwelcome heat whoosh up his face, so he followed her lead and looked at the bishop instead. Time seemed to speed up, to skip, and abruptly he was being directed to repeat after the bishop. He said the vows rotely, a schoolchild reciting a lesson. They were shorter than he remembered. He had scarcely opened his mouth before he found himself at the end, promising to love, honor, and keep the near-stranger standing across from him, to be faithful to her until death parted them. Alice Mary Lillian Esme. He hadn't even known her full name until this moment.
And after all that commotion, all the external bustle and preparation and the internal struggle not to struggle with himself, the words themselves were so simple. They fell from his lips without conscious effort.
Then it was Alice's turn. She was soft and subdued as she repeated after the bishop, her eyes downcast to where her hands disappeared into Jasper's.
"…for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until…"
Her voice cracked, so quietly that he doubted anyone else in the cathedral heard it.
"'Until death do us part,'" the bishop prompted.
For a stomach-lurching moment, Alice stared at their joined hands in silence. Then she looked up at Jasper.
He almost took a step back. Her eyes were full of naked uncertainty, tinged with panic. He hadn't known she could look like that.
He thought about how Alice was even younger than he was. About Rosalie saying it looked like she was crying. Maybe there was something more going on beneath the poses and gowns and relentless charisma.
Jasper didn't know what made him do it, but he gave the hands in his a gentle squeeze. He held Alice's gaze and jerked his head in the subtlest, tiniest nod.
"Until death do us part," she breathed.
Then he was sliding a ring onto her finger, feeling the cold bite of new metal as she did the same to him. The bishop ordered them to kiss.
The brief moment of understanding had passed, and they were strangers again. Jasper placed his suddenly-wooden hands where they were supposed to go on Alice's face and leaned down for a sterile meeting of mouths in which their noses did not quite bump and her arms stayed at her sides. They pulled away quickly, without looking at each other.
The cathedral echoed with a deafening cheer. They were married.
Alice was not going to drink at her wedding banquet. Absolutely not. Every married person she knew had advised her not to, and she was a perfect lightweight who could get drunk on a thimbleful of wine, so she just wouldn't. It wasn't part of the plan. All eyes would be on her, after all—it was vital she remain clearheaded.
She was not permitted to dance except to lead the first two dances, with her father and father-in-law (a disappointment, but she told herself there would be plenty of royal balls to dance at once she was in charge of throwing them.) She had read that at very modern weddings the newlyweds sometimes opened the dancing themselves—but she hadn't been quite brave enough to voice that suggestion, considering it flew in the face of both Olympian and New Halander tradition. Besides, she didn't know if her husband was a good dancer. What if he stepped on her? His feet were huge.
As it was, the dance with her father was painful in its own way—King Carlisle teared up as he went on and on about how much he was going to miss her. Of course Alice would miss him too, but couldn't he just be happy for her? She was married, not dead.
Her new father-in-law was a sharp contrast. King Henry was tall and austere like his children, with a sharp air of authority that probably intimidated other people. Not Alice, of course. Since her arrival, he'd gone out of his way to be attentive and amiable. She found his poorly-concealed desperation to win her over quite flattering, really.
"Well, my dear," he said once they were hidden in the crush of the dance floor, "you have kept us out of a war. You should be very proud." Alice nearly said thank you?, but he didn't seem to be finished. "But the real challenge lies ahead." He spun her crisply through a turn. "You have done your homeland a great service. Now you must forget it. New Haland is your home now, her people your people. You will be a proper wife to my son, a proper mother to his children." A hollow discomfort blossomed in her stomach as he gripped her hand harder. "And you will make this country an exemplary Crown Princess."
The jovial host of the past weeks had evaporated—this was the ruler used to unquestioning obedience. It was a test, Alice knew. The first of many. She ignored the pressure of his fingers and the unpleasant wine-smell of his breath, and broke into her most radiant, fallen-angel smile. "Of course," she promised, squeezing his hand back as if they were schoolgirl confidantes. "I'm ever so eager to start." She didn't miss a single step.
When she got back to her seat at the high table, it was empty of everyone but Edward. She would have liked to ask his thoughts on King Henry's little speech, but he had barely spoken to her since their fight in the corridor, except to offer his stiff congratulations in the procession out of the cathedral. Now he didn't even look up when she sat down.
She took a swig of her champagne, just to try it. It was good, so she took another. Maybe it would banish the hollow, queasy feeling King Henry's words had left her with.
A footman pulled out the chair beside her so her mother could sit. Queen Esme, at least, seemed to understand that this was meant to be a party, and beamed around at the general splendor, cheerfully flushed after two dances with her new son-in-law. She reached over to tuck one of the pins back into Alice's hair ("There you are, sweetheart.")
"I remember my wedding banquet," she sighed, patting Alice's cheek on her way back from pin-adjusting. She nodded at Alice's untouched plate. "I was so nervous I couldn't eat a bite! My stomach was growling all night, so your father—"
"—Crept down to the kitchens and stole you a plate of petit fours," finished Alice. "You've told us this story before."
"I suppose I have," her mother agreed. "The point is, it's perfectly normal to feel anxious on your wedding night."
"I'll eat something," Alice promised, shoveling a shrimp into her mouth in the hope of closing off this avenue of conversation.
"But there's no reason to fear," her mother continued. "Do you remember that, ah, chat we had when you turned fourteen?"
Alice did. She'd been expecting her mother to corner her for another talk like this, but had never imagined Esme would attempt it in the middle of a crowded banquet hall mere hours before Alice was due to depart for the bridal chamber. She must have figured it was then or never.
"It's a perfectly natural thing, what goes on between husband and wife," she began. "All you'll have to do is—well, the, ah, the marital congress itself, that is—it will come naturally, as it does to the birds and the bees and the…cows." Cows? Alice swallowed another shrimp and washed it down with the rest of her champagne. "And then you'll learn for yourself the miracle of becoming a mother."
The hollow feeling was back. She didn't have the heart—or the guts—to tell her mother that this was entirely unnecessary. Though she had no practical experience, her theoretical knowledge of sex was reasonably solid. She well remembered their "chat" of a few years ago, when Esme had sat her down, pink-faced as she recounted what Alice suspected was a euphemistic, watered-down version of how it was supposed to go. But Alice was nothing if not resourceful. Sure enough, a few paid-off servants and some smuggled-in novels revealed that things could be very different from the tame, antiseptic act Esme had described (or rather, failed to describe.)
A full glass of champagne had appeared beside the empty one—Alice prayed that whichever footman had placed it there had not leaned close enough to overhear her mother. She found herself taking another sip whenever Esme used phrases like "your sacred flower" or "his key to your lock" (what next—was her mother going to suggest she lie back and think of New Haland?) The more Alice drank, the more amusing the metaphors became—she was tempted to raise her hand and politely inquire whether her flower was getting plucked or pollinated or some combination of the two, and at what point bees would become involved.
But she had just enough sense to hold her tongue and nod along, leaving her to sit there thinking of her impending transformation into a broken lock or a plundered jewel-chest or a decapitated flower-stem. How appealing.
It felt like an age before Esme ran out of platitudes, but could only have been a few minutes, since the next dance was just starting. Alice held in a groan of exasperated relief when her mother at last kissed her on the forehead and got up to dance with Edward.
She sat there, dull and alone on her wedding day, sipping yet another glass of champagne and trying to banish the imagery Esme had left her with. To distract herself, she looked for people she knew among the dizzying kaleidoscope of dancers. Where was Eleanor? Wasn't she supposed to be "guarding" Alice?
A figure detached itself from the crowd and made its way over, green taffeta gown gleaming the lamplight—not Eleanor, but Princess Rosalie. She stopped in front of Alice, twisting her gloves in her hands.
"I've been meaning to apologize," she said. "For my…rude behavior toward your brother on your family's last visit. I comported myself…disgracefully."
It was strange to see her so halting and awkward, defanged of her usual haughtiness. Alice could tell it had cost her a lot to make the little speech.
She waved a hand. "Oh, there's no need," she breezed. "I know what Edward's like." She took a calculated risk and rolled her eyes, gambling that anyone who threw a pudding at a foreign dignitary probably wasn't a stickler for manners. "He hasn't spoken to me in days—I don't suppose you noticed? I'm thinking of throwing a pudding on him myself just to see how it feels. Do sit down," she added, admiring the delightedly-shocked effect her words had produced on Princess Rosalie.
Rosalie took an empty chair, her shrewd violet eyes appraising Alice as if they'd missed something the first time around. If all it took to win her over was abusing Edward, they were going to be great friends.
"I wouldn't recommend throwing a pudding," she said at last. "Too difficult to aim. Besides, they're serving cake." She nodded toward the enormous, frilly confection, which was wider than Alice was tall (it had sounded smaller on paper.)
"Oh, dear," giggled Alice. "You don't think it's too much? Perhaps it's big enough that we can stuff him into it," she sighed. "I haven't the time for brothers today."
Rosalie cleared her throat. "Well, I hope you'll make time for mine," she said.
Saints—Alice had put her foot in her mouth. "I didn't mean to suggest—"
"It's fine," assured Rosalie. "I only want to say…thank you."
Alice blinked. "For what?"
"For agreeing to this marriage and saving me from mine," said Rosalie. "Not—that is, not to insult your brother afresh, or your country, but—I would have been miserable."
It was Alice's turn to be reassuring. "I know what you mean."
"I hope you don't," blurted Rosalie.
"Pardon?"
"I hope you never have reason to be miserable here," she clarified. "My brother is—well, Jasper's a fool about some things, but he's…a good man," she admitted. "You'll never have cause to fear him."
Fear him? Of course Alice didn't fear him! How ridiculous. Still, she smiled back at Rosalie. They were making such progress! A pleasant warmth was spreading through her limbs, making it harder to feel irritation. Breaking her own rules to try the champagne had been a great idea.
It was on the tip of her tongue to say something else, something charming and witty that would really win Princess Rosalie over, when they rang the dinner bell, ushering everyone off the dance floor for the banquet. Rosalie vanished back to her own seat, at the other end of the high table, and Alice found herself seated beside her new husband, with every eye in the room fixed on them. This wouldn't have been so disagreeable if not for the way Jasper stared stiffly ahead, as though someone had replaced him with a lifelike wax figure of a prince. Surely he was used to being the center of attention by now!
Well, he could do as he pleased. This was Alice's night and she was going to make the most of it. She could hardly wait for the toasts.
Never mind that she didn't know half the people making them. The Duke of Somewhere who went first seemed congenial enough. "To the happy couple!" he concluded. "May your days be long, your troubles few, and your children many!"
Alice smiled, and tipped back her glass to wash away the stuck feeling in her throat.
"To the Crown Prince and his new Crown Princess!" declared the Countess of Someplace. "May you rule with grace and wisdom, and may the laughter of your sons and daughters fill the palace."
Another smile. Another, bigger gulp of champagne (still not enough to unstick things.)
A gray-whiskered Prime Minister was next. "May your reign be peaceful and your bed fruitful!" He winked.
They all went like that—one after another, toast after toast.
Many blessings on the bride and groom and their future children.
May you prove faithful, fond, and fertile.
May your love endure and bring forth many sons and daughters.
To the future heirs of New Haland!
If even half of these people's wishes came true, Alice was going to be having triplets twice a year until she was sixty.
"May your children bring you as much joy as mine have brought me," finished Queen Esme, dewy-eyed and wistful. Alice had run out of champagne again. Her heart was stuck in a queasy, fluttering rhythm, and her stomach felt hollow and liquid at the same time. She fanned herself heavily as the toasts concluded and the guests were released for more dancing, and made her most graceful excuses the moment she could.
The midnight blue quiet of the terrace was better, she found, even punctuated as it was by distant laughter and the merry pinpricks of lanterns flickering in the garden. At least she could breathe out here. If only she hadn't told them to lace her gown so tightly. She leaned against the railing and slowly sipped another glass of champagne, willing the maelstrom in her chest to calm.
Had no one come outside after her?
She glanced over her shoulder—no one had. The terrace was deserted.
It was the day in the wardrobe all over again—Alice alone and forgotten and pathetic in her desire to be anything else. She lifted her glass to finish it.
But before she could, a long shadow fell over her. A large, warm hand grasped her shoulder.
"Whoa there, Pipsqueak," said a voice. Alice found the glass whisked out of her hand. "You'll want to slow down on the drinks."
A hulking wall of a woman was looming over her, clad in a silk tunic that could have doubled as an army tent. Eleanor, at long last. Where had she been all this time?
Alice and Eleanor had absolutely nothing in common, so of course they were great friends. Eleanor's intimidating muscles were offset by an easy manner and a dimpled grin that hinted at pure mischief. She and Alice shared what people called the "old Olympian look," with their wild hair and dark coloring. If not for their vastly different builds, they might have been sisters. Sometimes Alice liked to imagine they were—Eleanor was much easier to get along with than Edward. It had been such a coup that she'd managed to secure Eleanor's appointment as her personal guard in New Haland, at least for the first few years of her marriage. It was impossible to feel bad standing beside Eleanor.
Except for right now.
"That's Crown Princess Pipsqueak to you. And I'm celebrating," Alice told her. That was what they called it when you used champagne to erase the thoughts other people kept putting into your head, right?
"Well, celebrate with some water"—she thrust a new glass into Alice's hands—"and maybe a slice of that house-sized cake."
"I chose it with you in mind," Alice quipped, but took an obedient pull of water.
"Then you should get moving before I eat it all," threatened Eleanor. Alice tried to smile.
Whatever showed up on her face instead made Eleanor raise a concerned eyebrow. "What's got you out of sorts?" she demanded. "I'd've thought you'd be swanning about the ballroom enjoying the limelight right now. Isn't this your moment of triumph?"
"I—" But she didn't know how to explain anything. Eleanor was right.
"Don't tell me you're suffering from nerves," chuckled Eleanor. "Not Grand Duchess Audacity, Queen of Cheek Mountain."
"Of course not," snapped Alice.
"Oh," realized Eleanor. "That's it—you are nervous. You're nervous about the wedding night."
"I am not," insisted Alice, with the feeblest, most fraudulent laugh she had ever produced.
Eleanor ignored her. "And well you might be," she mused, "since you're a speck of nothing and he's six-foot-humongous. Well, to most people," she added, grinning from her lofty height of six-foot-humongous plus two inches.
"That's not what I—"
"But I reckon you'll be all right. Just go slow and tell him what you want. He seems an obedient sort; I bet he gets a kick out of—"
"Eleanor!"
"What?"
There was just no arguing with her sometimes. "Nothing. Let's go back inside."
But they had scarcely stepped over the threshold before Alice was being ushered upstairs, a tide of whistles and ribald remarks flooding out of the ballroom after her.
It was a relief to shut the door behind her, sealing herself into the quiet of the bridal chamber at last. The maids who drew her a bath were blessedly silent as they helped her out of her gown. She dismissed them and sank in up to her eyes, bubbling out a sigh as the warm, perfumed water smoothed over the red marks on her skin where her stays had pinched.
But the feeling couldn't last. The moment Alice stepped out of the bath, the gooseflesh on her skin reminded her where she was. Being left alone in this room—Jasper's room?—was sobering her up fast. She resisted the urge to climb into the enormous, canopied bed and pull the covers over her head like a child. She snatched up her dressing gown and went to the closet instead.
Her things were already there, arranged just to her liking. Interesting.
She settled on a filmy white nightdress with a delicate band of gold that ran beneath her breasts. The girl in the mirror was not quite recognizably herself. He would have to want her, wouldn't he, this dark-eyed sylph with her perfect slender-softness? It was strange to be so conscious of her own appeal. She was used to risqué fashions, and knew she looked good in them, but this was the first time she had ever put something on with the express intention of getting someone else to take it off.
She wondered how many other people Jasper had been with. Her attempt at a discreet investigation hadn't unearthed much—he was mysterious even to his own servants. It made her nervous, not knowing. What if he had been with lots of people, skilled people who made Alice's trembling inexperience look pathetic in comparison? The only thing the servants had been able to tell her was that they thought he preferred women. This ought to have been reassuring, but Alice had yet to hear herself described as a woman—when she wasn't called a "duchess," people mostly defaulted to "girl."
Well, now she was Crown Princess of New Haland, and everyone would have to take her seriously. Jasper, too. She would consummate their marriage properly and prove she was a woman now, and not the pouting child he had known.
This resolve did not prevent her from jumping out of her skin when he opened the door. She darted to the vanity before he could look up, determined not to show her ridiculous nerves, as Eleanor had called them, and started pulling the pins out of her hair—gingerly, one at a time, working them through tangles. She wondered who had placed the vanity here, and when. Was it for her?
There were fewer pins in her hair than she'd thought. When she was finished, she turned slowly to look at Jasper.
He had exchanged his wedding finery for a distressingly plain shirt and trousers. Alice sat on the bed.
Jasper's eyes flickered over her, then up to the ceiling. "Did you…enjoy the banquet?"
"Very much, thank you." This seemed like an odd way to initiate sex.
He coughed. "I won't…we don't have to anything tonight if you're uncomfortable," he offered. "I know you're…young."
He was looking at her with a mix of doubt and polite concern, exactly what she hadn't wanted.
"I'm old enough," she assured him, trying not to turn pink. "We should…I'd like to—to consummate things, please." If they didn't, there would be all sorts of horrible gossip, and everyone would think there was something wrong with Alice. She refused to stumble so hard at the first hurdle. New Haland wasn't one of those countries where half the court stood about watching to make sure the royal couple consummated their marriage, but it was one of those countries that demanded proof in the form of bloodied sheets (ugh.) Alice had heard from one of her old chambermaids that not everyone bled their first time. What if she didn't?
She looked up at her husband—six-foot-humongous, Eleanor had called him. Who was Alice fooling? She was definitely going to bleed.
At least it gave her something different to worry about.
"Very…very well," said Jasper, a little surprised, as if he'd been expecting her to take the out.
He took off his shirt, and Alice stared baldly at his exposed chest. A dusting of fair hair, the divots of his sternum and abdomen, and a surprising number of scars. They looked like sword cuts, scattered over his torso and arms. Alice wondered how a prince could have gotten hurt so often.
Then she came back to herself, and remembered why she was seeing his chest and what they were supposed to be doing. With a deep breath, she reached for the hem of her nightdress.
Jasper's hand stopped hers. Aside from their joined hands and brief press of lips in the cathedral earlier, it was the most he had touched her since they were children. "You don't have to do that," he said hoarsely. "Just…lie back."
Apprehensive as she'd been about the idea of being naked before him, Alice wanted to argue. But this didn't seem like the time. She peeled back the covers and lay down obediently while he blew out the candles.
What had she been thinking? Her mind flipped through every decision that had led her here, to this moment in this bed in this foreign country. She had wanted this, wanted control. Better him than some other stranger down the line, some other scene in a different bed in a different country. Right?
Queen, she reminded herself. She was going to be queen. But only if she consummated this marriage first.
In the dark, she felt him settle above her, a tentative, hovering weight as he rustled about with something—his clothes? She forced her legs to unclench and helped him with the barrier of her own flimsy clothing.
She flinched as something cold touched her, between her legs where no one had ever touched her before. His fingers. Oh. They stroked upward until they found a too-sensitive spot that made her flinch even harder.
"That's all right," Alice gasped. "You don't have to—I—you can just"—she took a deep breath through her nose—"get on with it."
"Are you sure?" his voice was gentle—a strange contrast. Alice made an affirmative sound.
Her nails dug into the sheets as he slid a finger inside her. She didn't have words to describe the odd, invaded feeling of it. He moved his hand—drawing in and out, probing mechanically—and she clenched her teeth. How long was this part meant to take?
"That's—good," she managed to croak. "You can, um. Proceed." She almost added if it's not too much trouble.
Jasper shifted, sliding his finger out. "Is that what you want?"
"Yes." Miraculously, the reply did not come out a squeak.
A bigger shift then, his weight settling lower and closer, until she could feel his breath against her temple, the heat of his chest above her own. Alice thought she should probably be doing more, so she reached up and settled her hands cautiously on his shoulders. Despite the way he'd just been touching her, the warmth of his bare skin felt too raw and intimate beneath her palms. She couldn't shake the absurd, guilty feeling that she shouldn't be doing this, as if some scolding governess was about to pop out from under the bed and box her ears for touching her own husband.
Right—her husband. She kept forgetting that part. She was a wife and she had a husband, and they were going to do the same perfectly ordinary thing that husbands and wives had been doing for millennia, and it was going to be fine.
She felt something hard against her hip—this was it. No going back. When Jasper's thigh slid between hers, she parted them. Her breaths quickened as he lined himself up, nudging at her entrance—and slowly pushed in.
To her horror, Alice let out a pathetic little pain-shock noise, and he froze. He was trying to be gentle, she thought, but he was just so much bigger than she was, and it hurt—a burning stretch, a splitting-apart. Relax, she ordered herself. Relax. But her body was wound tight as a thread about to snap, and refused to obey. Her legs trembled with the effort of staying open.
Jasper shifted some of his weight off her, sliding a few centimeters out of her body, which also hurt. "Should I—?"
"No," she ground out, nails digging into his shoulders. "Just—keep going." She couldn't mess this up—not so soon. She wasn't a failure. Surely it would stop hurting in a minute.
It did, eventually, but it took longer than a minute. If Alice kept reminding herself she could do this, that she was doing this, and held those words firmly in her mind, the discomfort of her body wasn't so bad. If she let herself focus on the brief sensation of relief between thrusts, it was almost nice.
Still, it seemed like a long time before Jasper shuddered and went still above her, reaching his climax with a stifled grunt. To his credit, he managed not to crush her, and seemed to recover quickly. Alice winced again as he pulled out, the too-full pain replaced by a too-empty soreness. She tried not to make any sound.
Jasper's breaths were loud in her ear as he rolled to one side. "Are you…all right?"
"Yes, thank you," said Alice, with remarkable calm for someone who was lying in an unfamiliar bed, trying not to let the stickiness between her legs trickle out. She might have been thanking the footman who brought her tea.
Jasper's weight disappeared from beside her—where was he going? He didn't mean to sleep in a different room, did he?
Oh, Saints. Had Alice been that terrible? He couldn't leave—the servants would talk. Everyone would come to know her as the defective princess whose husband didn't want her.
The mattress dipped beside her again. "Here," came Jasper's gruff voice as he settled back in, a respectful few feet away. He pressed something into her hand.
A handkerchief. Alice almost laughed.
She cleaned herself gingerly, thinking of the identical handkerchief folded in her reticule and trying to recall the feeling of that long-ago day in the garden, the peculiar certainty that had stayed with her all these years, that had made her so sure of Jasper, of her decision.
But she could no longer find it.
A/N: Hope y'all enjoyed this chapter more than Alice and Jasper did, lmao. Feel free to yell at me in the reviews or via my tumblr askbox volturialice ;D Thanks for fav-ing/following/reviewing!