by Jenny Plumb
There was a sudden, deathly hush – the whole room went quiet so that Margrethe could hear the wine softly trickling into Rupert’s cup. Something was wrong, but she had no idea what, and she could hardly retreat from the gesture now. Smiling up at Rupert, trying to look winsome instead of worried, Margrethe held out the wine to him. “Your Majesty’s health,” she murmured uncertainly. Perhaps she had been a fool to take Carlotta at her word; indeed, it already seemed she had. That silence sounded like Margrethe had done something very wrong instead of something charming or appealing.
“Thank you,” Rupert answered shortly, and he took the wine and laid it aside. It was carried away by the servant whose inattention had resulted in Margrethe’s disastrous impulse, and conversation gradually resumed. But Rupert rose and held out his hand to Margrethe again. “Come with me,” he said.
Margrethe immediately gave him her hand, for she had liked the way his big, hard hand kept her gently before, and she stood up to follow him. She was a little worried, for it was never a good thing to be called away to talk after some kind of social disaster – worse still because she still didn’t know what kind – but it was more of a relief, really. Tomorrow they would wed, and after that, she would see the truth of him, whatever it might be. Empty, formal words would do nothing to prepare her for that, for living with the man; they only told her she was to marry a king, and she had always known that.
Rupert led her out of the great hall and through the long, straight halls of the castle until they were near her own suite of rooms, in a chamber with maps of Europe for art and books everywhere. He pointed to a low stool for Margrethe to sit upon, and she looked about her. It looked more like the room of a monkish scholar or a minister of war than a pampered prince, and Margrethe was pleased. But she forgot her pleasure when he said abruptly, lifting his handsome face from the candlewick he trimmed with a penknife, “Why did you do that?”
She froze, realizing he meant to take her to task for her error. But why did it matter so much? Obviously he didn’t like it, but it was her first time meeting him: how could she know? Should she lie? Yet it was significant, obviously. Somehow, what she had done mattered. Perhaps a servant had heard, or perhaps Carlotta herself would betray her? It was an innocent mistake, and if she began on a bad foot with Rupert because of it, there really would be no hope for her. “I...” she trailed off, taking in another deep breath as Rupert touched a taper to the trimmed candle. It flared up, and the light played under his sculpted cheekbones. He was so lovely, so refined looking. Margrethe would have liked to see him smile, to see a tenderness or even a pleased pride at the sight of her. But he looked suspicious, and his mouth was tight. “Your mother made me think you would like it,” Margrethe confessed finally. “She said you were like a big boy and liked to be waited on by your women.”
“My mother.” His mouth was not tight then – it twisted in a spasm of disgust and Rupert stood up to pace around the room. Margrethe didn’t dare watch him, exactly, but her gaze followed him. His figure was impressive: tall and strong, spare and lean. He looked like a man who spent very little time sitting down. “They said you weren’t a fool,” he said finally, and Margrethe might have been angry, but his voice was as much miserable as rude.
“I beg pardon,” Margrethe said in a small, unhappy voice, clasping her hands in her lap. “I did not... I had not thought you would be like that or enjoy being fawned over, and I did not even think you would, really, only I did not know what else to do because you would not talk to me. So I thought I might as well pour your wine as anything else. I beg pardon, Your Majesty.” Her voice, high and thin, cracked on the final sentence, and she turned her face away, very afraid she was going to begin crying right there in front of him, the man she would marry tomorrow.
“Never mind begging my pardon,” Rupert said, and he went to stand at the window, standing very close to it so that his body blocked the candlelight, and he could look out at the stars. “I wish for you to attend to me. From the moment our vows tomorrow are exchanged, and the contracts are signed, you will answer to me alone. Not my mother, not even my ministers, me. Do you understand?” Though he did not turn around to look at her, his voice was very intense, low and rough.
“I understand,” Margrethe answered quickly. It was a relief, really. It meant he trusted her to obey, that he would give her the chance to obey him at least. She still couldn’t know if he would make her obedience sweet or miserable, but it was something between the two of them, an intimacy that would be theirs alone. By this, they would be man and wife. “My lord,” she added shyly, trying out the term to see if he liked it. It was a little old-fashioned, but sweetly submissive and loving, and she spoke it with a smile and glance at where he still stood at the window.
But if the soft phrase had any effect on him at all, his silhouette did not show it. “You speak Bohemian perfectly, as if you had grown up a few miles from here. So you have troubled to learn our language. What have you troubled to learn about us? What about my mother, or my father?”
“I...” Margrethe licked her lips dryly. What could she say? She could hardly recite court gossip picked up from the princesses of Sweden and Norway about how his mother had poisoned his father! “Learned nothing, my lord, only gossip,” she said, all in a hurry. “I will learn what you please.”
Rupert did turn around then. He folded his arms over his chest and fixed his eyes on her face. “The gossip is true,” he said flatly. “My mother had my father poisoned on the instructions of the King of Spain. I was underage, but my ministers put together a Council of Regents to hold the crown until I could take the throne, much to the disappointment of my Spanish relations. Everything I eat or drink is tasted three times. Therefore, if my mother has any bright ideas about you messing with my cups or meals...” A dark, sardonic smile completed the idea.
Margrethe’s fingertips came up to cover her lips as she at last properly understood exactly what had happened and why. That was why it had gone so ridiculously silent. It must have looked like she was acting out some mockery of the Dowager Queen poisoning the old King. She had made a fool of herself – which was apparently exactly what Carlotta had wanted. It was strange, and there were, she sensed, more levels to it than she could tease out then. “I didn’t… I didn’t know there was any idea she would hurt you. Can’t you... do something about it? How can you live with her in your castle?”
Something gentler than Margrethe had seen on Rupert’s face previously crossed it at her concern and he moved forward. “I am doing something about it. But the something I am doing cannot involve open war with either Spain or my mother.” He smiled a little, which lightened his somewhat heavy, serious face wonderfully. Sitting backwards in a chair just before Margrethe and to her right, he leaned against the back of it and watched her closely.
There was quiet between them for some time, but it wasn’t an unpleasant quiet. Margrethe could hear both their breathing, her own soft and quick from her corsetry, his slow and steady. They looked into each other’s eyes, and breathed, and considered, and finally Rupert said, “What did you want me to say?”
“My lord?” Margrethe asked, startled by the abrupt question.
“You said I would not talk to you,” Rupert answered, and he reached out to take one of her small hands in his own, stroking it with his thumb. It made her skin feel warm, over warm, really. “What did you want me to say to you, Princess Margrethe?”
At last there was more teasing then anger in his voice. “I... I think I wanted you to say my Bohemian was good, for I have been practicing speaking it to your portrait since I was a little girl. And... and when that man was saying his poem, I hoped we would laugh together without making a sound; that after, you would lean over and ask if I really came from a glittering cap of snow, and if we lived in the brim of the cap or the peak. And then I would know that no matter whether we could love one another, or whether I could give you half a dozen sons to carry your coffin when you die, we might laugh at whatever ti
mes we do share, and all would be well. That is what I wanted, my lord.” Her heart hammered against her ribs when she spoke so boldly and at such length. It was a queer thing to say. But love among nobility was often slow flowering, and Margrethe was realistic. They might love or they might not. But laughter would make life sweet no matter what.
“What if I still will not speak?” he rumbled softly, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing it. The contact with his hot lips made Margrethe jump and startle as if she would pull her hand away, but he caught it in both his and held it close. “No, my sweet. You shall have a good deal more to bear tomorrow, and you must learn my touch.”
That was true, but she was not ready yet. Still, Margrethe stopped trying to take her hand back, and let Rupert do with the little, fair hand as he would. For though he had been sensuous and gentle, there was also something commanding to his speech. He turned it over so he could kiss the wrist, following the sensitive blue veins up into her arm. Margrethe shivered, though the room was fairly warm. “My lord,” she whispered, and it was as though they had jumped some boundary of intimacy. They had not spoken properly, not really. He had not asked her about her father and sisters, or whether she had a good journey, or said anything, really, but now he kissed her arm with kisses so light they were like snowflakes falling, and she trembled. She did not know if he liked her or was still angry at her for pouring his wine, but she shivered and her eyes slitted, and she fixed her eyes on the little dark curls that clustered at his temples while he kissed his way up the fashionable slit in her velvet sleeves, higher and higher. “My lord.” She meant to say it clearly, but her voice betrayed her, and the words were husky and seductive.
“Hmm?” Rupert lifted his head, and the intensity in his eyes when they fixed on her face was stunning. It made Margrethe catch her breath, for it felt like falling into deep water. “What is it, my princess?” Then he chuckled. “I had better not like that word too well. Tomorrow you shall be my queen.”
“I don’t know,” she said softly. “Only...” Margrethe bit her lip and then reached up with her free hand to catch his hand, so she could hold his hands as well as he held hers. Their fingers twisted together closely, and she wished it were tomorrow, that the bells would ring dawn already for Christmas Day and her wedding day too. “You will speak to me sometimes, my lord?” she asked finally, wistfully. “Or do your lips only give kisses?”
He laughed fully then, and though he did not part their twined hands, he did not resume his journey up her arms, nor resume the tender caresses. “I will speak to you, my queen-to-be. You are very innocent. I did not think you would come so innocent.”
“We have not so much trouble up in the cap, except shoveling out all the ice,” Margrethe said, her lips quirking. She jumped when Rupert turned his chair around and pulled her onto his knee, fitting the diminutive Danish girl onto his lap without much trouble. She gave a soft, happy laugh when he made her rest her head on his shoulder. “Like this?” She looked up at his profile happily. All the worries of the day seemed... not gone, but laid aside, for Rupert had kissed her hand and laughed at her and taken her on his knee. And this seemed such promising behavior from her future husband compared to the masked sneaking and canned phrases and formal neglect, that the relief made her giddy.
“Yes,” he agreed, tightening his arm around her waist and gazing down at her. Though he was not smiling, his gaze was warm and comfortable, and it made her relax more. “Just so. Now tell me what you wish me to say. Your Bohemian is very good – you have been practicing it, haven’t you?”
“Yes, on you,” Margrethe said mischievously. She felt very bold, even daring, speaking so freely to him. She had been so afraid she would only be able to say yes and no to him, that he would think her very dull, that it would be months before they had any kind of real talk between them. But everything, since her arrival, had gone so horribly that it seemed to have smashed all her fearful reserve. Somehow she felt she could not make things very much worse, and so she spoke to him almost as playfully as she might have spoken to Cristina or her dear father. “In the letters I sent you, and to your portrait too, ever since I was a little girl,” she clarified.
“You talked to my portrait?” He smiled, stroking her hair very gently.
“Just before my prayers every night. You have no idea how much my sisters teased me, and they had all kinds of awful names for you. But... I had always known we were to be married, and so I wanted to love you, if I might. It made me so sad, when I would listen to the old stories, like the Nightingale, where the knight and the lady could not be together no matter how much they loved, because the lady was married to someone else. My mother died when my youngest sister was born, but I know she loved my father very much, and I always hoped...” Margrethe squeezed Rupert’s hand slightly. “They sent me a copy of the new portrait that was done when you were crowned. It was very strange, as if you had grown up all at once. I did not like it at first.”
“And how do you like its original?”
“I... very well,” was all Margrethe would say, blushing. “My lord... my likes are not of much consequence, though. You had portraits surely? Do you...” She lifted her face to him, hoping he would not mind her begging for a little crumb of praise for her own pale face and smooth hair. She knew she was not really beautiful, not like her sister Elsa whose black hair and pink cheeks made men stare. She wasn’t the bewitching type of beautiful, but perhaps Rupert would like her anyway.
“Do I like my bride?” he said quietly, and Margrethe nodded, dropping her gaze, desperately afraid of the answer. Though he was being very kind now, he hadn’t come to meet her, hadn’t spoken to her at dinner, hadn’t been interested in her at all until about a quarter of an hour ago.
Rupert’s finger came up to trace her features thoughtfully. It skied down the plane of her little nose, caressed her cheek, and hooked under her chin so he could look at her entirely. At last he said, “Your portrait only showed one of your faces – I suppose that is the fault of them. But it was not the face I like best. I like the one where you smile at me because you hope I will laugh with you. Where the laugh starts in your eyes, and the little bits of stars in there are already dancing, even if your lips are not smiling yet. They didn’t paint that.” And he leaned down to press a soft kiss to her lips. At first it was nearly a chaste kiss, the kind a butterfly might give to a strange flower it had not yet learned. But soon he was coaxing her lips apart and Margrethe, sighing with pleasure, yielded to him.
But before very long, she was not merely yielding, she was kissing back and trying to squirm closer to him. Her arm came up to hang about his neck, and she moaned into his mouth, letting him hear the strange new excitement that made her pulse race. Gasping and embarrassed at her lack of restraint, she pulled back. “Oh!” Her whole face, usually so pale and composed blushed pink, and her lips were swollen and needy. She was breathing quickly, and she tried to withdraw from Rupert, but his arm was tight around her waist, and he would not let her go. “I-I’m so sorry.”
“Let me hear you,” he growled.
“But—”
He interrupted her protests with another kiss, this one more fierce, since he could see very plainly how well she liked it, and Margrethe forgot her shame in the pleasure of his hot lips, so demanding, hard and yet tender too. For when he was not pushing the kiss deeper, finding all the secret places of her mouth, he was nipping softly at her lips or whispering little broken endearments in panting breaths. Her fingers curled into the hair at the nape of his neck, holding him as desperately as he held her, and Margrethe had no idea how long she sat there on his lap, kissing and being kissed, thrilled by these new lessons in loving. He groaned and gave her soft, adoring words, and she gasped and showed her passion very clearly to him, and any fear Margrethe had had that her husband would not like her, or that she would not like him dissipated very quickly in the heat that surrounded him.
But though they were both urgent and desirous, Rupert did not take M
argrethe further than kissing, and at length, he gave a long, shaking sigh and stopped, laying Margrethe’s head on his shoulder and stroking her hair tenderly. “When I was a little boy,” he murmured, “I could never sleep on Christmas Eve. I would sit up and watch the snow, waiting for the candles and gifts and carols.”
“I did that too,” Margrethe murmured, not opening her eyes. She was trembling slightly, but not from fear. Still, she felt strange and drowsy and happy, and she never wished to move from this place, perfectly safe here in her betrothed husband’s arms. “I knelt in the window seat all night. I didn’t know you were doing it too.”
He kissed the top of her head for that bit of sweetness. “This is our first eve together, but I will not be impatient. You must wait alone one more night. Tomorrow will be ours – all the gifts, all the carols and all the candles. Do you understand?”
Margrethe nodded. They could spend the night together – betrothed with contract was as good as married for people of their station, and once the thing was consummated and witnessed, that was the real marriage, not a priest saying words over them. But Rupert wished to wed her properly, and she wanted that too. “I understand. Must I go now?”
“Soon,” he murmured. “But first a little instruction.” Rupert tipped her chin up and made her look at him. “Nothing shall come between us from now on, do you understand? I— My father died when I was a very young man, hardly more than a boy, and I was raised by his ministers. If the Holy Roman Emperor had not insisted on our marriage, I would not be marrying you. They do not like foreign princesses, after what happened, and they were adamantly against our marriage. Perhaps I listened to them too closely, but they are the men who raised me, after all. I did not like the idea of you – not nearly so well as I like you. But I am a grown man, and king now, and you shall be my queen. And you shall be instructed by me alone. Is that understood, my sweet one?”