by Sally Laces
Contents
First Page Header
Story
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Author's Note
Protect Her
His Queen
by Sally Laces
Copyright 2019 Sally Laces
All Rights Reserved
His Queen
Book design by Sally Laces
Cover Images Copyright 2019 Depositphotos
and are used under a Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
Story
Blurb
Toras
It’s written in our ancient charter: A Dominari Prince must marry a Femnosi princess.
If that princess is male, then she'll simply wear women's clothes.
I understand the necessity of duty, faith, and loyalty to the Crown. All the gold in our Kingdom’s coffers cannot impel me to marry without love.
I expected a marriage of tradition.
I did not expect a fiancee who’ll do anything to make me King.
Who would have thought being the betrothed to a crossdressing princess could be so complicated.
Or so royally alluring…
Anya
I’ve wanted to be married for as long as I can remember. The life of a dutiful spouse to a powerful husband is the life for me.
I know he didn’t expect me to look the way I do. That’s fine. I’m a royal - no price is to high to pay for whatever I want. A prince can become a princess if she so chooses.
Right now, I want to be a bride for him. A princess. A beauty.
His Queen.
I can overcome my slim physique and short hair with expensive makeup and an authentic wig. Now all we have to do is defeat our own doubt and trepidation just days before we’re to marry.
Simple, right?
I guess I should start looking for a wedding dress…
Because I intend to marry this man as his royal bride.
Chapter 1
Toras
“Are you ready to meet your bride?”
I look up hollow-eyed at my step-mother Annabelle standing in the doorway, as imperious as the day she wed my father in Dominar’s most-watched royal wedding. The bed I slept on the night before in this Royal Guest Suite sits completely bare, the sheets and duvet and mattress cover slumped on the floor beside the oak bed-frame. Annabelle glances over my room with distaste. Issac and I really had done a number on the place in the few hours we had last night after arriving by private jet. Unlike in our early twenties there were no girls to entertain us up here in my guest suit - just the music from his iPhone and old memories of better times shared over a bottle of local vodka. Those were days when we were just two college kids, before the burden of Royalty hung over my head. Days when I wasn’t being married off like some item.
Days when I imagined myself marrying a woman.
“Is it really appropriate to say ‘bride,’” I groan, pushing myself up from the 19th-century divan, “when the person in question is a boy?”
Annabelle grimaces in that familiar way. I’m pretty sure she had the same expression on the day we met, 22 years ago, when I was a lad of just 8 years old. I'd been out exploring my father’s estate for insects and chipmunks in our woods when she arrived by horse-drawn carriage. She’d had on a fine silk dress of stunning silvers and Dominari Purple; I wore dirty cargo shorts and an oversized t-shirt, staring up at this woman who asked me to call her mother.
“Well, Anna?” I ask again.
My step-mother’s eyes dart around the room. “We’ll need a whole team of maids to clean this mess.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
Annabelle’s eyes lock on me, and her grimace turns into a fiery scowl. “Toras. Enough. I know you think you’re the first Prince ever forced into a marriage. Well, you’re not. Gods' sakes, don’t you think I had my own trepidations about marrying your father?”
A tingle runs down my spine at the mention of my father. Annabelle’s eyes challenge me to defend him and his name - defend everything he’d done, every decision he’d made, just at the mere mention of his existence.
I say nothing, letting her go on.
“The crown sits heavy atop all of our heads,” she says, stepping forward to adjust the lapel of my button-up shirt with an almost motherly hand. She wipes a bit of dust - or what we both hope is simple white dust - off the shoulder of my suit jacket. “It is our burden as royals. You are not the first. Perhaps you’ll be the last.”
I bristle at that one, my legs growing taut beneath my suit pants. “Because I won’t have an heir?”
“Because you can change things once you’re king. Good god, Toras, don’t be so defensive.”
I run a hand through my hair, the tight black curls feeling particularly unmanageable today. I can actually hear the burgeoning hangover headache pulsing against my temples. Femnosi liquor is marvelous though its sweetness lingers even after you've had a fitful sleep. I suppose, judging by the clock on the wall, that I missed breakfast.
Hungover, unfed, running on less than 4 hours of sleep. What a way to meet my boy-bride.
“Come along then,” Annabelle says, pivoting on her stubbed heels. “The prince awaits.”
Chapter 2
Anya
“Are you ready, your majesty?”
I spring up from the makeup bench, having finished applying a light dusting of primer to my face.
“Oh, Ellory! Isn’t it a marvelous day?”
I was up early this morning because of my excitement. With little else to do and nowhere to go, lest I run into my future husband accidentally in the hallway (most improper!), I took it upon myself to not only rouse myself from sleep but to prepare for the day as well, a whole hour before my handmaiden arrived.
Ellory looks mightily impressed at the way I tied back the window blinds. I couldn’t figure out how to use her special roping technique, so I just did an overhand knot. The velvet blinds look a bit wrinkled; I hope they’ll iron out. Sunlight beams down upon the bed I made myself and the dozen or so makeup items I assembled on my desk.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” I ask with a wide grin on my whitened face.
Ellory looks slowly around the room.
“I think I’d best call the maids…” She says, eyes fixed on the way I’ve made my bed. It doesn’t look as neat as when she does it, sure, but all those throw pillows were really unnecessary. They look better on the floor anyway.
Ellory lifts the front of her petticoat, her flat shoes moving quickly across the carpeted floor on her way toward me. I stand fixed in place in front of my makeshift makeup desk. Okay, perhaps she doesn’t approve of the way I cleaned my room. I’m a Femnosi royal - we aren’t trained in interior design or custodial work. We follow our hobbies. Men have their hunting, their fishing, their military exercises. Women have their dancing, their singing, their catty dinner parties and political backstabbing.
And femboys like me have… well, all of it, really. I can ride a horse better than all of my cousins, for example, even though I can barely grow hair on my chest. At the same time, I’m an expert when it comes to beauty, particul
arly when applied to my royal skin. Even Ellory, my handmaiden and closest confidant, can’t help nodding in admiration at the way I've added a glow to my skin and a contour to my cheekbones with little more than a bit of primer and foundation.
“You look lovely, your Grace,” she confirms. As if there were any question.
I hop up onto my feet, my legs freshly shaven, my bare toes sinking into the plush carpet. Ellory’s eyes glance down at the floor where I spilled a bit of primer. Though she’s been my most trusted handmaiden for some months now, I suppose she’ll always think like a castle maid.
“Come now Ellory,” I chide, patting her on the shoulder. “Let us leave the scrubbing and vacuuming for another time.”
“Of course, your Grace,” she replies, but I can see her honey brown eyes still flickering toward the little imperfections of the room. She’s so easy to read. Charmed, I can’t help but pull her into my chest, wrapping my arms around her body. Her thick ankle-length dress presses against my thin chemise.
“Your Grace!” She marvels. I’ve been taught to keep the servants at arm’s length. Ellory is different. Over the past few months in the castle I’ve been able to get her to open up about her life and her past. What’s more, she’s lived in Dominar, our neighboring nation and the kingdom of my husband-to-be. She’s often too occupied to talk to me about her time there, busy keeping my wing of the castle in order and overseeing a variable amount of servants under her stead. Now that the wedding preparations have begun in earnest, however, I intend to have her by my side. She’s smarter than she acts, more talented than she appears, and…
Well, admittedly, she’s about my height and weight. That makes her a good model for the clothing I like to wear.
“Help me pick out an outfit,” I say breathlessly, tugging her by her wrist toward my expansive walk-in closet. She follows like a castle servant should yet I can feel her pulse quicken under the pad of my finger.
“Oh, your Grace, let me call the Royal Tailor,” she protests. I spin around on her.
“I do so love Reginald,” I reply, trying my best to think fondly of Reginald Olstead, the Chief Tailor to the Femnosi Royals of the past 50 years. He began his tenure in the mid-20th century and has done little to adapt his designs, which are straight from our modernization in the 19th century. I have to hold back a cringe thinking about the stuffy suit pants and formless blazers forced upon me in my youth. How my brother, the King, can stand that sort of fashion even to this day is a mystery to me.
“I’d rather have your advice, Ellory. I must make a good first impression, of course.” I lean in toward her, almost conspiratorially. “Perhaps a resari?”
“A resari dress?!”
I puff out my cheeks. “If that’s what it’s called,” I murmur. Yes, technically the resari, the traditional sleeveless ankle-length dress of the Dominari people, looks almost indistinguishable from a Western empire dress. The similarity is exactly why the fashion, well, fell out of fashion. As globalization took hold in the late 19th century the Dominari, embarrassed to have visiting European dignitaries mock their ‘dolled boys,’ quickly adapted to Western fashion. With that, a huge part of Dominari culture was nearly lost for good.
Not quite so, however. I know my husband-to-be, Toras, has spearheaded revival efforts for his beloved Dominari culture. He’s funded language schools out of his own largess, is fluent in the Dominari language, and has worn traditional fashions in public. Not a Resari, of course. With his barrel-chested build and solid height he’s more suited for the Kerrak - the uniform of the traditional Dominari hunters. Pictures of him wearing that outfit went viral some months ago, just before it was announced that we were to wed and strengthen the bond between our Kingdoms.
Oh, does he look good in the Kerrak, which is little more than a loincloth…
As I lose myself in yet another daydream of the man I’ve been chosen to marry, a small bulge forms in the front of my chemise. I wipe down the front of my fabric in an effort to ensure Ellory doesn’t notice anything amiss.
“I certainly can’t go out and meet him wearing this,” I say, motioning to my slip. “Is he going to want a spouse who lounges about all day in sleepwear?”
“I suppose not, your Grace.”
“Certainly not!” I throw open the door to my closet with a hand wrapped around the antique brass knob. “Therefore, it is simply a matter of finding the right dress. Style of dress, I mean.”
Ellory stands quiet a moment before heading into my closet. I follow quickly behind, eager to have another set of eyes on the potential outfits.
“Your Grace, where did you find these?”
“Aren’t they lovely?” I’ve arranged my newest pieces of clothing on an empty rack. Old shirts and pants I’d been forced to wear for state dinners and visiting dignitaries lie discarded on the floor. To my satisfaction, the Royal Handmaiden does not spare a glance for the crumpled men’s clothes. Her eyes dart over the rich Dominari cotton fabric of my brand new, tailor-maid resaris.
“Oh my,” she murmurs, forefinger and thumb sliding the fabric back and forth. I fold my arms and watch in patient satisfaction as my maid falls in love with the traditional Dominari outfits the same way I did.
“Where did you get these?” she asks, turning to me.
I shrug like it wasn’t an arduous task. “Oh, there’s a tailor living out in the Immigrant Quarters. He’s quite old, still alive when the Dominari Parliament was established. He remembers the traditional ways of his people and accepts Femnosi currency for his wares.” I wink at her. “He said they’re the best in all the land. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Well yes, of course,” she says, staring up at the dress on the hanger once again. These are no mere costumes for some film about Old Dominar. No, I paid handsomely for the finest, richest fabrics, and my dresses are stunning. One a vibrant sea-foam green, The other two a rich deep scarlet and a night-time blue, respectively. As per my request, the tailor made them all to my measurements. They’ll cling tight in all the right places and will stay just above my ankle. I’m told it’s a major faux pas to let your resari drag on the floor.
I would never want to offend my future husband. I want him to like me; I want him to know I respect him and his culture and his famously sexy body.
The way I hope he respects mine.
I clap my hands together quickly, the way grandmother used to when she wanted to get a servant’s attention. I can’t do it nearly as sharply as she did. That old woman could strike fear into the hearts of foreign Presidents from her gilded wheelchair. I have her genes, however, and Ellory nearly leaps onto tip toes at the sound of my claps.
“Okay! Time to pick one!”
“W-why me, your Grace?”
“Because,” I reply, sidling up to my trusted handmaiden, “you have an eye for color and style, you know what works best on me, AND you studied in Dominar!”
“I was just a maid for a family, your Grace. I don’t claim to be any expert on Dominari tastes.”
“Are you challenging me?!”
Ellory’s face goes ashen white. “Your Grace, I -“
“Oh calm down, Ellory! I’m only joking!” I pat her on the shoulder, wishing my ear-to-ear smile could be a bit more reassuring.
“Very funny, Your Grace,” Ellory says quietly. I rub her back. She still tenses.
“Ellory,” I say, dropping my voice to a furtive tone. “This is all very new to me. I picked you to be my assistant on all this. Let’s say you’re my… Wedding Advisor. Yes, I know you’ve never been married yourself, but it’s rather difficult for me to rely on castle servants I don’t know as well. How long have you been serving me exclusively, Ellory?”
“Eight months, your Grace.”
“You know me as well as anyone else.”
Ellory pauses. “Really, your Grace?”
“Of course. Every year of school I had brought a change in staff as well as teachers. My Kingly brother is always out of the castle. I have no one else since m
y parents passed.” I track the backs of my fingers through my cropped brown hair, enjoying the stimulation against my scalp. “It’s only been since I’ve finished my schooling this year that I’ve been able to have a long-term assistant, and whether you like it or not I suppose that’s going to be you!”
“I do like it, your Grace! You are an excellent employer!”
‘Employer.’ I’ve never seen so much as a water bill for this place. Ah, the joy of royalty.
“And I thank you very sincerely for hiring me on," she adds. "Your largess and your kindness exceed -“
“Ellory,” I blurt, snapping my fingers at my hips. “That’s very kind and all, but my fiancé is waiting.”
Fiancé. Fiancé. Fiancè. Oh how I love the word!
I’m getting married!
And I have an advisor - no, a friend! - to help me pick out my outfit!
Ellory stares at me for a long moment. I may have lived a privileged life these past 20 years, but even I can imagine what she’s thinking. How far can she really trust me? How honest can a Royal be when one asks for genuine advice from a mere servant?
The girl nods, perhaps to herself more than to me, and turns toward my dresses. Her hand reaches for the scarlet ensemble. Then, at the last moment, she plucks up the hanger holding my sea-foam dress.
Interesting, I think to myself. I left the colors up to chance, asking the tailor (through the servant I sent to the Immigrant Quarters) to choose what he thought best for ‘a pale complexion.’ I didn’t want him to know he was designing a resari for me, the actual prince. Anything I do can cause a press furor, for one thing, which is why I rarely even bother leaving the castle. When I buy anything, even through a servant sent out in plain-clothes, I’m inevitably overcharged if they know it’s going to a royal - not that I’m bothered for money.
Ellory turns to me and hands me the hanger. I accept with two fingers, careful to keep the item from touching the floor. “Wonderful. I’ll put this on forthwith. You’re dismissed for now, Ellory.”
I take a step out of the closet, then stop dead in my tracks when I hear something brand new to my royal ears.