by Lara Swann
I try to reassure her, but I don’t blame her for the uncertainty after the way the last one went. I know she doesn’t actually expect anything to come of it - neither of us do. After how the Court Dinner went, we don’t expect the official Court response to my proposed Princesca to be positive, and we imagine that’s how this whole thing will end. This was actually where I planned for it to end - though I’d wanted the Court Dinner to go better than it did, and I was hoping the “no” would be slightly move ambivalent.
So all we’re really hoping for here is that it goes better - that, even though my people won’t accept an American, they can understand why I proposed her for my Princesca. And I know that after last time, she wants to impress people - she wants to show them that things are different, and last time was just a tired train-journey-based fluke. Also a complete failing on my part to tell her anything about Aldora, but we’re not advertising that. My parents haven’t said anything about it since I first told them, and apart from occasional official royal business, I’ve barely seen them.
And as we prepare for the evening itself, I find myself getting nervous too. Not because I think Hanna won’t be amazing - but because I know how hard she’s worked on this, and I’m worried the bastards in the court won’t give her the credit she deserves anyway. And I’m not sure how she’ll feel if that happens.
But as it turns out, I don’t have any reason to be nervous either.
Because she’s simply stunning. All night.
She doesn’t let me see the dress before I stop by her rooms to collect her for the ball, but she’s told me enough times to be prepared for how bad she’s going to look in it.
“It’s like an over-sized meringue. Believe me - total boner killer. I won’t be offended.”
Personally, I don’t think anything she wears could kill the near-constant interest my dick seems to have in her, but I didn’t argue. I’ve seen some of these dresses, and yeah…they do kind of look like that. It’s the traditional style, apparently. But it will still be her underneath, and I know all I’ll be thinking about is what we ended up doing the last time we danced together…
The moment I see her, though, all that disappears.
“You’re a fucking liar.” I accuse, eyes narrowed as I take in the splendor - and the ingenuity - of her dress.
“Okay, I know, I know.” She says, holding her arms up in supplication. “I didn’t…realize. This is the first time I’ve looked in a mirror with it on.”
I narrow my eyes at her, but really - I just can’t stop looking.
It’s perfect.
And as chagrined as she seems about having built up how bad this is going to be for so long…I can tell she’s secretly thrilled about how it turned out.
It’s the same style as they always are - with the large, flared skirt that’s built for dancing and spinning that probably gave her that initial meringue impression, but it’s…surprisingly elegant, too. It’s got a similar shoulder-less design with a low back that’s allowed her to curl her hair and have it bouncing down her back the way she did at the Court Dinner. In fact, I think that part of this design was definitely inspired by her first dress.
And instead of the dozens of layers that the skirt usually has, this time it’s a beautiful, silken fall of cloth. Like she’s walking in the wind, and it’s swirling under her and lifting her skirt with every movement. She’s got small sleeves on the top of her arms, attached to the dress, and it gives the perfectly modest view of her chest…while exposing collar bones I want to touch and kiss and nibble at.
“Hanna…you look…”
“I know.”
She skips forward, just a little bit because the dress is slightly in the way, and goes for a hug that turns into a light kiss on the cheek as we decide at the last minute not to crumple the front of the dress before anyone has seen it.
“Your grandmother is amazing.” She enthuses, and I smile as warmth spreads through me.
“So are you, Princesca, so are you.”
That makes her demure again, and I take her hand while trying not to be too distracted by watching the way the dress folds and moves with the elegant, graceful steps that she’s obviously learned from somewhere. It’s amazing to think of all the things she’s learned.
And, just like that, I’m looking forward to this.
I’m looking forward to introducing Hanna, my Princesca, to all the stuck-up idiots who couldn’t see past their noses a couple of weeks ago.
I just have to try and keep my hands off her the whole time, so that this doesn’t end in scandal even after all her effort.
But the night only gets better from there.
Hanna looks gorgeous - but more than that, she actually manages to charm the intractable Aldoran court. I’m not quite sure how she does it - but with the few words and phrases of Aldoran she intersperses into conversation, the things she seems to know about every member of the court that I’m pretty sure I never knew, the genuine interest and polite attention…well, it all seems to work.
She mimics Aldoran customs very well too - and by the end of the night, I’m sorely missing the sweet, musical laugh that she seems to have replaced with occasional nods and the slight sparkle of her eyes when she’s particularly interested in something.
I hadn’t realized quite how much she’d covered with Granna - who I notice watching more than once - but I’m seriously impressed. I knew that out of all of the girls in our class, Hanna had the best shot at being a good Princesca, but I still never quite thought an American girl could pick up Aldoran culture quite this well. Even the top-of-the-class girl used to studying excessively.
There are a few mistakes, a few slips, but she corrects them easily and apologizes in Aldoran, and I can almost see the disapproving, distasteful expressions on a few particular stalwarts melting as she does.
I would have thought it impossible if I wasn’t seeing it right in front of me. Hell, I even catch the King and Queen nodding occasionally as they glance in her direction.
The only thing I can claim any credit for is that she also dances beautifully. We dance beautifully.
And it’s on the dance floor that I see Granna’s real ingenuity with the dress - the slightly off-white color that Hanna was so dubious about…stands out perfectly among the flash of color and over-the-top patterns.
And, I can’t help thinking, it does bring to mind, just a little, a wedding dress. Virtue and purity. All of that.
It makes me laugh a little, thinking about what we were doing last time we were dancing together. I’m not quite sure what anyone would think of Hanna’s virtue if they knew about that - and that little secret is almost electric between us as we dance and try very hard not to look at each other. Not to lean in towards each other. Not to inch closer and closer the way we did in the other ballroom when we were practicing.
It gets me hot under my overly-formal, stiff collar, and I can see her face heating every time our eyes meet. She hisses at me to stop distracting her, and I grin and say it’s entirely her fault. But I also tell her that she’s doing better than I ever imagined, and watch her eyes soften. It’s enough to refocus her attention, even as I kind of wish it wasn’t. Far too much of my attention is on wondering exactly how her dress works and whether there’s any way to slip a hand inside without anyone noticing.
The answer is almost certainly ‘no’, but it’s a pleasant diversion anyway. And every dance we have together, I feel the rest of the Ball just melt away. We stop caring about exactly what she’s doing, or what people think, or how things are going - and we just relax together. It feels amazing - and I never want it to stop.
The times she dances with other people - out of custom, or politeness, or because people won’t fucking stop asking her to dance - are the worst in the whole night. I’ve danced with other people before, and this is a very traditional evening - I didn’t think it would bother me.
But all I can think about is her comment about how it’s kind of like sex…and then the sex w
e did have, and I swear my eyes bug out every time she gets just a little bit too close to someone. It’s both slightly easier, and even worse, when she dances with Anton and Nicolas a couple of times.
Nicolas even comes to speak to me afterward.
“You did a good job.” He says quietly, watching as she dances with one of our uncles. “Teaching her to dance.”
“Yeah.” I mutter, half-wishing that our dance lesson hadn’t been quite so successful. Not even the thought that Nicolas has no idea what else happened during that lesson eases the strange feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Is Granna responsible for everything else?”
I’m not sure why he’s so curious about this, but the way he talks about her still infuriates me.
“No.” I say tightly. “Hanna is. She was the one that learned it all - that spent hours learning it. She’s picked up on half of it better than I ever did, you know.”
I don’t know why I feel so defensive either about Hanna, or about the fact I chose her, but I do. Nicolas always does that to me.
“That wasn’t what I meant.” He says, brow furrowing just a little. “I know she learned it all - and yes, I am impressed. I just meant…did Granna teach her all this? Or was it all those books she was reading?”
I blink. “Books?”
What’s he talking about?
“In the library.” He says patiently, even though I feel like groaning at this ever-unhelpful habit of never explaining anything. I could’ve guessed the books would be in the library, myself, thanks.
“You’ve seen her in the library?” I hazard a guess.
He nods. “She’s there almost every day.”
That’s not particularly surprising - I knew how much she wanted to understand more about Aldora and how fascinated she was by it’s history - but the fact that Nicolas has seen her so often is.
“You’re there almost every day, too?” I ask.
He shrugs, and then for once he elaborates without me asking more. “I like to know how our laws have developed - and I often need information for the decisions I make.”
I nod. I guess that makes sense. It still feels weird, though.
But I finally answer his question. “I don’t know how much of it she got from books - I think it’s mainly Granna, but you’d have to ask Hanna to be sure. Why are you so interested?”
I’m not sure why he thinks I know all this, either. Hanna might be my Princesca, but she’s her own woman - I only know what she tells me, and I haven’t exactly asked about her studies of our culture.
Nicolas glances over to where Granna is sitting at the side, drinking champagne and talking to another of our uncles - her son. “It’s unusual. For Granna to get so involved.”
I shrug, and wonder whether that’s it. Nicolas has presented four Princesca-attenciano, and although three of them were found acceptable by the court - which is better than Hanna and I are likely to do - none of them succeeded. And I don’t think Granna talked to any of them more than once or twice. But it seems impossible that he’s jealous. Nicolas…doesn’t feel things like that. I glance over again, but he’s as unreadable as ever to me.
“You’re right. I will ask her.” He finally says. “And brother…you should stop looking at her like that. People will notice.”
Before I’ve quite absorbed that, he walks over to her just as her dance with our uncle ends - and asks her to dance again, which is exactly what I was planning on doing before he interrupted me. I feel like snapping my champagne glass in two, and turn away to look for the buffet.
Look at her like what? What will people notice?
It irritates the hell out of me, but I do know what he’s talking about. Aldoran modesty. Every time I look at Hanna, I feel my cock twitch and my heart rate rise. I think of the things I want to do to her. The things I have done to her.
I can imagine the sort of look I might be giving her - the sort of look we might give each other that we should probably be avoiding at an event like this. But I’m not sure anything else is even possible.
And I curse my brother for noticing as I nibble at some of the food set out.
“The Ball is going well.”
I jump as I hear Granna’s voice behind me, then take a deep breath and turn to smile at her. I owe her a lot for this.
“It is.” I say with a genuine smile. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for Hanna - she really wanted to make a good impression tonight.”
“I know.” She says simply, but her eyes twinkle at me. “And she is. Now, help me find something here that’s soft enough for me to eat.”
I nod, used to her straight-forward requests, and our conversation turns to the buffet. I don’t mind. If she’s not talking more about Hanna, it’s because she doesn’t need to - and that means it really is going well.
Hanna comes to join us a few minutes later, and I’m surprised at how much Granna’s whole attitude changes around her. She actually smiles a couple of times as Hanna comments on one thing and then another - thanking her for the dress, asking about someone’s slightly-confusing marital status, mentioning something she learned from one of the elderly stewards. It’s a conversation that quickly has me totally lost, and after a few minutes I get the distinct impression that they’d find it easier to talk without company, and I make my excuses. But I keep looking back at them.
Granna has always been a formidable, impressive lady - with a sweet smile when she thinks that no one is looking. And I’ve always thought I’ve gotten on well with her - better than I have with most of my family, anyway - that maybe she understands me a little better than any of them. I don’t know what she was like when my grandfather - the late King - was still around, as he died before either Nicolas or I could properly remember him…but despite everything I’ve seen from her over my life, I’m not sure I can remember her being this engaged before. She’s always held herself too distant from the court for that.
Maybe it is, as Nicolas said, ‘interesting’.
When Hanna finally breaks away from her, though, I go and claim the dance I’ve been waiting for forever. And I fuck Nicolas’s advice about not looking at her, smirking as we step together completely in rhythm, and tempting her to remember our lesson over and over again. I can see the blush rise on her cheeks, and it’s clear it’s worked - and that’s all it takes for that strange knot in my stomach to dissolve.
Apart from that brief interlude with Nicolas, though, nothing could be better. The evening is perfect, and Hanna is perfect.
And for a moment, after the court has started dispersing and it’s just my family left, looking down and murmuring to each other about us still on the dance floor…
I wonder whether even my parents might agree.
Chapter Seventeen
Derek
Neither Hanna nor I know how long it will take for the court to respond officially to my Princesca-attenciano petition after the Court Ball - they haven’t left yet, still around debating it and sorting some business while they’re in the capital - but neither of us care about their verdict, either.
We know it went well. Hanna did well. It doesn’t matter that the court will probably reject her - after her performance at the Court Ball, there is at least a question, which was all we wanted. No one could possibly have asked more from her, except that maybe she not be born American - but she can’t do anything about that, and it means that she won’t leave thinking she failed.
I don’t get a summons to meet the King and Queen for another round of disapproval and frustration, either, so from my perspective I’m even wondering whether this worked out well enough that I get to go back to America to study and the whole pot thing will be forgotten. And going back to America is sounding even better than before - getting to see Hanna again in classes, only with this thing between us now.
Her ‘summer fling’.
I’m already thinking that I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to convince her to extend it a little beyond summer…
It fe
els kind of weird to think about that - the initial reason I wanted to bring Hanna here in the first place, and everything that comes after this summer. Somehow, amongst all the traditions and ceremonies and the complexity of preparing for them…not to mention all the fucking…it seems like it’s evolved into so much more than that.
I probably should have expected that when I initially proposed to her. Looking back, it was a fucking stupid thing to do. I should have known it would be a cluster-fuck, and that she’d need to work about as crazy hard as she did just to be okay and I still feel bad both that I didn’t warn her and she had to work so hard on what was supposed to be a vacation.
But then…if I’d thought about it a little more, and I had warned her…she never would have come.
And as shit as it’s been at times - I wouldn’t want to change that for anything. This is the best summer I’ve ever had here - even with all the stress of the Princesca-attenciano ceremonies.
I tell myself that Hanna did at least get something of a vacation here. She might have been learning about our culture, too - but I know how much she’s been enjoying exploring the beaches and the castle, reading about our history and getting to know Aldora in between the ceremonies. And I know how much she’s appreciated the certain benefits that came with the whole thing.
Benefits that we’re enjoying a lot now that the Court Ball is over and we’ve got a little time together to relax. I still keep expecting the intensity of it all to fade, for something to happen and us to just be…less interested, somehow. That’s what usually happens, right? But for some reason, every time I see her that coiling heat is just as strong as before. If anything, it’s even better because I know exactly what she looks like under the now-mostly-modest clothing, I know what she sounds like as she cums screaming my name, I know the way her forehead wrinkles in puzzlement and the spark in her eyes when she has a question - or twenty.
I know it’s obvious as fuck when we’re around each other - that my eyes drift to her automatically if we’re passing in a corridor, that my thoughts wander off into daydreams of what we might do when I get back to her suite later…but I can’t help it. I don’t want to help it. It feels far too much like this is what I need to have here, to balance me amongst all the royal responsibilities my parents keep demanding of me. Which is an almost-scary thought, but I’m not thinking that at the moment.