Page 77 of Songs and Spun Gold
“I didn’t come here to discuss my physician-mandated incarceration,” he said lightly. “I was informed that you disagreed with my orders to provide you with an appropriate wardrobe?” He let his eyes drop to the low neckline and thin straps of her garment for a moment before bringing them back to her face.
Her eyes followed his. Suddenly, her cheeks flushed bright red, and she spun away from him, crossing her arms over her chest as he held back his laughter. She truly hadn’t realized that she was standing in front of him in her undergarments, had she? “E-excuse me, Your Highness; I’ll be right back.”
She dashed off to her bedroom, reappearing a moment later wrapped in a cloak that was too long for her. He hoped it had come from Otto and not Fritz.
“Feeling better?” he smirked. Katy glared at him but said nothing as she approached. The seamstresses had withdrawn, leaving them standing alone near the open doorway.
“You could have said something sooner,” she muttered, crossing her arms as she came to a stop in front of him.
“I assumed that you knew what you were wearing. But I apologize for making you uncomfortable.” Casting his gaze around the disordered room, he commented, “I hear you’ve been making life difficult for the seamstresses.”
“I don’t need new dresses. Or at least, I don’t need ones this nice.” She wasn’t looking at him. “This whole situation is wrong, and I’ll be gone as soon as I can convince your father of that. So I can’t let you give me dresses.”
His robe sleeves whispered against his side as he reached for her calloused hands. Lifting them to his chest, he said, “This isn’t how I pictured things, either. And I’m sorry. But can you pretend for a moment? Can you pretend that after meeting at the theater, I managed to persuade my father to let me court you?”
“But the distance—”
“I would have figured something out,” he interrupted. His thumbs traced patterns on the smoother backs of her fingers. “We would have walked together: alongside your river, through your market or mine, or through the castle gardens. I would have taken you to the theater to watch the latest production from the best seats in the house as many times as you wished. We would have walked in the park afterward, like we did the first time.
“When I couldn’t contain myself any longer—so after maybe a month—” Here, her lips curved up and the skin around her eyes crinkled— “I would have taken you to your favorite place and offered you a bracelet and my heart. Hopefully, I would have delayed long enough that you would be willing to accept it. We would have announced our betrothal, and if you weren’t already living in the castle, I would have brought you here to keep you as close as possible until the day we married.”She dropped her eyes, but she gripped his hands a little more firmly. “I would have called for the seamstresses to make you a wardrobe worthy of the princess that you were to be. If that were how we reached this point, Katrin, would you still resist their efforts?”
Her curls swayed with the slight shake of her head. “No,” she whispered. “I would have been overjoyed.”
“Then can’t you let the seamstresses do their job, even though that isn’t how it happened?” he asked gently. “For me? Because I know you hope otherwise, but I don’t think we’re going to find a way out of this. You’re probably stuck with me.”
“But Your Highness—”
“You called me Axel a little bit ago. Why the return to formality?”
She released a shaky breath. Peeking up at him, she replied, “That was an accident. I was relieved to see you on your feet and worried that you shouldn’t be, and my tongue slipped.”
“How do I make it slip again?” he murmured, releasing one of her hands so that he could wrap her curls around his finger. They were soft between his thumb and pointer.
Instead of pulling away like she had in front of her friends, she closed her eyes and turned her face toward his hand. “I’m still going to try to make it home.”
Smiling past the pain of that statement, he let his fingers slide over to her cheek. “I know. But you need something to wear in the meantime. If you appear at my birthday celebration in your own dress, my mother will collapse in hysterics. Since I doubt that you will achieve your freedom before then, could you accept at least one fancy dress to spare my mother? You were willing to borrow a dress from your friend; can’t you borrow one from me?”
“You have a dress to lend me?” she replied, trying and utterly failing to keep the corners of her mouth from curling upas her shoulders shook.
“You will have to let the seamstress make it first, of course,” he grinned back. “But she should use your measurements, not mine, so she doesn’t have to alter it immediately.”
Her smile turned crooked as she looked up at him from the side of her eye. “I don’t know; your mother doesn’t seem to be my biggest fan. Maybe if I distress her enough on your birthday, she’ll override your father and let me go.”
Dropping his forehead onto her temple, he sighed, “Katrin...”
“Don’t worry, I’ll behave. Or at the least, I’ll wear the dress. And…you can call me Katy, Axel,” she murmured.
He smiled into the hair fluffed around his face and nuzzled her cheek with his nose. “Anything for you, Katy.”
Suddenly, she pulled away and turned her back to him. Bringing her hands to her waist, she said in a higher pitch than normal, “Well, if they’re going to make me a dress, I suppose I should let the seamstresses finish what they were doing.”
He couldn’t help being disappointed by the loss of her in his hands, but he was amused by the way it came about. A flustered Katy was a great improvement over an angry or a sad Katy. A flustered Katy didn’t make him feel nearly so guilty.
A flustered Katy gave him hope.
“You should get back to resting, anyway. Could you call the seamstresses on your way out?” she continued, still facing away from him.
“I was simply sitting in an armchair being bored. Couldn’t I do that here?” he innocently proposed.
