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“What does?”
“I care for you too. You can’t just pretend you’re okay when you’re not.”
“Isadora?” Vincent interrupts us. He doesn’t have my crown.
“My crown? Did you not find it?” I walk over to him.
“I have it, come here.”
“Come where, Vincent?” I ask.
“Come.” He takes my hand and leads me around the balcony, which wraps around the castle like a tower. I look down at all the little rose petals he’s left for me. He picked them from the garden. I follow them over to my crown. He gets down on his knees and looks up at me.
“And don’t worry; I polished it off and everything, so it’s shiny and good as new.”
“Thank you, Vincent,” I say, taking the crown and placing it on my head. I offer my hands to help him up but he doesn’t seem to want to stand up. He is fine on his knees.
He presses his face into my thighs and inhales. “I can say I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful than you and this night, seeing you like this – it can save a man’s life and kill him at the same time,” he chuckles.
“Vincent,” I laugh and play with his hair. He crawls on his knees, the palms of his hands touching the rose petals. “You’re softer than these,” he says of the petals.
“Am I?” I smile and touch his hair again and he presses his mouth against the curve of my bottom. “Yes, my love, especially right here.” He starts kissing my bottom and then my hips. “I want to treasure you every day. I can’t think of anything better than seeing your face first thing in the morning – your smile. It’s more stunning than this castle. He stands up, he puts some music on and he drowned out the talking of all the diplomats. I suppose it is Friday, and I suppose their minds are racing with random thoughts.
The song is a lovely sweet song I’ve heard once before, and I’m reminded of the night with Nathan when we played the piano and I wrote our own song, Firefly.
“What are you thinking about, Isadora?” Vincent takes my hands in his and we begin slow dancing.
“Nathan.”
I think the answer stuns Vincent. I look at him and see a bit of sadness in his eyes.
“I’m just being honest. If you’re not honest, you’re not anything,” I say.
“Well, that’s true.”
We danced for a while, but there is a silence as big as an elephant.
“What about Nathan?”
“His bad dreams.”
“I just don’t understand it, you know? He needs to just let it go. With you. With being here. How can he have any bad dreams with all of these wonderful things in his life?”
“Am I a thing?”
Vincent stands back immediately and looks at me, deeply concerned with the fact that I would assume such a thing.
“Goodness no, Isadora!”
I feel Nathan look up and look at us just then, that shaggy hair of his in his face.
“No, Isadora, I just meant…it was very bad the way I phrased it.”
“You want to know what I’ve been thinking?” I say, moving on.
“Always,” Vincent says.
“Maybe a princess deserves two princes.”
Enter Nathan. I watch him walk over to us. He doesn’t need to say anything; his manly face expresses everything so much better than any verbal announcement.
He leans against the balcony, waiting for me. The dance ends and I walk over to him.
“Hello,” I smile.
“Hello Ms. Thing.” He’s toying with Vincent when he says this, with his stupid “things” comment. The rivalry between them just won’t end, but at least now it is the friendly sort of jabs they share rather than the eye-daggers they offered each other back when the betrothal was first decreed.
I start kissing Nathan but he hugs me. He seems to want hugs the most. I hold him for a while and Vincent walks over to us and picks up his wine glass. He accidentally drops it and the sound of shattered glass startles Nathan.
“It’s okay,” I say, wrapping my arms around him and we stand there and squeeze each other tight. A groundskeeper starts sweeping the glass and I start to kiss Nathan. It’s a deep, emotional kiss.
I kiss his neck. It’s warm like a window in the summer.
Nathan takes the blanket that’s on the balcony and places it down on the ground for me to lie on and he gets on top of me. We are lost in each other’s eyes.
He takes himself out of his pants and I whisper in his ear, “Why don’t you just stay naked too?” and we both start laughing.
“We’ll just all stay naked,” Nathan laughs. “The groundskeeper too! And the maids!”
“NO!!!” I cackle, covering my face. “Goodness.” We are both laughing and I think this makes Vincent jealous. I feel like I laugh more around Nathan that I do Vincent. Perhaps it’s Nathan’s sense of humor that has seen him through some very dark, troubled times.
