Private The Covenant of Rose and Thorn

[Guinevere Cavello]

​

She listened as he outlined what he called the inconvenient alternatives. It was obvious he had little desire to spend the rest of his career on some forgotten backwater world, buried beneath diplomatic assignments or routine military postings. Truthfully, she couldn't blame him. She had only been on Naboo for a short time, yet the planet already felt more like home than she wanted to admit.

He seemed lost in thought as he stepped across the line of stones cutting through the stream. Gwen followed, slipping her hand into his as he steadied her. Then, almost casually, he mentioned a first kiss.

The words struck her harder than any uneven footing could have. Her foot caught on the next stone, and she lurched forward with a startled gasp before catching herself. It was fortunate he had offered his hand at all, or she might have been lying face down in the river.

Heat flooded her cheeks until they burned a brilliant scarlet.

"Oh... um... would it?"

She couldn't bring herself to look at him. Instead, she quickly withdrew her hand and busied herself smoothing imaginary wrinkles from her gown, her fingers twisting nervously in the fabric.

It could not have been more obvious that Gwen had never kissed anyone.

She had seen plenty of kisses, of course. Every holofilm she'd devoured seemed to end with a sweeping, perfect first kiss she'd secretly dreamed about for years. Those moments had always felt inevitable on a screen.

Standing beside him now, they felt almost impossibly distant.

When she finally found her voice again, it came out a touch higher than usual.

"I... I've considered inconvenient alternatives as well."

She hesitated, swallowing before forcing herself onward.

"My family would not object if you chose to call off the marriage... if they believed I was in..." Her face somehow grew even redder. "...a delicate condition."

The confession hung between them.

It was a desperate possibility she had entertained during one sleepless night after overhearing her mother discussing foreign nobles and dignitaries whose children had been born out of wedlock. It was hardly an ideal solution, but it was a solution all the same. A child would make her unsuitable for the marriage her parents had arranged.

At the very least, it might keep them from locking her in a tower... if only for a little while.

Lancel Atria

 

[Lancel Atria]

The heavy stillness of the afternoon seemed to settle about Lancel's shoulders as he took the full measure of her words. For the first time since his arrival at her home estate, his countenance betrayed a sentiment far removed from his habitual, unruffled composure. It was not the righteous indignation of a gentleman wronged, nor the superficial shock of the easily scandalised, but a profound and genuine alarm.

He regarded her in a silence that lengthened by painful degrees, his scrutinising gaze seeking some sign of levity or sport in her features. To his manifest distress, he found none. She was entirely in earnest.

"Princess," he delivered at length, adopting the solemnity of a minister managing a delicate affair of state, "I must profess that of all the imprudent designs we have yet entertained, this must claim preeminence." His eyes wandered momentarily toward the murmuring stream, as if seeking counsel from the water, before returning to fix upon her crimson cheeks. "You propose to secure your future happiness by the very means that must ensure its annihilation."

The scheme was clearly abhorrent to him. Indeed, a sentiment altogether more tender and protective seemed to dictate his immediate censure of the notion.

"I should prefer a sentence of perpetual banishment to the most desolate province of the Republic," he declared, the fervor of his conviction breaking through his customary diplomatic reserve, "before I allowed your reputation to be sacrificed as the price of this enterprise."

The confession had escaped him unawares, stripping him for a fleeting instant of his guarded exterior. Yet, as he continued to observe her, a new and altogether more dangerous amusement began to temper his gravity. The severe line of his mouth yielded to the imperceptible dawn of a smile.

"Moreover," he added, his tone softening into a dangerous playfulness, "you are accustomed to blush, Princess, at the mere contemplation of a modern embrace." He gestured slightly toward the brook, the very site of her recent near-misfortune. "I sorely apprehend that the practical execution of such a plot would discover you quite unequal to the task."

A calculated interval of silence followed, designed to heighten her confusion.

"Though I cannot deny," he murmured, the smile finally achieving a complete triumph over his features, "that the compliment of your proposal is most agreeable."

Whether he sought merely to torment her or to take pleasure in her evident embarrassment remained a mystery. It was highly probable he enjoyed both. Between them, the willow blossoms drifted languidly upon the summer air, their pale petals dancing in the breeze, whilst he looked upon her as a man might who, having traversed half the globe in a fruitless search for remedies, suddenly discovers the most hazardous remedy of all written plainly across her features.

Guinevere Cavello
​

 

[Guinevere Cavello]

​

If there had ever been a version of Lancel she might have imagined beside her for the remainder of her days, it was this one.

Not the infuriating diplomat whose every sentence concealed two meanings and whose every smile seemed designed to unsettle her, but the man who had, without hesitation, declared he would sooner endure exile than permit the slightest stain upon her honor. The man who, for one unguarded instant, had forgotten diplomacy entirely and spoken only from instinct.

Had he possessed the courage to reveal that side of himself more often, had he not so diligently hidden every sincere feeling beneath wit and provocation... she thought, with an ache she immediately despised herself for indulging... she might once have dreamed of marrying a man like him.

The realization settled over her with quiet cruelty.

Not him.

Someone like him.

Someone who cared enough to sacrifice.

Someone who would have wanted such a future.

He had already made it abundantly clear that he did not.

The warmth his confession had kindled scarcely had time to blossom before it was extinguished beneath his next words.

Gwen stared at him, momentarily unable to determine whether she had misheard.

"...What?"

Her confusion lingered only a heartbeat before comprehension dawned, and with it came fresh mortification.

He was smiling.

Of course he was smiling.

She had nearly forgotten that Lancel possessed the remarkable ability to transform the most earnest exchange into an opportunity to fluster her.

She narrowed her eyes.

He seemed positively delighted by her discomfort.

His observations regarding her blushes, her embarrassment, even that mortifying moment by the brook... each was delivered with the effortless confidence of a man who knew precisely what effect he produced and found the knowledge endlessly entertaining.

He was a man composed entirely of contradictions.

One moment impossibly kind.

The next utterly insufferable.

Protective enough to offer exile in her defense, yet merciless enough to remind her in the same breath that she could scarcely survive the thought of being held too closely.

He was the sort of person one could spend an entire lifetime attempting to understand and still discover new contradictions in old conversations.

It was a lifetime he had no desire to share with her. The thought stung far more than she wished to admit.

She became painfully aware of his gaze lingering upon her.

Blast him.

Heat crept inexorably back into her cheeks despite every effort she made to suppress it. She could almost hear his silent satisfaction before he had even spoken another word.

It was intolerable.

More intolerable still was the growing suspicion that he knew exactly how easily he unsettled her and enjoyed every blessed second of it.

Drawing herself up with as much dignity as remained available to a woman whose face had once again betrayed her entirely, Gwen folded her arms.

"I was making a practical observation," she informed him with exaggerated composure. "Not extending an invitation."

She lifted her chin another fraction, a slight pout on her lips. Clearly, she didn't like that he had rattled her.

She glanced away from him, as if searching the grounds could dim the power of his enjoyment at her discomfort, but truthfully it did nothing to help.

"We should probably return for dinner."

Lancel Atria