She went to answer, her mouth parting to tell the Prince of what lay beneath her skin for these past five months. Exhaustion, yearning and anxiety left her riddled with nerves — she knew the womb of her Queen was up for debate, more so on the tongues of the Aragonese than anyone else. After all, the Kingdom of Aragon seemed dependent on her fertility.
Lucrezia, now aged at nine and twenty years would at some point be expected to leave her Queen’s service — to marry and have a brood of children that she should’ve started on many moons prior. So, with even a lack of maternal want, could understand the pressure Alexandrina felt (or at least, felt it by the secrets shared between them — secrets that would go with her to the grave).
As his hand tightened around her own, Lucrezia yearned to laugh. Did he think she was afraid of him? Did he think that she was the woman who would ponder what he’d do to her if she went against his will? Oh, Cristobal — don’t you know that the lady-in-waiting to the Queen of France has starred death in the face thrice? Didn’t he know that the only thing she feared was God? So she retracted herself, pulling her hand from his in one sharp snap that left Lucrezia snapping her teeth — ready to bite and pull, even Cristobal Trastamara, who she had also promised a certain kind of loyalty.
“You mistake my intention, my lord,” she answered, elongating his title with the twist of her tongue and body, facing the titular Prince — to square their shoulders together, to make space just for them. “I would tell you if anything came to pass, for my loyalty lies forever in the heart of Aragon. You know thus — you know that well,” With the rise of a brow, she closed the space between them; a keen and slender hand planting itself upon Cristobal’s chest, to feel a heartbeat that had long been frozen.
“I fear I upset your highness, is there anything I can do to please you?” Lucrezia hummed, fingertips tangling into his woollen jerkin, twisting herself into him as if she were sewing him together. “Pray tell me, and I would gladly take part in what is needed.”
the prince of asturias had always believed himself more valued than others; but while it might have been untrue in the past, he had learned how valued he was — to his people, to his family, to the court-in-exile he had led since the death of his brother. a man of action, cristobal had learned the art of diplomacy much slower than he’d learned the art of war; it helped, he knew, that aragon needed war to survive, needed to regain its homeland before it was forever lost to the córdobans.
( and with his inflated sense of self, with the arrogance, came a sense of entitlement, that he alone should have free access to information before others, that his niece’s womb was there to save aragon instead of her own marriage. )
perhaps he had been a bit too harsh on lucrezia, but cristobal was not a man who apologized. he did not regret his own actions and would admit to doing so even less. still, his countenance softened as they danced and his head inclined at her words. “i know well that your loyalty lies with aragon, lucrezia,” he remarked, drawing her name out slowly, his voice low so as to not be overheard with the intimacy in which he spoke to her. “but i’m curious as to whether your loyalty lies with aragon first and alexandrina second or the opposite.” cristobal’s jaw tightened at the comment, suddenly incredibly eager to hear the answer even as her hand pressed against his chest, his own breath tightening.
the low chuckle that rumbled up from his chest was a familiar one; cristobal was used to taking part in pleasures of the flesh and lucrezia was a woman who graced his bed on many an occasion. “you know what you can do to please me,” he spoke candidly, his smile wolflike even as he moved with the motions of the dance. “but there are, perhaps, too many in paris for me to take the pleasures i have found myself deprived of in your absence.”
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