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[grace-barton]

willa-oshea​:

Her lips twitched, threatening a smile that never quite came. A woman like that, huh? Then this elegant creature was probably a woman of means, or a bored wife of a nobleman. Someone Willa would see again at the next gathering, unless she fell from grace. Entirely attainable. “Hardly. They’d dress her in the best, same as everyone else here. No crowns or gaudy family jewels until after the marriage seals it. Maybe I was half expecting her to be planted in a chair in the middle of the room, so people could kiss her feet and properly gawk in equal measure.”

No matter. She could do her own gawking later. No doubt they would all be sat at the high table together; perhaps the king had even sat them side by side, a rare woman to lend a sympathetic ear to his bride to be. Willa scoffed at the bit about the girl being too short, latching onto the detail as she took a chunk out of the roll and chewed, eyes drifting over the heads of the crowd. “What does height matter? The king has plenty to pass on. They should be fretting over her looks. Are they up to snuff? Does she have the grace of an angel? Does she have a nose like yours; fit for a coin? I’d rather die than be some man’s living art piece.” That was what he was, after all. Even kings were just men.

Willa turned her back momentarily to pour something into a goblet, handing it off to the woman with a wolfish grin. A slight challenge. “Try this. Wild plum wine, the servants make it. Better than the stuff they’ve imported from France.” A new song started up and she tapped her foot along to the beat, the distinctive click of boots she shouldn’t be wearing under all the finery. “Willa. I’ve never seen you around the castle before.”

“I have to imagine dying isn’t an option for some people.” The words weren’t exactly argumentative. They still came laced with all the politeness and passive aggression the royal court loved so much. Grace was well practiced in phrasing opinions as simple pondering, at never letting her words seem anything but harmless, and yet still using them to make her points very clear. She was educated, well read. Some people didn’t like that. Her father had never minded but he told her all the time to keep it to herself. “Dying is for cowards. It’s why so many soldiers join the King’s army. Why be beholden to responsibility and the discomfort of things you don’t want to do if one can simply die and get called a hero for it?” She didn’t meet the other girl’s eye as she talked. Grace simply looked into the crowd as she did, made her points with her chin up and her eyes ahead. “Not everyone has that luxury.”

Grace turned then, took the wine the girl offered her and then finally looked back at her. She took a hearty sip, probably more than the other woman had intended and more than she should, but it warmed her chest on the way down and she smiled around the feeling. “Grace Barton,” she answered with a knowing smile, delighted by her own cleverness before she’d even delivered it entirely. “I only just arrived. I’m here to marry the king.”

[grace-barton]

willa-oshea​:

@grace-barton

Willa O’Shea was late. Her father had stressed the importance of the members of the court being on time and unified for the various entrances, but she had gotten distracted. Besides, she rather liked getting her name called out separately. It stood out to the nobility in the crowd (and their wives) so much better that way. If being a direct blood relative of the king wasn’t enough, her role as adviser usually got the proper reverence. Some thought the king was setting up his childhood playmate with the proper power and freedom to not have to work much til the end of her days, others thought he trotted her out to embarrass foreign dignitaries. Willa thought he liked how she spoke plain and cut to the heart of things. It was good for his ego to keep someone around that wasn’t afraid of him.

The proper fanfare was used to announce her full title at the top of the stairs. She pretended to forget something and doubled back, only to slip through the entrance a second time with a cheeky grin, forcing the man to announce her all over again. She had no patience for the pomp and circumstance. They were all gathered to celebrate a loveless engagement to a woman the king had spoken a handful of sentences to. It was the rare sort of arrangement not to unite countries or lands, but simply a woman to provide an angelically stoic face with no real power and pop children until they had at least two boys between them; an heir and a spare. Ridiculous.

Yet she would have shown up for the music and the food alone. This part, the wine and mingling before the actual banquet, was where she got into most of her trouble. The strings carried a jaunty tune as she crossed to the table offerings breads, meats, and cheeses. She was so focused on getting her hands on a dinner roll that she knocked elbows hard with a woman watching people move about the dance floor. “Apologies, m’lady,” she said with a dip of her head and a quirk of her eyebrow, guessing at her station based on the fine fabrics. Willa turned about face, staring out in the same direction as the unfamiliar girl as she tore into the bread with savage fingers.

That’s what she would have done, she decided, admiring the hard crust of it and raising it to her nose for a sniff. If she had never been born into royalty. Instead of marrying rich, she would have built a scrappy life as a baker or a blacksmith, a trade where there was little room for error, something hearty where she could still wear pants. Not like tonight, when she was forced to dress up much like the girl she had already potentially injured. So many suffocating layers. Except she knew she never managed to project such effortless elegance from underneath it. She glanced over again, a longer look. “So. Point me. Where’s the lady of the hour, the woman of no money and no title, on track to become my queen?”

Grace Barton had been laced into tight dresses a thousand times in her life. But none quite so tight as tonight. Or so she assumes. The woman who dressed her had been kind, warm, even if she’d barely spoken to her. With tough fingers and callouses. She’d remarked something about breasts and babies that Grace hadn’t replied to, though it wasn’t directed to her anyway. It was directed to the other woman, helping her, quiet in a whisper as though being a soon to be noble woman meant that Grace didn’t have working ears of her own. She hadn’t minded. While she was enthralled by the idea of castle life and all of the people that resided within the palace, she was more nervous than usual this day, taking each person in silently. Perhaps it was her silence that had caused them to lace it so tightly in the first place. 

She’d stood dutifully at the King’s side for most of the evening, through introductions of his court and then introductions to this and that person that he wanted her to meet. One woman in elaborate jewelry had said something about her face, producing handsome heirs and another had been concerned she wasn’t tall enough. Still, Grace stayed mostly quiet, made her smiling bows and nods until the King dismissed her with instructions to go and mingle among their people. To acquaint herself. On any other night, this would be Grace’s strong suit. She liked people, liked to know them and meet them, liked asking questions and forming her own opinions of those she ran into. But tonight, she couldn’t breathe. The damned dress and its tight laces. 

She was nearly knocked over as she stood there, by a taller girl with freckles and a roll of bread in her hand. Grace was standing so straight and still that the other girl’s bump almost knocked her over like some kind of rigid statue. But she got her own footing, adjusted, smiled only for a second until the girl’s comment settled over her. 

She’d been looked at by a thousand people that evening. And all day prior, more times than she’d ever been looked at in her life, Grace is sure. But the girl who bumped into her didn’t seem to be looking at her at all. And Grace realized then, as she deeply exhaled, that her dressed hadn’t been too tight at all. Her spine had been. Her shoulders and jaw tensed through like someone had laced them all shut. She smiled as she exhaled, glanced out into the crowd in front of them. “I’m not sure. You’d think a woman like that would stand out in a place like this. But I hear the nobles are worried she’s too short.”