the 'guilty as sin' trilogy . . . in which a lady of the court really should not be in love with the high king, but she cannot stop fantasising about the possibility
. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. "...how can i be guilty as sin?"
peter pevensie x fem!oc <3
part two, wc: 1.2k
eleanor had turned down three offers to dance, two suggestions of lemonade, and even declined lucy’s polite offer of taking a turn around the room. music filled the great hall, garlands of flowers and laurels were strung from wall to wall and the windows and doors were thrown open to the warm night air. and instead, eleanor had taken advantage of the chance to slip away when the expected tirade of speeches begun.
she walked through the corridors, wound down a spiral staircase and emerged out on a lower level terrace that would brush the salt spray of the sea at high tide. instead now she could lean over the stone wall and watch the mermaids swim in the shallows, hear their squeals of laughter and watch masses of seaweed wash up onto the beach with each wave. eleanor rested her chin upon one hand, the other returning to its usual place at her neck to fiddle and twist the pearls she always more.
her dance card, looped around her wrist on ribbon of navy, fluttered in the light breeze and lay to rest facing up at her, each slot empty. eleanor had expected, perhaps naively, for the usual process of those kinds of evenings to occur - she would enter the room three paces behind susan, and somewhere between arrival and positioning herself beside her throne the high king would intercept her and fill in his name in neat print on the back of the little card.
except this evening she was stunned into disbelief. perhaps she had been walking slower deliberately this time, to really give him the time to decide he would sign himself over to her for a minute or five. but it had been in vain, those excruciatingly drawn out steps. he had been preoccupied, with the sister or niece or something in relation to edmund’s valet. eleanor had watched him bow in front of her, loop that dance card around her wrist from where he’d picked it up on a tray from a faun, and turned away before she brought herself to tears in front of the entire court and ruined her name forever.
she'd turned away before she could see peter greet the woman’s husband, before she could see he’d never written his name near her wrist. and had managed an hour on the fringes of the room before she’d lost sight of him entirely until dinner and had by then long given up hope.
now, as the moonlight streamed along the stone, she pulled the card off her wrist and tore it into shreds, until it was nothing but a pile of nothing and a tied ribbon. she pushed it off into the coming wave with a sweep of her arm and folded herself down, sinking to her knees and burying her face into her arms to cry in some type of peace. maybe if she couldn’t see her reflection in the sea she wouldn’t have to feel quite so sorry for herself all of the time, pining after a man who clearly wanted nothing to do with her and who clearly had been indicating nothing but harmless friendly inclinations towards her.
mummy always did say she was too much of a dreamer, too much of a romantic to entertain any notion of a proper courtship. she felt too guilty, like she would be betraying the true calling of her heart if she were to pursue any other romantic entanglement. and she had tried, those innocent walks around the garden with the chancellor, a dance or two with minor lords who would have been nothing without the grace of the high king and the fortune of his arrival. they would touch her, would lean close to whisper in her ear those sweet nothings that were clearly meant to illicit a reaction or a fluster, and she could come up with nothing.
peter simply had to look in her direction in a passing sweep of the room for her skin to become ablaze with desire.
eleanor could feel the tears tracking down her face and seeping into the sleeves of her gown where they would be sure to leave stains. she took a deep breath that shook as she tried to compose herself, and tucked the loose tendrils of hair that had escaped from their pins back behind her ear. she pinched her cheeks to emulate the freshly reapplied brush of rouge and pushed herself back up to a stand, pressing her pinky fingers into her tear ducts to dry out any remaining emotion that hadn’t yet boiled over.
she was just about to turn back, had pasted on that bright smile that was expected her at royal functions. and stopped short when she heard footsteps behind her, presumably susan coming to check if she was alright. “i'm quite alright your majesty, really. i just needed a few moments that’s all, the laurels really are rather dreadful for my eyes-”
“i had hoped you would have saved me a dance.”
eleanor heard her skirts rustle and swish to a stop around her ankles, and there waiting expectantly for her on the terrace was peter himself. not looking awkward at her state as she would have expected, but instead looking concerne, as if he was just about to reach out and comfort her but stopped at the last possible minute. she had to force her jaw closed. “your majesty, i had not intended for anyone to discover me out here. i just needed a few moments alone, i had gotten rather overwhelmed.”
peter stepped closer, “that doesn’t sound like you, ellie.” she had to swallow the pathetic sound that threatened to escape her throat at hearing her name being said with such affection. it had increased the burning feeling on her cheeks tenfold. “you enjoy balls and dances more than anyone i know.”
she smiled, “yes well as i said, i’ve been rather overwhelmed this evening.”
“i know. i could hear you crying.” he was standing next to her now, leaning back against the stone balcony with both arms behind him and resting on his elbows. ellie wiped away the last tear that was tracking slowly down her face. “how long had you been standing behind me?” she whispered, dreading the answer.
“long enough to see you tear up your dance card. one minute i was returning the lady thorne to her husband and the next you were gone. i was hoping to catch you before those insufferable courtiers drove you to the edges of the room.”
eleanor swallowed hard. the woman he was greeting earlier had been someone of no consequence, he had been wanting to speak to her all night and had actually truly wanted to dance with her. “forgive me, your majesty. i had not realised your intentions were going to be quite so clear." she was standing so close to him, close enough for the lace hem of her dress to whisper against the leather of his boots. her fingers twitched to reach for him and she had to hold them still.
“i’m always looking to dance with you, ellie. it’s the highlight of my evenings seconded only to edmund's continuous toasting when he has had too much wine.” he reached out then, his fingers brushing against the back of her hand in a feather-light touch and stopping when her fingers shot out to hold them tightly to her sternum. peter's lips twitched and if she didn’t always watch him so intently she would have missed it entirely.
“i had hoped this evening would have been no different.”
"what if he's written 'mine' on my upper thigh..." . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.
. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. "...only in my mind?"
peter pevensie x fem!oc <3
part one, wc: 1.1k
the morning sunlight glittered down as it always did on cair paravel, beautiful and streaming and eternally golden, bursting through the windows of the morning room. there was the usual hum and fuss over the breakfast table, pitchers of fresh orange juice and pastries and steaming bowls of hearty porridge were spread out in the usual fashion. eleanor made sure of it, it wasn’t technically part of her duties as lady in waiting for the gentle queen but she liked to ensure everything was the same every morning.
the royal family functioned, she thought, much better on order. and what better way to begin than with the first meal. the four kings and queens would sit together around a table that really was getting too small for the four of them now, but had stood there for the first three years of their rule and was obviously going nowhere. eleanor usually remained in the queen’s chambers during that hour, a precious sixty minutes to restore rumpled bedsheets and strewn hairpins to their proper places.
pillows fluffed and bed linens pulled straight, windows thrown open to the ocean air, shell-backed brushes placed back carefully in those charming little enamel boxes susan liked so much even against ellie’s quiet disdain.
and more importantly, it was a short reprieve to compose herself for the day, to steel herself against such close proximity to the high king. in truth she’d harboured that small kernel of admiration since dancing with him at the coronation, when she’d been packed up onto a ship with her brother hugo from galma within hours of the news of the white witch’s defeat being declared.
they had danced, and he’d even kissed her hand awkwardly as if he’d heard of the notion once and had chosen that moment to put it into practice. eleanor didn’t like to use the word love, wouldn’t have wanted to even write it down in the darkest corner of her diary, but that was what it was. truthfully, she couldn’t bear those long hours of council when they kept catching the other’s eye across the room any more than she would have been able to bear ripping her own heart out with her bare hands.
instead she would position herself on the fringes of the room, out of sight but always nearby as was expected of her. sometimes she’d fiddle with the pearls at her throat or she would work silently on her embroidery while nodding occasionally at something susan had said. or on days when susan’s whims had taken her outside with her sister, eleanor would remain behind and complete her weekly correspondence to her family in galma. she wrote of the weather and her various past-times mostly, or brief snippets of court gossip that usually only consisted of new betrothal announcements or some drunken brawl that happened in one of the brothels women of her station pretended didn’t exist.
those afternoons would start with peace and solitude. then would descend, slowly and then all at once, into frantic chaos.
peter would knock on the door, always twice, and let himself in before she bade him entrance. they would look at each other, those piercing blue eyes of his disarming her of all her defences, and she would reach for him with a desperation that may have been bordering on pathetic. he would draw her into his arms, wind them tight around her and hold her body against his like it belonged there.
every point where they met was lit ablaze, the contact not enough through the layers of their clothing despite the fact it felt like they were fused together as one being that would fail to function without the other. jigsaw pieces that fit together just so, all of it solidified as a fact she could shout out with passion in front of the court when peter’s kisses descended from her lips to her jaw to her neck and to her collarbones-
“ellie, are you listening to me?” susan’s voice cut through her daydreaming with an embarrassing level of clarity. “are you feeling alright? you look rather red.”
she cleared her throat. “yes, your majesty. perfectly fine, just a hot flush is all. I get them often when the weather changes suddenly.” eleanor brushed off susan’s hand from her shoulder and began strolling down the corridor at what she had hoped was her usual leisurely pace. “you have council as usual this morning, and this afternoon a meeting with the kitchen staff to confirm the menu for queen lucy’s garden party next week before your visit to the orphanage. should you like me to accompany you when you leave?”
susan contemplated, then paused. “i think i’ll bring lucy with me instead. she does adore the beavers but her duties are going to be growing soon and i would hate for her to be unaccustomed to the change in her schedule when the time arrives. you’re welcome to join us if you would like?”
“that’s very kind, your majesty, but i have some correspondence to finish this afternoon. if i change my mind i’ll be sure to let you know.”
it was a polite way of saying that she was so hung up on her fantasies that she would be sat in the parlour that afternoon, and hoping (not for the first time) that that would be the afternoon her imagination would become truth.
surely the attraction she felt towards the high king was reciprocated in some fashion. did his burning gaze across council chambers mean nothing? was the delicate hand on her back that lingered there when he moved to talk to susan just friendliness? it couldn’t just be fate and chance that lead to him being the first to fill out her dance card at each ball, could it?
but one thing was for certain, as she settled into a chair in the parlour with her inkwell and parchment. the high king peter had marked her as his in some intimate way whether he was aware of it or not. eleanor felt herself bound to him, in a way that transcended the physical and manifested into a burning desire that bled into her daydreams and sleeping fantasies.
and little did she know that the high king, who after years of suppressing the baser urges of his teenage years, felt himself drawn to his sister’s quiet and dutiful lady in waiting. he was hers and she was his, each dance had added to the fuel and if he was honest he was hooked on her since that first awkward kiss to her hand those precious three years ago. each touch drew him closer, declared her his in every way the mind would allow.
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