there were no smiles shared in the spell of being in young and in love might put one under, although there weren’t any shared under the guise of good graces, for she deemed the effort fruitless now, more than ever. catherine felt thankful that everyone around her looked so aghast that her expression might not cause any alarm, hiding in plain sight. perhaps the handful of years they spent apart had not prepared her for such a close encounter, perhaps she should’ve feigned strength and placed herself in his company during summits just to prove that she could. “next? what happened next?” he had not answered her question and he knew it, fostering all sorts of even worse demons to settle in the pit of her stomach. “yes, but is anyone hurt, javier?” not him, it seems and her mind supplies “thank god!” but her thought was fixated on her dear friend instead. “how… thoughtless of them to invite other royals and burst your bubble.” her tone was a little sharp, a little too knowing. so she forced a well-rehearsed smile upon her face, one that was pretty enough to be ignored.
at his own question, catherine felt her smile twist into a grimace - if only for a second. “he is a husband-to-be as much as any boyfriend could be.” ( almost as much as he was, although her relationship with theodor bares all the certainty that her relationship with javier never quite reached. such was the nature of love ). “these parties are equal part work and entertainment, it would be wrong of me not to attend and leave scotland unrepresented.” if her pride was any higher she would’ve skipped the affair completely, for fear of meeting him. although now, the only fear she held was caused by something altogether different. “but enough about that!” she said decisively, her fingers twitching to get ahold of him, as if feeling his hand in hers will make all the difference in the world. “are we safe here? shouldn’t we leave?” instead, she gripped at her heavy skirts and lifted blue eyes to seek something that used to belong to her. “i should call theodor.”
“I am not sure.” Javier replied to her question, but he was lying. His foot was tapping and he broke their eye contact in a way that would alert even an acquaintance that he was fibbing, much less Catherine. This was his family, Italian was next to his native language, and from their behavior, he knew something was terribly wrong. He’d seen Luciana’s face before she was whisked away, he knew there was something wrong--but until he knew what he wouldn’t contribute to the gossip. He did not recoil from her change in tone, accustomed to how she acted when she was forced out of her comfort zone. “I’m glad you see my point,” He answered instead, “All I ask for is an event where no one tries to curtsy in front of me, is that too much to ask for?”
The next words to come out of her mouth shocked him and he accidentally laughed aloud, stifling it immediately not only to better match the atmosphere but also to conceal what that statement implied. It wasn’t funny, not really--but the dreams they had shared as a pair now seemed like a distasteful joke rather than a plausible reality. They could have been married by then, how could that not sound like a joke? “Sorry, yes. Caterpillars become butterflies and boyfriends become husbands, the natural order. The line between working hard and hardly working at a party like this seems rather blurry... If Giovanni hadn’t come along, I probably would have left altogether.” He admitted then, but it wasn’t too big of a confession. He’d always been the one who wanted to go first, the one who would have rather escaped into the car with someone than stay in a massive crowd. He’d thought she was going to say something different, perhaps part of him desperately wanted her to say something different--but reality returned, as it always does, to remind him of Theodor. Of her fiance.“I don’t believe they’ll get another opportunity to strike.” He said logically, before following his words with a far less logical set, “I think you should stay. Sit with me. Just for a little while, just until they let us go.”
