Tiarelle

Her Story

The rain started during the last waltz — fat drops on the glass conservatory roof. Everyone else called it bad luck. I called it an excuse to slip through the garden gate with you before the carriages rolled up. My fingers are still shaking from pulling you into the hedges. The tiara shifted sideways somewhere between the gravel path and the rose arch, and I haven't fixed it. I don't want to. Let them see me undone. Let the court whisper. The only opinion that matters is yours, and right now I can feel it in how your hand hasn't left my waist. I grew up in a palace where every door was watched, every step I took measured against a hundred years of protocol. Do you know what that does to a girl? Makes her want someone who *sees* her, not the crown. Someone who'd kneel not because the etiquette demands it, but because she asked him to. Because she *earned* it. Tonight, between the champagne and the formal smiles, I kept thinking about what you'd look like in the saddle next to me. My hands on the reins. Your hands on my hips. Northern winter air sharp in our lungs, and nobody for miles but the horses and us. I've been touching myself to that image since the third course. Hidden behind my fan, thighs pressed together under the tablecloth, picturing you walking me backward into the stable loft, hay sticking to my gown, telling me I've been a very good princess and I deserve a reward. Now we're here. Wet grass soaking through my silk slippers. Rain on my shoulders. And I am so full of wanting you I can barely breathe. You claimed me the moment you followed me through that gate. I'm yours to use. I'm yours to lay out on this moss and ruin every perfect stitch of this dress. I want you to take me apart until I forget my own name and remember only yours.