Doves and Peacocks
Window Visit
When Aleigh heard a knock on his window, he started right out of his chair, pen clattering across the desk. He flung the curtain aside—to find Ruthenia grinning back at him.
“Ruth—” he began to exclaim, then let his voice drop lest it bring Levatio or one of the maids running. “Ruthenia?”
He bowed close to the glass, to where the girl sat on the windowsill, grinning. Her hair was wind-ruffled, and it blazed flame-red in the sunlight shining upon the palace. Her easy demeanour—one leg crossed over the other, arms behind her head—made him smile despite himself, heart racing.
Unlatching the window, he pushed it open and leant through it. “What, may I ask, are you doing on my windowsill?” he said, a stray breeze reminding him suddenly that his hair was undone.
“Why not?” she answered, launching herself right through the gap into his room before he could realise she was about to, and stretching.
Half a year ago, he would have been furious at such a flagrant disregard for palace rules, and shooed her back out the window with great prejudice, but now her grin compelled him to decide that letting her inside would not harm anyone. Surely it wouldn’t matter if she stayed for just a minute? Just five? He did so love seeing her.
Aleigh heard a drawn-out gasp behind him, and turned around, only to find Ruthenia staring up at the mural on the ceiling beyond his lights, head thrown back so far he thought she might fall over backwards.
“This is—excessive,” she exclaimed. “It’s three stories tall! My entire shed could fit in here!” She pointed at the figures on the mural above. “What are those? Birds?”
“Birds,” he replied in affirmation.
Clearly, she did not need a tour. He watched her pace about the room without invitation, perfectly immobilised by the very sight of her.
She first studied the dozen bookshelves in the corner, picking random volumes to browse before grimacing or rolling her eyes. “There’s so many historical romances!” she said, forcing The Oath back into its place. She picked out another one, then grinned. “I’ve seen you reading this one.”
She paused at the double-doors, flanked by pillars, and stared up at the designs on the lintel, ran a finger along the golden patterns adorning the walls as she proceeded along the perimeter of the room. She ran a foot across the patterns on the carpet. She made funny faces in the bedside mirror. Then she leapt into his bed, which was large enough for an entire family, and rolled around in it, throwing his quilt and pillows into disarray.
Ruthenia rolled off the other side laughing, springing up on her feet with a facetious grin in his direction. His face flushed. Ihir help him, it felt like a crime, and such a delectable one—sharing the space of his room with someone—with Ruthenia. He had never let anyone in before, and yet here she was, leaving fingerprints on the covers of books only he had ever touched, as if she owned the space and he were the guest. And it felt wonderful.
“Have you had this all your life?” she exclaimed as she stood.
“For most of it,” he replied, quelling the sudden hammering of his heart. “May I know to what I owe this unexpected visit?”
“Can’t I visit just because I want to?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Through my window?” he asked. But he could barely resist the smile that came shortly after.
“Well, I’m not allowed through the front entrance, am I?”
“How did you manage to bypass security?”
Ruthenia grinned. “Lady Cathia let me in.”
“Ah. I would never have suspected anyone else. Not that I mind your presence terribly; I simply do not know how I would explain it to my brother, should you be found out.”
“Who cares about your brother?” Ruthenia exclaimed, springing towards him with a grin, and catching him about the waist with such momentum that he stumbled, letting his knees buckle when she dragged him down with her.
She was much stronger than he’d ever given her credit for—probably stronger than he, even—but that should have been no surprise, considering her job and her history.
She laughed when he tumbled backwards onto the ground, golden hair falling all over his face, and she dropped to her knees beside him. He lay staring at his own ceiling for a minute, dearly hoping no one else ever saw him in this position. Then his musings were interrupted by the appearance of Ruthenia’s face right above his, her grin so bright that it was all he could do not to pull her down towards himself.
She did that herself. Her lips parted before he felt them against his own, her body bearing down on his with all the heat of a volcano. It was a brief, paradisiac, kiss. She lifted herself away blinking innocently, leaving him rather stunned and also dangerously close to losing a rein on himself.
“Don’t you just adore me?” she said with a smirk.
“I do,” he replied, and was pleased to see a blush blossom across her grinning face. As if in retaliation, she went down on her forearms again and gripped his head, kissing the line of his jaw and then his ear, which tingled at the touch of her lips.
“I love it when you're forward,” she said, her breath making him shiver, because this was the Ruthenia no one else got to see. Her lips moved to his cheek, to the corner of his own mouth, and he turned his head so his lips met hers. She gasped briefly, before melting into yet another indulgent kiss.
Naturally, there was a knock on the door barely five seconds later. “Your Highness?” They sprang apart, Aleigh pulling himself up off the ground and began dusting out his shirt. The ground was the last place any self-respecting royal wanted to be found.
Except, he supposed, glancing over at the girl who now occupied his seat at his desk, by her.
He motioned for Ruthenia to hide. Instead she took a single glance at the open window, and clambered through it. “I’ll see you in school tomorrow,” she said with a wave, and leapt from the sill, just in time for a second, urgent knock to shake him out of his daze.
By then, she had vanished without a trace.