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Jessamine threw one last useless scrap of paper in the wastebin and leaned back with an exaggerated sigh. Thankfully only Corvo was there to see her; cleaning out the desk she’d used since childhood was surprisingly messy work. Sweat stuck loose hairs to her face and dust streaked her hands. That she didn’t really mind. But servants would insist on doing the work themselves, and her father would insist on the servants. Corvo, though, only shot her an amused look from his seat between her desk and the study door.
“I don’t suppose you’ll be any help,” Jessamine said anyway; she liked teasing Corvo. He’d started teasing back in the last few years, which only made it more fun.
“Not unless someone’s hidden a bomb in there,” he agreed.
Jessamine supposed she would find out soon enough.
Now that she was nearing her majority, her father wanted Jessamine to take a more active role in politics. And his illness made it difficult for him to get out of bed even on his better days. So it was useful for her to begin ruling now, while the emperor was still there to supervise her.
She knew this even though no one had said it, but because no one had said it she couldn’t bring it up herself. The emperor talked about this sort of thing on his own terms; rather, he didn’t talk about them at all. So Jessamine focused on the practicalities. Her father wanted her to leave her childhood rooms for a more expansive suite nearer his own; that meant she needed to move her things to a new desk.
Jessamine had used this desk almost since she learned to write, so there were quite a few irrelevant things stuffed in its drawers and almost as many embarrassing ones: half-finished diary entries, scribbled whining about her day that she’d known better than to vocalize even at age eight.
She pulled a yellowed old sketchbook from the back of one drawer and flipped through it. Her thumb tugged a page out of place: a single loose sheet that she’d tucked in among badly-proportioned sketches of the tower grounds. She pulled it out and grimaced. On the page was a fairly good likeness of Corvo in three-quarters profile (it was the only angle she’d ever drawn well), a thin circlet on his head. PRINCE CONSORT KALDWIN, she’d written in her most elegant handwriting, and dotted the corners with hearts. This was why she’d wanted to clean out the desk herself.
“You remember when I asked you to marry me at a formal banquet?” Jessamine asked, keeping her tone idle.
Corvo gave her the sort of genuine smile she never saw in company. “Hard to forget. I thought that Morleyan was going to duel me.” Count Hynes had come to Dunwall with the express purpose of wooing the naïve young princess—she’d been thirteen at the time—and hadn’t been shy about saying so.
Proposing to Corvo while the count eavesdropped probably wasn’t the best way to go about throwing him off. For one thing, Corvo had been entirely too green to know how to politely turn her down. “And I thought you were going to have a heart attack,” Jessamine said with a smirk. She’d been miffed at his stammered refusal at the time, even though she had expected it, but in hindsight she could find the humor there. “I was actually a bit infatuated with you at the time, you know.”
“Oh, really?” Corvo asked.
He was good at hiding emotion, but terrible at faking it. Jessamine glared into his too-wide eyes. “You did know.”
Corvo shrugged.
Jessamine sat up a little straighter. “Did everyone know?”
He shrugged again.
Really, there was no reason to be embarrassed. When they met, Jessamine had been a sheltered twelve-year-old, and she’d first seen Corvo sweating in his shirtsleeves in a training yard. Of course she took a fancy to the handsome young man sworn to protect her. And whatever she’d felt had faded years ago, so it wasn’t like she had done anything to be ashamed of recently. Corvo was her friend and confidant; what was a—a youthful infatuation compared to that?
Nothing at all, Jessamine told herself, and to prove it she laughed a little. “I suppose I couldn’t have been very subtle,” she said, and walked over to where Corvo sat. “See for yourself.”
He took the drawing from her hand, blinked at it, and then smacked it face-down on his knee.
“Oh, no—you shouldn’t be embarrassed.” Jessamine tapped her knuckle under his chin. It was scratchy as always. Corvo was always perpetually in need of a shave. Her father thought it looked unprofessional, but Jessamine never minded. Corvo had dedicated his life to protecting her; he could do what he wanted with his face. “That honor is all mine.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Corvo met her eyes. His hand came up as if to bat hers away, but curled his fingers roughly around her hand instead. Neither of them were wearing gloves, a rare occurrence. Jessamine glanced down at the contact despite herself.
Corvo had nice hands. She never noticed that when she was younger, but it had become glaringly obvious since then. Jessamine thought of them a perfectly normal amount.
“You shouldn’t—” Corvo began.
For a moment Jessamine held her breath, waiting for him to go on; when he didn’t she had to prod. “What?”
Pushing Jessamine’s hand back, Corvo slumped back in his chair and looked away from her. Suddenly he seemed very young and very tired. “Joke about that,” he said, flat and resigned. "Please."
He wasn’t—she hadn’t meant— “Corvo—”
The rap on the door startled them both. The rough wool of Corvo’s trousers scratched Jessamine’s fingers as she snatched up the drawing and crumpled it in her fist. “Come in,” she called. Her heart pounded in her ears as if she’d made a narrow escape; she pressed her fist to her sternum, didn’t dare look at Corvo as her steward entered.
“Your Highness, the whaling advisory committee meets in an hour, if you would like to…” he frowned as he reached for something diplomatic. “Refresh yourself.”
“Thank you,” she managed, and gave a regal nod. The steward recognized the dismissal and shut the door behind him.
When her attention fell back on Corvo, he was staring past her at the wall. “I should go talk to the watch captain,” he blurted out, and fumbled over the end of the excuse.
Jessamine wanted to pin him down and make him explain, but she couldn’t, could she? Or she could; she was the crown princess, after all. That was the trouble. “Alright,” she said, too quickly, before she could talk herself out of it.
Corvo jolted out of the chair, bumped into Jessamine, and grabbed her elbow to steady them both. Jessamine leapt backward. She had never been this awkward in her life. Then Corvo gave her the clumsiest bow she’d ever seen from him, and was gone.
As soon as the door shut, Jessamine collapsed into the chair he’d just left. The plush fabric was still warm. She glared at the crumpled drawing, scowled, and threw it at the wastebin; it bounced off and landed on the floor. She’d always had horrible aim.
Without that stupid sketch she could have gone on happily for years. But no; apparently at heart she was still an infatuated girl. Jessamine covered her face in her hands and let out one loud, frustrated groan.
Still--the thought made her straighten in her chair--Corvo might be as well.
He'd only asked her not to joke. Jessamine could work with that.