Work Text:
An Unsuspecting Love
Written for Lokane Week 2020
Prompt: Snowball Fight | Masquerade Ball | Marriage of Convenience AU
Between the crush of the crowd and the roaring heat of the tremendous Yule log in the yawning fireplace, Jane could not remember ever having been so warm in her life, regardless of the frost that stretched its filigreed fingers across the dark windowpanes of the ballroom. Her mask, a heavy thing of pasteboard, velvet, and enough beading to raise a clatter every time she turned her head, was clammy with her sweat, sliding down her nose at every opportunity.
Through it, the masquerade was a confusing, kaleidoscopic whirl of color and light. Fabric fluttered from sleeves and throats, waterfalls of lace and gilding. Candle-flames slid off crimson coats, emerald gowns, white wings, golden tiaras, and glimmered in the jewels that lay heavy on every woman's bosom. Jane looked no different. Her own gown was less flashy, perhaps, but its rich midnight blue satin was clear and deep as the sky. Silver embroidery glittered on its bodice and hem, careful stitches tracing the outlines of Jane's favorite constellations. Cassiopeia, Gemini, Herschel's Telescope...even the Pleiades had their cluster, just over her heart. Her mask was the pale, graceful curve of a crescent moon, pearlescent velvet lined with clear crystal beading. On her dress, seed pearls described the stars, each one softly glowing in pale imitations of their sisters in the sky.
Loki had told her it would be better to craft them in diamond, so they would glitter with starry, cold fire. Though she had balked at the expense, she had nonetheless appreciated his good taste. While she did not regret her decision—her gown was a rousing success, even among the splendor of the evening—she admitted she ought to trust her husband's opinion the next time he chose to offer it in sartorial matters.
His own costume was unquestionably magnificent, far more so than hers. None who saw him could help but be awed by the towering horns of his headpiece and massive furs of his mantle, or could resist the way he recounted the story of his god-namesake, the Norse deity of Mischief. Jane herself could hardly help listening each time he told the tale of Loki's pranks on his elder brother, the oafish Thor, laughing behind her fan with every retelling. Her laughter had to be concealed, along with so many of her other feelings for her husband, for they were entirely indecent in a married woman.
Jane was not so naive as to think Loki's only allure was his storytelling gift. No, the women that clustered around him were not hanging on his words so much as the gleam in his deep, emerald eyes and the mesmerizing play of his pale, sharp features. None of this was to mention his tall, lean figure, so elegant and trim beneath a well-tailored waistcoat...
The heat was growing intolerable. Jane bowed to her companions, whose natterings she'd long lost track of, and excused herself to the ladies' retiring room, where the shadows were blessedly cool and private. There she untied her mask and fanned her flushed face, trying to push aside the rage she felt at watching her husband stand up with other women.
Patting her face with her handkerchief, Jane bit her lip and shook her head. She was a diplomat's daughter, for goodness sake! One would think she could understand the basics of soft power, and refrain from jealously when her husband—a younger son of the King of Norway—danced with ladies whose husbands could influence any number of valuable trade deals with his father's country. Yes, of course Jane knew all this, knew he was playing the role he had been born to play. Theoretically, she even supported it. Often she had watched her own father, who loved his wife very dearly, speaking softly with other women. It had not enraged her, had never inflamed her, so much as watching Loki do the same.
Yes, Loki was playing the role he ought to be. She was the only one out of place. She was the only one who had made the catastrophic mistake of falling in love with her husband.
Outside the retiring room, the song changed as the crowd cheered; a sprightly reel sang from the violins, stamping feet keeping time with swaying skirts. Jane raised her head, shame cooling the jealousy still in her heart. She had been away too long; doubtless no one would notice, but Jane knew her duty. Her duty was to be there for her husband, whenever he might have need of her.
No sooner had she left the room when she saw him, bent low over Lady Lamb's uplifted hand. His pose, so pliant and worshipful, was a masterwork of acting, considering Jane knew for a fact Loki had not a single reverent bone in his body. But even the idea of it, him bent attentively over another woman, was—
"Forgive me for interrupting you," even as the words tumbled from her lips, Jane wondered how she dared, what she was doing, "but I am not feeling well. Would you see me off for home?"
His lips curled, consternation quickly suppressed. "Of course, my dear. Lady Lamb," he bent again to their hostess, lips coming within a hair's breadth of her hand, "your hospitality, as always, is second only to your charm. Forgive me for abandoning you so soon."
"Please, Prince," her ladyship's fan labored to keep a pleased blush from her cheeks, "I am only grateful you could join us even for such a short time. I hope I shall have your card tomorrow?"
"I shall do my best," he said, and his smile curdled in Jane's stomach, "but only if my fair wife is well enough to permit me to leave her side."
"Oh," Lady Lamb chuckled, glancing through the narrow eyes of her cat's mask, "I'm sure I hope then, for her swift recovery."
Jane turned before their adieus were complete, determined both not to see her husband's acceptance of Lady Lamb's flattery and not to waste a moment longer than necessary escaping this odious imprisonment. She descended into the foyer like a storm, ordering their carriage with a snap of her open fan. Their footman informed her, bowing in the face of her fury, that it would be at least a quarter of an hour before it could be fetched from the stables.
"If you are feeling unwell, perhaps you should sit until we are able to leave," despite not hearing his footsteps, Loki was already at her elbow, "I should have been more careful. Have you had enough to eat? Are you thirsty? Can I bring you anything?"
She could not meet his eyes, staring instead through the vestibule windows at the snow-blown cobblestones of the street outside. "I believe the weather is fine enough to walk. A little fresh air will do me good, I think. If you wish to stay, do not let me keep you."
"You do not mean to walk all the way to Grosvenor Street?" he laughed.
"Perhaps I shall be able to meet our carriage along the way," Jane took her heavy velvet cloak from the butler's outstretched hand, stowed her mask in one of its cavernous pockets, and gestured for the door to be opened. The footman hesitated, looking over her head at her husband.
Jane turned. "I will not be kept where I do not wish to be," she whispered, horrified to discover her throat sore with sudden tears, "Come with me if you wish, but I will be gone."
Her husband did not hesitate. "Then so shall I." He slid his arm beneath hers, unquestioning strength supplementing hers, yet tempering his long stride to her shorter one. Together they stepped out into the frigid December air, crystalline snowflakes drifting through cold moonlight, snow crunching underneath their heels.
Jane set the pace, plunging ahead as quickly as she dared, swallowing again and again to repress the tears in her throat. She had humiliated herself enough for one evening, first in her unaccountable rudeness to Lady Lamb, and then again in her weakness before her husband. She could not, would not, and would never let him know that he was the cause of her distress. If she could not manage her unruly feelings, the least she could do would not be to impose them on him.
"This cold cannot be helping you, surely. I can run ahead and stir those layabouts, if you will only return to the house."
"No," she shook her head, eyes fixed on the road, "It was...it was so warm in there. It made me dizzy, lightheaded. I thought I would faint. If I were to return, I am sure I would."
"But your feet must be freezing," the warm pressure of his hand was so soothing that Jane shuddered, "See? You are trembling."
"I am well," she insisted, trying to pull away. Better winter's cold than the knowledge of his polite indifference.
"You stubborn woman," he sighed. In a flurry of fur and velvet, Jane found herself swept up in her husband's arms, borne over the frozen ground as quickly and safely as a child in its father's arms.
Jane squawked. "Put me down! Put me down this instant!"
"I shall not," he grunted, avoiding her flailing elbows, "Stop struggling, or I shall drop you. If you relax, you will find this is a much more comfortable way to travel."
'Comfortable' was not the word Jane would have chosen. 'Torturous' was more like it. Loki's arms were so strong, so corded with muscle. She had felt them only rarely since their marriage; he so rarely imposed himself in her bed. When he did, it was still at the polite distance he habitually maintained. Jane, despite wishing herself brave enough to do otherwise, could not bring herself to violate all the laws and strictures of good breeding to express how much she loved his arms, his body, and to inform him in no uncertain terms how much she wished to familiarize herself with it at greater length.
She shivered again. One hand was braced against his chest, a pose of such intimacy she felt...she felt...
His breath, warm and soft as summer wind, was on her cheek.
"Please put me down," she whispered, "please."
His pace slowed, but did not stop. "Am I that repulsive to you?"
Was it her imagination, or was his sorrow as real as her own?
"No," she replied, tucking her chin as a tear slid down her cheek. "Not at all. But I would rather walk, if you please."
He set her down, her slippers touching the snow so gently that, until she stood, they did not even break the crust of ice over top. The instant she left the shelter of his arms, she shivered violently, though from the wind or the loneliness she did not know. Intolerable, this weakness! It was vital, vital, that she manage these feelings. They were no one's business but her own.
She tried for levity. "You think I find you repulsive? I might as well believe you thought the same of me. This is the closest we have been in days; it was over a week ago that you held me in your arms, and then only long enough to—" Jane was still innocent enough to need a breath before finishing, "—to do your duty," she laughed, but it was dry, "You are lucky I am a sensible woman, not to take offense at such behavior. After all, I have often been told, even by men of such high status as yourself, that I am not ill-looking."
"Not—" he stuttered, "Jane, you are beautiful. Have I not told you so?"
"You have," she admitted, "but I hear you say the same to other women."
"You have not!" he cried, swinging her around by the hand. Her cloak flared out over the snow, blotting it out like an eclipse. "You are my wife. The woman I chose, the woman I love...why should I waste a flattering breath on another?"
Jane flinched. "You...I thought your father negotiated the match as mine did."
"You little goose," he shook his head, reeling her into him like a fish on a line. Bewildered, Jane went into his arms once more, "Do you think my father was thrilled when I told him I had fixed on a diplomat's daughter, when he wished no less for me than a princess?"
"Oh? You had a willing princess in your sights then, did you?"
"I had several," he caught her tone at first, then lowered his voice until it curled around her like smoke, "As you have so graciously implied, I am quite charming."
She had to take a full breath before tossing out, "You are, indeed? But you wasted that all on me?"
"Nothing spent on you could be a waste," his lips brushed hers in a delicate kiss, firm hands keeping her from escaping in the face of such boldness in the middle of a city street. "Despite what my father thinks."
Jane retreated a step. "What did your father hope for?"
Loki shrugged, "A French comtesse, at the very least. Either way, a woman with more connections in the world and fewer scholarly interests in her head. Unfortunately," he shrugged with exaggerated irritation, eyes rolling skyward, "my brother and father take after each other, and do not see the value of a woman who—"
Jane's snowball burst right on his perfect, aquiline nose, shattering into glistening particles that hung on his eyelashes like infinitesimal stars. A new constellation of her own creation.
Howling with laughter, she crowed, "Your face! I wish you could see—"
A missile of Loki's own exploded on her cheek, snow flying into her mouth. Coughing, clawing at her face with her silk gloves, she spat a mouthful of cold onto the ground. "You brute," she cried, laughing until she could barely breathe, "You—"
Liquid heat replaced cold as his lips met hers again, in a full, frank kiss that made Jane dizzier than any crowd could ever do. As soon as he made a move to pull away, Jane chased him down, unwilling to lose the taste of his skin, the warmth of his body.
"Don't," she licked her lips, panting, "Don't leave me."
"Never," he whispered, intent as she, "I have only just got you."