Chapter Text
My Princess,
When you refuse to reply to my letters, it only makes me yearn for your words more. I wonder how your penmanship would look on the parchment from your stationary, how your seal would look stamped on the envelope. I wonder how to become deserving of you.
Is there a method to this madness you put me through?
Do you leave me waiting to intrigue me more? Because if so, you need not. I am fully enraptured by what your cousin and the visitors of your court tell me. They speak of your beauty often, and while I am convinced of that, it is the other traits they reveal to me that make me long to know you.
They say you are kind and compassionate and bright. They tell me of your wit and the few that seem to know you well tell me of your wild heart. Your cousin tells me specifically of what you do when the castle goes to sleep—how you slip through the servants' halls to catch a glimpse of your kingdom at night.
He tells me that you paint it.
I have never seen one of your paintings. It would be foolish of me to ask for one. You do not send me your words; to receive your art would be an impossible feat. But it troubles me that no one but your blood speaks of it.
Why do you not gift the land with your talent? Are you not permitted to? I have heard from some that your home of Hyland sees their women as inferior subjects. Surely as the princess you are afforded more respect than that.
When you come to Brookshire I will hang your paintings in every room if you wish. I will give you anything you ask. I will keep you by my side until my dying breath.
I know that we are not afforded the luxury of a natural love, but I want nothing more than to build a place with you in my court. I have been hearing the melody of your name since we were just children, and each year we near the day I will finally get to see the woman I dream of.
You are an ethereal presence in my life, an incurable ache that will only be quelled once I am able to touch you.
I ask for anything—plead for it. A simple response. An empty parchment wrapped in your ribbon. Send a squire with word that you hate me. Anything that will make this want for you subside.
I wish for you always.
Bucky
Your vanity shook as you yanked the drawer open and threw the letter in with the others. Lady Austeen would surely reprimand you for such unladylike behavior, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
The familiar tug at your chest that came only when “Prince James” sent you a correspondence frustrated you to no end. Because Prince James couldn’t be the one writing you such sweet letters, and yet, you were still falling for the honeyed words and featherlight affections. Much to your vexation.
You had no idea why someone in his inner circle was putting so much effort into wooing you; you were going to marry him within the next year whether you wanted to or not. And it had always been that way. You had always been promised to Prince James Buchanan Barnes.
If the letters would just stop, then maybe that truth would be more bearable. Maybe you would be able to live with the fact that you could never fall in love of your own volition if the kingdom of Brookshire would leave you alone until the courting period began.
Which was tomorrow, you unfortunately remembered.
It’s not as if you knew anything of love in the first place; from the moment your mother passed there was no reason to think about it. Your father had quickly become a cruel and restricting man, promising you off before you even had the chance to grieve her. And then the letters started when you turned eighteen. It had been years now and they hadn’t let up—every Sunday. Like clockwork.
You’d be lying if you said there wasn’t a large part of you that longed for them, a part of you that would be crushed if they suddenly stopped.
Steve used to tease you when he’d catch you reading them in between the castle walls, keeping the words private, only shared with the brick and the cobwebs hidden there. You’d always feign indifference, claiming you only kept them secret because they were embarrassing.
No one could know of this ‘attachment’ that you had formed to the prince, not even Steve. Because Prince James was just that—a prince. A royal. A man on the verge of a heavenly amount of power that he surely wouldn’t use to send you sweet letters and admire the paintings your father had decidedly banned.
You could read his letters by candlelight when the castle went to sleep, but you’d restrict yourself to that.
“Your Highness,” a voice called from the hall, most likely one of your father’s ever-present guards. “The king has sent us to ensure that you are not going to the training grounds with Lady Natasha.”
You sighed, rubbing the headache already beginning to form with the sun only just rising above the hills. “As if I would ever attempt such an act of treason.”
“Someone will be around shortly to escort you to lessons.” And then footsteps retreated down the hall.
“I am simply overcome with excitement,” you grumbled.
You wondered what kind of lessons Prince James would force you into when you joined his court tomorrow. Your father was obsessed with Latin and poetry; perhaps the prince would enjoy astronomy and ancient ruins. Whatever it was, you were sure you would have no say in the matter, just as it had been your entire life.
From one oppressive line to the next, this time with a title to go with it—a ‘queen y/n’ to soften the blow of a life sentence.
You knew little of Brookshire, the place you would call home for the rest of your life. You knew little of anywhere that wasn’t home; your father didn’t like for you to get outlandish ideas of far away places. He said women had no place to dream of such things, not when their duties lay elsewhere.
A small part of you hoped he did that to hide the goodness of the world that lay beyond his castle walls. That he didn’t tell you of Brookshire because it would only make you want to go more.
But hoping for that would only bring you disappointment.
The fact of the matter was that you were a woman, royalty or not. Anywhere you went would afford you the same fate. Prince James would parade you around as his queen during the day and shove you in your quarters at night. He would make you learn the etiquette of his court and provide you with tutors that slapped your hands when you wrung them with nerves.
He wouldn’t love you.
That much you were sure of.
But such was the life of a princess. You expected nothing else.