Louis hates ceremonies.
No, that is an unfair statement. He doesn't hate ceremonies as a rule, just when they involve him being forced to do things he absolutely does not want to do. He's currently standing in his bed chambers, lacing up his breeches while his attendant paces at the foot of his bed. Louis is due in the dining hall in a quarter of an hour, but he won't rush, not even for this. He stares at his reflection in the mirror his mum had commissioned for his twentieth birthday, long and narrow, and impressively clear, and brushes his fingers over the buttons lining the front of his tunic. The buttons are another thing his mum had made, small and wooden, with an imprint of an anchor for their seafaring kingdom. A kingdom he can only claim with a bride at his side, someone to give him heirs and win the hearts of the citizens while Louis rules. A bride who has been promised to him since before he was born.
Louis scowls at his reflection. A wife is the last thing he wants, has never had any interest in the fairer sex, but his mum won't hear it. She found him a wife long ago - an ally, Louis should say, the daughter of a childhood friend. A princess from a kingdom in northern England, where the weather is cooler, the crops hardier, and the trade with Scandinavia rich and promising. She arrived this morning with her consort, and Louis is to attend a feast in her honor before being formally introduced. He doesn't particularly mind playing host, not when it means opportunity for the kingdom, but not under these conditions.
Louis sighs and pinches a wayward lock of hair between his thumb and forefinger, and tucks it carefully back into his disheveled fringe. It won't do to make his mum angry and Stan is wearing a track in the carpet by his bed, so Louis turns away from the mirror and heads for the door, a sense of foreboding dragging at the pit of his stomach. Every step toward the dining hall on the ground floor feels like a march toward his doom.
The entranceway to the castle and dining hall are teeming with people, familiar and not. The princess had arrived on a ship full of staff and belongings, and after a brief rest, has now gathered her staff for a welcome feast with the Queen and her family and advisors. An informal introduction for a formal engagement - well, pre-engagement. Louis will be expected to propose to her officially within the coming weeks.
Louis weaves through the throngs of milling people and makes his way into the dining hall, Stan close on his heels. He's not prone to nerves, but this is a special occasion, and he finds his hands trembling a bit as he approaches his mother where she's standing beside the head table, fussing with one of his sisters' hair.
"Alicia braided your hair just this morning, Felicite, I don't understand how you've already managed to mess it up." She tugs the fastenings out so that Fizzy's hair tumbles down around her shoulders. "We don't have time to redo it, you'll just have to wear it down. Go take your seat, we are getting ready to begin."
She catches sight of Louis as she turns to face the room and her shoulders slump with relief for a fraction of a second before she's straightening back up. Her eyes track Louis as he approaches the table.
"Lovely of you to join us, Louis."
Louis shrugs. He's being insolent, but the low hum of guilt in the back of his mind isn't enough to override the anger at his mum for making him go through with this. He takes his seat anyway, the dutiful son, and sits through an awkward speech and a raucous dinner without looking up from his plate once. He's partway through a plate of roasted quail, a special request from the Queen as a welcome for their guests when a prickle of awareness ripples down Louis' spine.
Louis sets his fork down carefully and wipes his mouth with a handkerchief before looking up. He scans over dozens of familiar faces - family members and lords and ladies of the kingdom, servants carrying out dishes laden with food and taking away empty ones - and several unfamiliar ones, until his gaze lands on a pair of eyes, wide and dark and intent on his face. It takes the stranger a moment to realize that Louis has caught him staring, and in that minute, Louis takes in curls that tumble around a cherubic face, wide, lush lips, broad shoulders, and long, slender fingers that are busy shredding a bread roll to tiny pieces.
Once the boy realizes that Louis is staring back, he flushes bright red, visible even in the dim torchlight, and drops his gaze to his plate. He keeps his attention steadfastly on the table for the rest of dinner, no matter how hard Louis stares at him, and Louis smiles into his goblet of wine, mood sufficiently lifted. His mum may have promised him to the princess when he was but a babe in her womb, may have consigned him to a life on the throne with a woman he does not love at his side, but she's said nothing of having a bit of fun with the princess's escort in the meantime.
~
The sitting room just off of the dining hall is cool and dim, the tall, wide windows thrown open so that the breeze rolling in off the ocean flutters into the room and leaves behind the scent of salt and moonlight. There isn't time for Louis to relax and digest his dinner before the princess arrives, but he lets his eyes slide shut for just a moment so that he can savor the smell of the sea and the distant calls of gulls.
His momentary peace only lasts a few short minutes before the heavy wooden door is swinging open, letting in a sliver of torchlight from the dining hall and the fading murmur of voices in the castle entranceway. Louis turns to face the door, respect and politeness too ingrained to do otherwise, and watches the princess and one of her attendants' approach. He doesn't realize until they step into the pool of light beneath a torch, fire dancing off thick, glossy curls and reflecting in a pair of luminous eyes. Louis' mum takes his elbow and draws him closer so that she can introduce them.
"Princess Gemma, this is my son, Prince Louis. Louis, this is Princess Gemma of Northumberland, in Northern England. Her mother, Queen Anne, was one of my dearest friends when we were children."
Louis takes a step forward, offering the princess a polite smile and a bow, and murmurs, "Hello, Princess, lovely to meet you," before turning to her chaperone. His smile turns into something more natural, curiosity laced with interest. "And you are?"
He looks expectantly at the boy at the princess's side. The boy blinks at him in confusion, perhaps at being addressed so directly, then dips into a bow and says, voice deliciously deep and syrupy slow, "Harry Styles of Northumberland, sire."
Louis watches, bemused, as the princess rolls her eyes and knocks an elbow against his side. "No need to be so formal, Harry. Louis, this is my brother."
Louis' eyebrows wing up and he aims a glance at his mother over his shoulder. A brother. He hadn't been aware that the princess had a brother. And such a lovely one, with his big eyes and bright red lips, thick, curly hair, and long, willowy body. Interest hums in Louis' veins as he gazes openly at the prince. He's barely aware of Princess Gemma moving off to speak to his mum, completely focused on the way Prince Harry is staring evenly back at him, eyelids heavy. Louis watches, transfixed, as Harry slips his tongue out to wet his lips. The torches on the wall flicker just as arousal pulses low in Louis' gut.
He's about to say something, ask the prince about himself, when his mum says, "Close the window, will you, Louis? I don't want the torches to go out."
Mission derailed, Louis slips around Harry and toward the window to pull it shut. The back of his hand brushes Harry's as he passes, and his skin sparks, the feeling spreading across his skin like wildfire. He thinks he hears a sharp intake of breath, and the flames licking at the wicks of the torches give violent shudders, plunging the room into momentary darkness.
Baffled, Louis heaves the window shut and latches it, but leaves the heavy curtains open so that moonlight still filters through the beveled glass. He hadn't even felt a breeze.
~
Louis allows himself a bit of a lie-in the following morning. Well, truth be told, he has a lie-in every morning, was never one for waking up with the sun, but when Stan shakes him awake that day, Louis sends him to the kitchens to make sure his breakfast will be ready, then turns right over and falls back asleep. It's not until Stan is pounding on the door an hour later and hissing something about the princess that Louis sits up with a groan and shoves the blankets back. He's to take the princess on a walk through the castle gardens today. He hasn't yet decided if he hopes their chaperone is the prince or someone else.
He thinks about Harry while he dresses - about his wide, expressive eyes and the lush curve of his mouth. About how he talks with his hands, expression and movements belying the calm, slow nature of his voice, and the way his breeches hug his thighs and make his legs look endless. Louis wouldn't mind having those legs wrapped around his waist, he thinks, watching himself as he buttons his tunic in the mirror. There's a healthy flush to his cheeks, borne of thinking about the prince a bit too explicitly, but he'll blame it on having just woken up, on the heat of the morning pressing against the windows and warming the stone walls.
The first thing Louis sees when he steps outside the castle doors is the prince sprawled out on a stone bench, hand resting on his stomach and eyes shut as he soaks up the warm summer sun. His shirt is sheer, gaping open to mid-chest, and his trousers are so tight Louis can see the play of muscles through the fabric as he drops one foot to rest on the ground.
It takes him a moment to register that Gemma is sitting at Harry's feet, hunched over a small book. A thread of guilt weaves itself into Louis' conscience. The princess has traveled very far to spend time with him, just as much a stranger as she is to him, and he's not spared her a moment's thought. Determined to be friendly, at the very least, Louis steps forward, until his shadow falls across her book and she looks up.
"Good morning," Louis greets, offering Gemma a smile. "Did you sleep well?"
"Very," Gemma nods. Louis can see Harry sitting up from the corner of his eye, deliberately keeping his body angled toward Gemma so he won't be tempted to stare. "I'm not used to it being so warm, it's rare that we can sleep with the windows open back home."
"The sound of the ocean was lovely," Harry comments. Accepting defeat, Louis turns to look at Harry just as he pushes his hair off his forehead. Louis grins at the face Harry makes when it flops back down into his face immediately. He looks like a disgruntled, floppy kitten. Louis refuses to be endeared.
"Would you like a tour of the gardens, then?" Louis turns to Gemma for an answer.
In reply, she stands, slips her book into a pocket in her dress, and nods, "Lead the way."
The walk to the gardens is short, easily accessible from the front of the castle for entertaining guests. They are one of his mum's most prized indulgences - acres of sculpted trees, hedges, and colorful flower beds, interspersed with benches and pergolas from which to enjoy the surroundings.
They walk slowly, enjoying the mild early summer sun and the scent of the roses drifting along in the wind. Gemma and Harry tell Louis stories about growing up in northern England while they wander between curving beds of towering dahlias, along lakes of iris and swaying patches of barefoot. They sit under an arbor heavy with wisteria while Louis tells them about the pranks he and Stan used to pull on his sisters and some of the older knights of the kingdom, about how he used to shimmy out the study window to avoid his history lessons, how he and Stan used to slip out of the castle in the middle of the night to sleep in the center of the rose garden, listening to the sounds of the ocean beating upon the shore while millions of stars winked overhead.
Harry slows them to a snail's pace once they reach the rose garden, enraptured with the variety, dozens of different shapes and sizes and colors, and the heady smells. Louis watches him wander from bush to bush, brushing the petals with careful fingers and humming quietly to himself. He's so lovely, looks so at home in the garden, with curls that dust the tops of his shoulders and footfalls that don't make a sound, like he doesn't want to disturb nature, not even something as simple as a blade of grass. Louis watches, captivated, as Harry bends to pick something brown and shriveled off the ground, but when he turns around and walks toward Louis, what's cupped in his hands is a single blossom, whole and healthy and vividly red.
He hands it to Louis with a secretive smile, and Louis discovers that his eyes are green. It's fitting, he thinks, that they're green, just like the nature Harry seems to love and respect so much.
By supper time, they've not managed to move past the flowers, are sprawled out on benches in the rose garden gazebo, where the scent of the blooms surrounds them like a haze and the gentle rush of the ocean just over the wall absorbs the sounds of their hushed conversation.
Dinner that night is more subdued than the welcome feast, it's back and forth of sneaked glances and flushed cheeks, flashes of sparkling green, and smiles hidden behind palms. Louis heads up to bed feeling light and slightly giddy, the rose still tucked carefully into one of the buttons on his tunic. He sets the flower reverently on the table beside his bed before undressing, falls asleep to the memory of gentle hands and laughing eyes and the delicate scent of roses drifting on the night wind blowing in through the window.