Chapter Text
Sir Kenneth, utterly dazed with Susannah's presence, looked up at her from between her parted legs, legs that he parted, legs that he’d been parting at every opportunity for the past ten months. Kenneth held onto her soft thighs, his breath quickening as he smiled at her. She complained for him to hurry up and start, and he chuckled at her impatience.
“Breathe, my love. All in due time,” the knight smiled, and pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh. Then another, farther up, and then another, until the kisses made their way between her legs, and Sunny was undone into sighs.
Countess Susannah Liddell was the daughter of the late Count and Countess Liddell, who had headed Belluna county on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Verdaire until their tragic and untimely death. She had only been sixteen years old when they’d left her all alone with the title of Countess thrust upon her in return. Seeing as she was far too young and inexperienced to lead the county, and had no living relatives who could act as regent, Susannah was taken to the capital to be fostered as a ward of the royal family. The benevolent King Harold and Queen Jessamine were very fond of her parents and thought it a waste to have young Susannah misguided. She would live under their protection until she found a suitable husband, after which she’d step with him back into the role that was her birthright. Until then, the county would be led by a council of its mayors.
Susannah— or Sunny, as those who loved her called her— was very quick to earn the royal family’s affection. With a bright smile and a brighter disposition, and a funny little twang in her voice from where she’d grown up, she endeared herself to her guardians and the staff. She, with her little acts of harmless mischief, even earned the approval of the Princesses Eileen and Rosamund, and the Prince Peter, who soon loved her like a sister. Eventually, the King and Queen became Mother and Father. Her uncommon situation landed her in a place where she was generally regarded by the public as a princess, though that was not her true title.
Sunny hadn’t been home when her parents and many of the staff she was fond of were killed. She had debuted early and was spending her first social season in the capital with a close family friend, when the estate’s well had been contaminated, effectively poisoning anyone who used its water. The tragedy was recognized later to be intentional, one of the inciting incidents of what the kingdom now called the Brush War, named so because the attacks from the neighbouring kingdom of Pryllia began on Verdaire’s outskirts and never reached the capital. Though it had still caused its great share of casualties.
Sir Kenneth of Fontaine, family name unknown, was a farm boy in the duchy of Fontaine before the war began. He had been raised in an orphanage and adopted for cheap labour as so many orphan boys were. When calls for soldiers began kingdom-wide, he was eager to join the King’s Army, thinking it a shot at glory since farm work had made him decently strong. What he found instead was more horrible than he could have imagined. Training was very brief as they were desperate to expedite bodies to the warfront. Kenneth arrived with his battalion, almost completely unprepared. All he had was armour and a sword, which suddenly seemed extremely useless amid all the death surrounding him.
When he alighted the wagon and immediately watched a man behead another, all dreams of glory were lost. For months he camped out with his battalion, their numbers dwindling by the day. And in the last battle he fought, the one which decided Pryllia’s surrender, he put himself in danger, going back to the battlefield after retreat to save the lives of three wounded men— no, two, for the third one still died of his wounds in hospital. Of the three he had gone back for, one was the commander of a sector of the King’s Army; for that, Kenneth had earned his knighthood, no longer a humble farm boy, but a war hero.
The other two had been his close friends, Jeremy and Watson, whom he’d accidentally discovered finding comfort in each other one difficult night. They’d confessed they were lovers, and Kenneth had promised to keep their secret. Kenneth and Jeremy remained close friends even after Watson died, so when Kenneth was hired as a palace guard, he managed to secure a slightly-less lofty position there for Jeremy. They now shared barracks.
Kenneth and Sunny had been acquainted for years. As a royal knight, he was largely trusted around the royal family. Unlike someone like Jeremy, who guarded the perimeters and spent much time doing scutwork, Kenneth was the one guarding ballrooms and sleeping quarters. While patrolling the palace’s East Quarter, where Sunny resided, one night, Kenneth had heard what sounded like distress— the banging about of objects, pained cries— coming from where he knew was the Countess’ bedchambers. Thinking quickly, he had barged in.
A very disturbed, teary Sunny had looked back at him, stopped in throwing another one of her precious brushes to the floor. Kenneth had apologized profusely for disrupting her, thinking she had been in danger. When Sunny had responded only by sniffling back at him, Kenneth shocked even himself by moving closer to help pick her things back up, asking what was the matter (if she was alright was out of the question, she clearly hadn’t been). It had been far too personal for a palace guard to ask the King’s own ward, standing in her bedchambers of all places, but he’d asked her anyway without thinking.
And she’d actually confided in him. I’ll tell you only because I’m sure you understand, she’d said. The Brush War, as it had turned out, hadn’t only traumatized those who had fought in it; Sunny’s family had been among the first casualties, and she’d come home from her trip to find them dead— murdered. She had been especially angry that night as she grieved, and fearful, as irrational as she could recognize that fear was. But Kenneth had understood. He’d held her shaking form in his strong one, let her cry into his chest. He’d told her how he understood, how he really did understand, how nobody left that war unscathed.
After much talking, mostly from Kenneth, with little hums of agreement and comments in between from Sunny, Kenneth had set to leave. But Sunny hadn’t wanted to be alone in her fright. They arranged, after speaking with the King and Queen, that Kenneth would be permitted to remain in her bedchambers and leave after she fell asleep— just so she’d be able to sleep, for she didn’t really need a guard.
Over time, as he visited nightly, the two grew a fondness for one another. Kenneth began leaving later and later, their conversations leaving Sunny reluctant to go to bed and have him leave. Cordiality became friendship became love. Sunny had been the one to confess, for Kenneth knew it wasn’t his place, as strongly as he felt. It wasn’t difficult for them, as time passed, to be intimate without any suspicion— Kenneth was given explicit royal permission to be in her chambers every night, was he not? And the man would be no man if he did not live and die by the crown’s honour… and, well, the bubbly Countess who told him what to do.
This is where we left our lovers, Sunny gripping Kenneth’s hair and praising his attentions. It was ten whole months since they’d first been intimate. Another six before that since they’d fallen in love. They had no idea what to do about their love, for Kenneth was so far below her station, he may as well still have been a farm boy. A ward of the King and Queen, a princess if technicality was forgotten— and it often was—, she could never openly love this man. Their love would remain contained, the quiet secret of broom closets and balconies and her bedchambers when their conversations were through.
He paused to nip at Sunny’s thighs— her thighs were the only place he could risk leaving any marks on at all without anyone noticing. It was an attempt at enticing passion, but he noticed little marks already healing on her skin, immediately felt bad, and moved back to where he had been before. Sunny didn’t react much to any of it.
It was a few seconds into resuming his kisses that Kenneth noticed Sunny’s quiet catch of breath, looking up to find her in tears. He paused.
“What, my love? No good? We’ll stop.” Kenneth sat up and wiped his mouth. He pulled her chemise back down to cover her, met her at eye level to kiss her tears away. “We’ll stop, my love. All done. What’s happened, what’s the matter?”
She pushed him away a little, but only enough to allow her lips to reach his. Kenneth kissed her back, as confused as he was. Sunny almost doubled her ardour, so it was hard for him to pull away just to get a few words in.
“Have I hurt you?”
Sunny made a noise of negation. She continued kissing him.
“Offended you? Caused you discomfort?”
Her hands tightened in his hair. She shook her head.
“What troubles you, then?” Kenneth pleaded. “Tell me, darling. I’ll fix it.”
Sunny captured his lips again, in a single kiss that lasted a few seconds. When she pulled away, it was just enough that they were still breathing each other in. She sniffled.
“I love you, Ken,” Sunny spoke against his lips.
“I love you, too—”
“We’ll be married someday,” she interrupted, breathless from her tears and the kisses. “We will. Ask me to marry you.”
Though they were both very aware of the impossibility marriage was, often Sunny asked this of him. Usually, he resisted and she’d have to play at convincing him. As upset as she was now, and for reasons Kenneth could not decipher, he just did as she asked.
“Would you marry me, Sunny?”
She moved away from his face. She wrapped her arms around him and snuggled into his neck, tears that still flowed wetting the bruised skin there.
Kenneth held her, rubbed her back to soothe her. “Oh, love,” he said softly, “what can I do for you— ask you again? I’ll beg you, Sunny, if that’s what you wish. Marry me.”
Sunny was quiet for a moment, in thought.
“…What if I were pregnant, Ken?” She looked up at him. He tried not to let onto his panic as he met her eyes.
“What? What can you mean?”
“I mean what I said.”
Kenneth fell silent. He loved Sunny. He would die and kill for her, disgrace himself and leave everything behind. In the perfect world, a family would be joyous news. But it was not a perfect world, and it would not fare well for her if this was her way of delivering the news.
“…Do you mean… are you telling me—”
Sunny shook her head. “…Only, what if I were? We’d be forced to marry, wouldn’t we? Make an honest woman of me and all, before scandal arose?” Even through tears, her expression looked hopeful.
Kenneth took a breath. It was such a naïve notion, she was so optimistic about it, he wanted to cry himself. He took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead.
“Dearest, I’m afraid that’s just not possible. What’s likely is I’d be sent away, and you’d be promised to a nobleman before you begun to show.”
Though in the back of her mind somewhere, Sunny knew before even proposing the notion that those would be the consequences, the reality Kenneth explained was crushing to her. He kept apologizing, agreeing it was unfair.
“It’s hopeless!” She cried. “I want more of you than in secrecy!”
“I know. Believe me, Sunny, I’d flaunt you to the whole realm if I could.”
“None of this is fair!”
Kenneth caressed her head, whispering his I knows until her breathing became less erratic. “I know it’s unfair,” he spoke against her hair. “But we love each other, don’t we?”
She nodded.
“Then we shall endure, shall we not?”
Sunny looked up at him, still cradled in his strong arms.
“Ask me to marry you again,” she commanded. Her tone made him laugh.
“Again, my love?” He chuckled. Then, when she looked at him unrelenting, “What a needy woman I’ve got.”
“Don’t make me beg.”
So he asked her again, because he’d promised her long ago that she’d never want for anything he could give her. He held her awhile, kissing her forehead and swearing his devotion, until she eventually fell asleep. Kenneth draped her in blankets and watched her sleeping form, the gentle rise and fall of her chest, the little breaths through her teeth that came out almost as snores but not quite. He shed a tear for the woman he belonged to in every way that mattered, that he knew could never properly be his.