Sweet Romance12 min read
My Untidy Crown, My Quiet Doctor
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"I ruined him," I told the silk curtain and the moon, and the moon did not answer.
"Arabella," my brother called outside the chamber. "Do you know what you have done?"
"I do," I called back. "I drank. I woke up. I am still me."
He did not like being interrupted. Callahan Perry's voice came down the corridor, sharp as cold iron.
"Do you know the seriousness of your night at the House of Drunken Petals?" he demanded when he stepped into my room. "Do you know that Doctor Nico Chambers collapsed from shock after hearing what happened? Do you know the scandal?"
"I know someone got drunk and behaved badly," I said. "So did half the city. What is the difference if he is a doctor?"
Callahan's jaw tightened. "That 'doctor' is Elliot Li. He is not any doctor. He is a respectable physician. He is to be your husband now. You will marry him at dawn."
I gaped. "You will not."
He smiled thinly. "The morning decree will be written. You will mind the palace, Arabella. You are my sister and my duty."
"It is unfair," I said.
"It is done," he said. "He will be at your side whether you like it or not."
I curled my fingers into the brocade of my sleeve and felt my own stubbornness bloom. "Then I will show him nothing."
"Do not force me to be harsher than the law," Callahan said, and left.
That night my ladies laughed behind their fans, but the laughter was brittle. Estefania Fisher — my sister-in-law — slipped an embroidered cake into my hand.
"Sometimes a thing is easier turned into a fact," she said, smiling with too many teeth. "Why fight when we can seal it? Marry him and the rumor dies."
"It is not my face I mind," I answered. "It is his silence. I hate the thought of a man who cannot speak. I hate the thought of being the one who speaks for him."
She patted my hand, eyes bright. "Arabella, you have your own way. Try it. You may find you like order you never expected."
The next day, they gave me a husband and a room of pink silk. I met Elliot Li for the second time in a bed bright with flowers.
"It would be laughable if it were not an order," I muttered as we sat opposite each other, the candles between us like witnesses.
I unfolded the paper I had prepared — a short agreement. "We'll be surface-level. No interference, each our life. You will not take concubines, I will not wander. In three years, if we wish, we separate. Sign tomorrow."
Elliot's dark eyes read the paper slowly. He did not answer with a word. He reached toward the cup of wine. His hand shook.
"Stop," I said sharply. "There's sometimes—"
He wrote on a scrap of paper with a shaky hand and held it up. The characters were neat.
"Poison in wine," it said. "I will not drink. I will keep you safe."
I laughed, surprised at the thought that passed through me. I laughed again out of shame. "You are too good."
He smiled very faintly and bowed his head. The smile was a small thing, but it looked entirely sincere.
At night, I slept pretending to be married. At dawn, I woke to find my arm thrown over him like a scarf. He slept like a child — calm, honest. I pulled away, glassy-eyed, ashamed at the memory of how drunken hands had made a mockery of him.
"Do not tell my brother," I whispered. "Do not tell anyone."
He wrote on the bed slat. "No one needs to know. No one must be ashamed."
So we built rules on silence and the arrangement of two people who knew one another by clock and by habit rather than by words.
"You will be called the disgraced princess's husband," people whispered in the hospital corridor.
"They say a prince fell in love and they were only friends," another said over soup.
"She's a bride by decree," someone else snorted.
I listened at the door to two physicians.
"He is lucky," Nico Chambers said, leaning against the door. "A princess in his arms."
"Bah," Corbin Kuenz replied, "a mute. How is he to take palace warmth?"
They did not know I stood at the threshold. I stepped in with a boxed pastry and watched them drop to their knees without thinking.
"Madam," they said in a chorus.
"It was for him," I said. "He is my husband. Bring it."
Elliot came in carrying a case of herbs. He let me pull him to a seat and offered me a piece. He moved as if the world were slow and kind to him.
"You are not angry?" he wrote later on a sheet, after the two physicians had left, embarrassed and stiff. He placed the paper in front of me.
"What would give you that?" I asked.
He looked at the pastry and then at my face and shrugged. His eyes were steady and unashamed.
"People laugh," I confessed. "They say you gained status by marriage. They say I ruined you."
He picked up an inkwell and wrote carefully: "You did not ruin me. You gave me a life."
I blinked. A ridiculous, hot thing crawled through my chest. "Why are you good to me?"
He wrote one word and held it up: "Because."
"Because what?"
He frowned as if that question were odd. He returned to the page and wrote slowly: "Because I can."
That was the first of many tiny kindnesses — the way he would touch my wrist and write 'cold' and remove my outer robe without a word; the time he smoothed my hair when a stray thorn had caught me; the night he leaned close and, with his breath against my ear, let me taste the sweet of lotus soup he had prepared.
"Not because he is handsome or tall," Estefania teased once as I sat with Elliot at a low table and he handed me a bowl, "but because he has learned to be gentle."
"Do not make a joke of him," I snapped.
"Then do not be surprised when you fall in love," she said.
It was ridiculous. I had sworn I would never love him. I had sworn I would not be led into a second marriage of forgiveness and pity.
Then Brad Corbett arrived to make a scene.
"Arabella!" he called outside the gate one morning, swaggering with the red of drink in his cheeks. "You are a pretty thing. Why not run away with me?"
"Go away," I told him. "You are a drunkard and a liar."
Brad laughed and reached for me. "Don't be coy. You said you once loved me."
"You do not own me," I said.
"You will always belong to someone," he said roughly. "Even if it's me."
He grabbed my wrist fiercely. A bruise bloomed like a flower. Elliot stood in the doorway, wooden stick in hand, face pale with worry. He had followed, I realized, to see if I were safe.
"Let her go," Elliot wrote, but his knuckles were white on the stick.
Brad sneered. "A mute can't stop me."
He shoved at Elliot. Elliot moved like a calm tide — not cruel, but unstoppable. He lifted the stick and tapped Brad once. The drunk stumbled and fell, as comical as a toppled puppet, then moaned and tried to rise.
"You are a coward," Brad shouted. "You hit a man with no voice."
"Your time of boasting is ended," Corbin Kuenz said quietly, stepping forward with a handful of witnesses who had already gathered — servants, physicians, guards. "You will listen now."
That afternoon the story spread. Callahan Perry arrived, face stormy, and Germain Dalton — Brad's powerful father and a man used to getting his way — followed with an entourage.
"You brought scandal in my house," Callahan said to Brad. "You humiliated the princess, you threatened our physician. Explain yourself."
Brad opened his mouth and tried to charm away his guilt. He told half-truths, dipped them in honey, and expected them to pass. The courtyard hummed with people — palace stewards, neighbors, the two physicians, and a ring of footmen and women who had been eating the story for spice.
"Why did you come?" I asked Brad, my voice thin with anger.
"You belong with me," he said. "I loved you once. I will love you forever. Why would you pick a—"
"A mute?" I interrupted. "Because he is kinder than you."
He laughed and tried to hold my hand. I jerked free.
"Enough," Callahan said. "This will not sully imperial dignity."
He arranged a public reckoning in the great hall at dusk. I did not want one. I wanted to forget. But the city had mouths and the city liked stories.
"Make him answer," Callahan told the crowd. "If you have wronged our house, confess."
Brad strutted onto the dais as if he owned the steps. Germain Dalton stood with arms tightly folded, the image of a man who thought his wealth a shield. The hall filled with whispers. I walked in with Elliot at my side. He did not touch me in front of all those faces. He just walked with steady steps and a patient face.
"Brad Corbett," Callahan said, his voice like a gavel, "you will explain your conduct."
Brad bowed exaggeratedly. "I did nothing. I saw my lady and she looked at me with fondness. I took it as reciprocation."
"Did you assault the princess?" Corbin Kuenz asked, blunt and cruel.
He laughed once too loud. "She allowed me. A woman of her station can be moved by affection."
"Did you make our physician suffer?" Nico Chambers snapped. "Did you threaten him?"
Brad's eyes narrowed. "He is a low doctor, a servant. He should thank the gods for any notice."
A murmur rose; such talk had always a way of lighting tempers. At the back of the hall, a nurse I knew — Joanne Mercier — stepped forward. Her face was pale with courage.
"I was his witness," she said aloud. "Brad Corbett tried to force the princess. He pushed her. He raised his hand."
"So what?" Brad scoffed. "A servant's testimony? You are biased."
"Do you deny he struck me first?" I asked.
Brad looked at me, and for the first time his bravado dropped like a cloak. He blinked. "You are married," he said. "You are with a—"
"A good man," I said. "A man who keeps me safe."
"Enough with your riddles," Germain snapped. He stepped forward to intimidate the witnesses. "Do you bring me the testimony of standing maids? Do you make my son a target?"
The court waited. The servants shook. I felt Elliot's hand brush my sleeve and then rest on the small of my back — not a possession but a steady support. He raised a folded paper.
"I write," he told the hall, and someone handed him an inkstone.
He wrote as if he were writing a medicine note, his characters clean and firm.
"He threatened," he wrote. "He grabbed Arabella. I struck to make him stop."
Brad's face shifted. It flickered through confusion, anger, and then new fear. The crowd leaned forward like a tide.
"You struck me?" Brad shouted, stamping like a small beast. "You assaulted a nobleman!"
"I protected my wife," Elliot wrote. "You would have harmed her. You were drunk and violent. That is the truth."
"Shame!" Brad cried. "The physician is mad!"
"Listen to the witnesses," Joanne said. Others nodded: a footman, a neighbouring salver, even Dr. Corbin's assistant. A dozen small faces joined. The hall's air changed. Shouts rose. The story that had given Brad an advantage — that he had loved and been rejected — turned. People tasted the lie and spat it out.
Callahan turned to Germain Dalton. "Your son brought disgrace to the palace. He will be punished."
Germain tried to pull rank. "You cannot humiliate my house. We will pay fines. We will move on."
"No," Callahan replied. "The law is not bought with coin alone. He must publicly atone."
"Atone?" Brad sneered. "What is to atone?"
"In the market square, at noon tomorrow," Callahan said. "You will stand on the platform and confess your behavior. You will not use guards. You will answer the people's questions. You will be shamed."
Brad's eyes flashed. For a moment he thought to laugh. He looked out at the crowd and their faces were hard and hungry for truth. He thought of the tavern where applause had once followed his swagger. He thought of his father and of power's empty echo.
"What will you do?" Germain hissed.
"Public confession," Callahan said. "And you, Germain Dalton, will see that your son cannot draw a sword in palace precincts for a year. You will remove him from all court appointments."
The next day the market thronged like a boiling pot. I was there with Elliot by my side. The sun made the flagstones glare. Brad Corbett stood on the platform, a red mark already on his cheek from a blow the day before. He tried to make jokes. People spat. A woman someone had once mocked for poverty pointed a finger and asked the question that cut him most.
"Why did you strike the princess?" she asked.
"I did not," he said, voice louder than sense. "I loved her. I asked. She did not listen."
"And you thought to manhandle her?" the market baker said. "Do you think this to be love?"
"It was—"
"It was drunkenness," someone said. "It was appetite."
The crowd hummed. Blood rose to Brad's face. He shifted from arrogance to fluster.
"Confess," Joanne called, standing tall among them. "Tell them you struck her, you grabbed her hand, you wanted her to go with you, and you pushed Elliot. Say it."
Brad swallowed. His throat worked. "I did not mean—"
"Say it now," the market cried.
He opened his mouth. "I thought she would come away with me. I coerced her. I raised my hand. I struck at Elliot when he came between us. I apologized then and I apologize now. I am ashamed."
The crowd pressed in. Some spat. Some whispered. A child cried out. A man who had once been jostled by Brad threw his wooden bowl at the platform and the bowl shivered underfoot. Brad clasped his hands, bewildered. The sequence of faces around him — the servant who had once saved his coat, the woman he had laughed at in jest, the men he had owed money to — were no longer for his applause. They turned to watch his fall.
"You must be alone for a month," Callahan pronounced. "You will stand in the town square each dawn and beg pardon. You will be prohibited from attending court. And you must pay compensation to the surgeon who treated the princess's wrist."
Brad's face folded. First he tried to deny, then he tried to bargain, then he flailed. The progression was a small, cruel theater: pride, shock, denial, then collapse. He begged. He invoked his father. He promised change. The crowd laughed and hissed. His father, Germain Dalton, clamped his jaw and paled — the first public shame of the old man.
"Will that satisfy you?" Callahan asked the market.
"Yes," the people shouted. "Enough."
Brad was humiliated publicly. He staggered down from the platform as if unmade. He was not arrested. He was instead made to live in the shame of public gaze and to wear the knowledge of his own smallness.
Elliot stood beside me. He did not make a speech. He squeezed my hand until my knuckles ached. He wrote one note and folded it. "People will test you," he wrote. "Let them watch. They will learn gentleness."
I laughed softly, then cried. The market was filled with voices — some sympathies for the humiliated, most satisfaction that wrong had been named.
From that day on, Brad's swagger dimmed. He walked in smaller circles. Germain Dalton avoided my brother's eyes. The throne had not executed him, but the market had.
That punishment was merciless in its publicness and slow in its decay. Brad's friends stopped to stare and speak in whispers. Women who had once made room for him on gossip benches scoffed. Men who had shared cups with him now pretended not to know his name. He tried to secure a marriage that would revive his reputation, but callous smiles and the memory of the platform kept doors closed. The public shame was a long cold season rather than a single strike, and in it Brad shriveled.
We healed. The small acts made up the days. Elliot wrote his worries and his thoughts. He taught me how to make a poultice and how to bind a sprain. I learned to read his hand-writing and the way his fingers trembled when he wrote something important. Once, when my sleeve had caught and bled, he unwrapped it slowly, lips pursed, and when he bandaged me he leaned close and kissed the wound as if sealing a treaty.
"Do you love me?" I asked him one damp evening, when the cat — an orange creature callously named Orange by a maid — curled between our ankles and purred like a small storm.
He looked at me and at the cat and picked up a brush. He wrote, slowly: "I cannot speak, but I can show."
He pressed his forehead to mine. His breath smelled of herbs. He smiled without teeth, a shy, ridiculous, heartfelt thing. That was one of the moments when I felt my heart fold and settle like warm bread.
Another time, in the winter, the Emperor — my brother — summoned me to a formal tea and praised the way I had "made the household whole." He did not say the part about the market. He only smiled at Elliot and then at me.
"You have changed," he said.
"No," I replied. "We have adapted."
Elliot reached out and, in front of ministers and tessellated tiles, gently pressed a cool hand to my cheek. No one could mistake that touch. A low murmur circulated. Estefania, sitting across, flushed a rare blush that said she approved.
And once, when a rumor about Elliot's past work in a remote infirmary threatened to spread like mold, he came to the window, pulled the screen aside, and with a solemn motion handed me a small leather-bound notebook filled with his notes and the names of people he'd helped. He wrote, under a smudge of ink:
"I did what I could."
"That is brave," I said.
He bent down and kissed my hand. The kiss was rough with the scent of medicine and humility. He blushed deep as wine and gave me the quiet answer I had been waiting for.
We were not dramatic heroes. We argued in small ways. We misread each other. He, who had never been heard, learned to shake a sleeve when angry. I, who had commanded courts and storms, learned to speak softly. We had nights of hunger and mornings of small reconciliations.
In the end, people grew used to our strange little courtship. The scandal passed like a light that moved away. Brad Corbett recovered enough dignity to keep his head down, though his humor never returned to its old sharpness. Germain Dalton learned to sit in the corner and to keep his sons in check, if only out of caution.
On a quiet afternoon, Elliot left me a note on the dressing table with his neat hand:
"Do not lose what you have when it is real. I will keep our days."
Beneath it a small paw print of the orange cat smeared ink and sun. I laughed and tucked the note into my braids.
That night we lay together and did not need words. He had his hands in mine and I could feel the slow list of his breathing. The luck I had once been given — by an angry brother, by a foolish decree, by an awkward night — had turned into something unlikely and warm.
"Stay," I told him, finally, my voice low and honest.
He held my hand and wrote, tiny and sure: "I am here."
And the moon listened.
The End
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