There were the three glorious episodes in the garden involving a certain growing intimacy with the chateau's marble fountain -- he won't now be able to look at it without seeing you spread across it -- that tranformed into a rather glorious night in the large suites provided. Alcohol, certain passages of books, and there was laughter, much as there had been in Italy.
     Some lingering Venetian warmth and grandeur yet remained upon his skin as he showed you the glory of all things Guillaume for a fourth time before sunrise...
     Tonight, it is a different Guillaume, it is a humbled Guillaume, it is a meditative Guillaume. It is a Guillaume who has started the night off by having scotch.
      Oh dear.
     He could not look better. It is simply not possible, not even for him. Not even the full regalia of the Duke of Normandy could outdo the tuxedo, something out of Hollywood in the golden age, Cary Grant or Rock Hudson couldn't have pulled it off better. The tie is undone -- it is not quite time to be seen (for many reasons) -- and a cigarette is being lit, even as the ringed hand is reaching out for his glass.
     Neat. Not even any ice cubes to decimate...
     Oh dear, dear William...
     His expression is placid -- you know he is not that calm -- as he tilts his head and blows smoke. And there you have it. You see it.
     A frown...
     It is the look of a man who knows he has been wrong. You've seen the look enough to know it for what it is. But for the first time in... well... this time it isn't about some wrong or other done to you. It is about a Prince (and a duke) knowing that he has acted in a very deplorable way.
     Contrition...

     In a mirror, Ian stands. Dressed still in his whites, he's not made it as far as his jacket, though his evening trousers are fit. His legs slightly parted, he turns his head left and right, making a full examination of the shape of his collar. After a moment, grey eyes look directly into the perfectly polished wall of glass, allowing him to see you behind him in the room.
     There's no need to make mention of the effects of scotch on most people; he, of course, an exception. Ian smiles slightly, but soon returns his attention to his collar and placement of the white tie.
     "I would rather stay in the room, you know," Ian murmurs softly, lifting his chin in the mirror. "Not sure what's going on with me," he shrugs, truth in it, "...but since Venice, I've been..." his hand waves absently in the air. "You know," he finishes, returning hands to the tie.

     William settles back in his chair, he looks to the reflection of your slight smile, the sight of you dressing, and the frown lifts at least momentarily. You look amazing. We should stay in this room tonight... But you know it cannot be so.
     No matter how both of you wish it for perhaps separate reasons...
     William exhales smoke, "I was terrible last night," he murmurs. "I am going to have to apologize to her. For being an ... for being inconsiderate, judgmental, selfish, frustrated and... altogether simply Moi, amours," yes it is bothering him, his behavior. "There was nothing you could do about it. It was me, yes? It was me, calling her artwork animal entrails, the guts of a human on display -- no matter how much I may think that is what it is."
     He finishes the scotch. "It was... hideous to me. It will forever look like ..." The ghost I had to see for months. "It simply put me off my feed. And then... all the talk of medicine all over again as if she has heard nothing that I have said..."
     William exhales again, feeling the energy rise all over again. "But I should remember," he murmurs, "...that she looks up to us. What we say has weight for her, whether we like it or not. And I ... did not think of her last night. I was only thinking of William..."

     The expression comes clearly visible again in the reflection of the mirror. "She'll appreciate that," Ian states. "I think it was...too much...our opinions, no matter how honest." Ian chuckles at the irony of it. "A voice that no one really wants to hear. They want to hear, what they want to hear. That's how it's always been," Ian shrugs and sighs. He used to say such in America. They want the Elder - it gives them something to react against. A living strawman to prove their angst.
     It keeps beings from changing, when the world won't let them.
     He exhales deeply, looking down at his feet. Tie done - white upon white. Ian leans to pick up his white vest.

     Eyebrows lift and lower and for a moment, there is nothing else said. Finally: "I will pull her aside at the end of her evening and I will do so in private... not to take anything away from this night for her." He is decided upon that, and the scotch is summarily finished.
     You will be pleased to see that it is not followed by another...
     The cigarette, on the other hand, is still a work in progress. As are his thoughts, you know him. Who would ever have said about William that 'still waters run deep'? Everyone knew exactly where those waters ran, and the river of his thoughts could not possibly be wading depth, let alone a fathom. But that was all a lie. Still waters do run deep and beneath that ever-youthful face, hinted at only in the mouth and in the dark eyes, is knowledge of a world in a near-thousand-fold.
     He can realize when he is wrong and when he is right. How much he has changed.
     Despite how few might have wished it. He is no strawman, this prince. Nor are you, no matter how the world might want to continue seeing you in such a way. Change that was once feared, dreaded, has come and gone, and the world is transformed.
     He no longer gives thought to whether his friends will keep up with him, or allow him in their presence for his seeming strangeness to them.
     "If I could change my nature," William drawls out, words issuing slowly, meandering like the smoke from his lips, "... and not be so extreme, I wonder what sort of man that would make. Have I improved at all in that course, amours?" He looks to your reflection seriously. "Or is that something that is ... simply Guillaume. Not to be changed, without it Guillaume d'Angevin would be missing something essential to his soul..."

     "I didn't want you to change," Ian says softly, looking ahead to see behind himself. To see you. He does not explain it again. "And now...that I see you," truly, "I just want to know you as you are, however that may be. I am glad for each night that I am with you. I cannot imagine you any other way, laird. I need you to be as you are."
     "Just be Guillaume. Apologize for any dismay others feel later," Ian recommends, smiling. "That is all either of us can do now, oui?" He smiles. "Do -- and then think of asking forgiveness later."
     The vest is finished, leaving the only black upon Ian at his trousers and shoes. He turns about and walks towards the real William, ceasing to converse with mere reflection.
     A smile comes brightly, in the face of the seriousness of the moment. "Tell me that you love me and no other, and that I alone move you." Ian grins, despite the words filled with centuries of meaning.

     "Do... and apologize later," William murmurs upon the edge of a spreading smile. "I believe that is on my family crest, right after 'et Mon Droit'." Yes, that is the way of things Him and You. That is the way of things, certainly, for those so ancient. Do, apologize later. And so, that subject matter is done, and with it the exhalation of the cigarette's last stand, and the stamping out of fire from his fingertips.
     Indigo lifts to you from where he sits, hair all the darker for the dark suit, eyes all the more brilliant for the lack of color elsewhere, and he smiles. "Je t'aime, et seulement vous," modern language for centuries old expression. "Vous et nul autre. Il n'y a personne qui me deplace pendant que vous me deplacez."
     And now he is standing.
     "Aucun autre qui me touche pendant que vous me touchez."
     Now, a hand to your waist.
     "Aucun autre qui pourrait probablement me comprendre et aimer. Aucun autre que je ne pourrais probablement aimer."
     Now a kiss that is the sudden, widening expression of a man of extreme passion, among all else.
     "No other mouth I want to kiss," William says with a grin, kiss parting as suddenly. "No other Being," not just man, "...for me but you."

     The kiss was returned, with arms sliding around Angevin shoulders. White tuxedo be damned. "Me too," Ian says simply, grinning fully as he takes the easy way out of his own proclaimation. "So then," Ian smiles, brightness toned down a little, "...tell me what's going on that we have been so..." hand waves again as visual euphemism, "...since Venice?"

     William laughs and the iconic face gains a haloed incandescence with the warmth and energy of it. Eyes widening a touch, his smile widening moreso, he looks to you as you hang around his neck, his hands locking behind your back. "Maybe it is something in the air in Italy. Maybe we need to move there," he chuckles again.
     He is joking, of course, he knows you better say his eyes. He will be there, but he knows you will not always be. Nor will he. That is the beauty of his work. There will be many artisans involved, many sculptors. His will be the voice that leads them in their charge at times, not always with chisels and brushes in his own hands.
     "Venice is a good setting," he murmurs. "It is glorious everywhere, even where it isn't anymore and it is only the memory or the ghost of grandeur. Maybe it is all that velvet and silk and fine linen and warmth and views of basilicas. The wine is no better," never partial to Italian vintages, this one, "... the rivers no better. But there is something about it that is unique."
     "Something about it that makes me unique. I do not know," he really doesn't, his thoughts are aloud for you to hear them as they come and go. "Maybe we are simply more free when we do not have to be the oldest, most stately or most interesting things to look at," William chuckles. "In Scotland, even in Chinon, it is not as if there are cathedrals everywhere, basilicas and palaces on every corner. We stand out more. In Italy, we... just become a part of everything that is around us..."

     "We are no one," Ian laughs, summarizing in that way that he has. "I guess that is as good a reason as any."
     Slowly Ian's arms recede, almost sadly. The exhale rushes through his nose, ending with him sticking out his tongue. A taste of the world. "Well, I guess I am ready," save his white jacket hanging near the door. Other than cufflinks and wedding band (his cross invisible to the world), Ian is rather unadored. The tuxedo, like his mate's, is the crowning achievement of the evening.
     "What do you think," Ian asks turning around. He looks over his shoulder, to see the expression.

     We are no one. William could almost relish that from time to time, but then in Italy he is not ...no one. That is quite evident now to many. But maybe there is a certain strange normalcy that Italy offers that France and Scotland do not somehow. He'll have to think on this a while. He has not had the opportunity to consider it properly.
     "I think I am among men the most fortunate, that this man in a suit standing before me will be coming back with me at some point to this room, and out of that tuxedo." William grins. "How did I manage this fortune?" it is an old question so often asked, it is said with serious humor and smiling solemnity.
     "That is what I think," William finishes on a tempering smile, "...that I am fortunate. So..." a breath exhaled, "... another party and then to home. Let's do it for Scotland, laird..."

     "Ah, bonnie Scotland, laird," Ian says in his best (worst) brogue, rendering it almost unintelligible. He laughs and heads towards the door, reaching for his dinner jacket as he goes.

Posted by rowan at April 11, 2004 04:37 PM