My dear friends and readers, this week I share a romantic yet melancholy eight sentences. Sometimes romance is painful.
Christian, duke of Langdon, is in love. He is also nearly finished negotiating a betrothal contract that his late father sought for him. The maiden to whom he is as good as promised is under the guardianship of a greedy uncle who will stop at nothing to see her become a duchess (and she's no more inclined to wed Christian than he is to wed her). The maiden he loves is Princess Therese. Therese loves him right back but there's nothing they can do. We join Christian as he is despising both his future uncle-in-law and his late father for getting him into this mess, and wishing he were free to try for the woman he loves.
His chances would not have been great, but at least he would have had the possibility of success. Now he could not even speak to her in too familiar a manner, could not touch her except in a dance, could not write to her.
No one could keep him from writing of her though. He’d filled page after page of parchment putting his feelings into verse. He wrote songs she would never hear; sonnets she would never read. He would be idly sketching and look down to see her face on the page, her eyes staring into his.
Passing her in the corridors and halls his breath would catch. His desire for the princess drove him to distraction, but even stronger than that was his longing to hear her confidences, dry her tears, share her laughter and
her dreams, to keep her safe and make her feel cherished as she should be, to see his child in her arms.
That's my eight for the week. Thank you for visiting, and I hope to see you as I make the rounds to support the other talented authors who are part of WeWriWa.
Kate