Chapter Text
George flexes his hand. This is the third draft of the speech for their ball, and his pen, his hand, his mind, will not hold steady. He sets down the quill and grips the desk, staring down at it.
“Charlotte?”
“Yes, George?” She looks up from where she lounges on their bed, a book perched on the pillow on her lap.
“I need to see my doctor again.”
“That lilly-livered scare-crow? I ordered him removed from the grounds.”
“I have need of him again.” He forces himself to make eye contact with her, to make her believe the depths of his sincerity and regret for this request, this weakness in her own husband. "I begin to not know my mind."
“Have his methods been sufficiently proven?”
“Certainly, his methods were unorthodox, but they lessened my symptoms for a brief- ”
“You have not said ‘yes’, my love,” Charlotte interrupts.
“Yet they are the only thing to have ever worked!” he exclaims angrily, before reigning in his temper and gazing back down at the desk.
“Are you certain that his methods cured you in the manner you desired?” she asks, standing from the bed and meandering towards the desk. “From my recollection, they seemed only to put you in various forms of bodily peril so as to bring distraction; a direct threat for your mind to grasp.”
George smiles at her, his Venus. She was so smart, so terribly observant. How he ever thought he could keep this from her was truly the dream of a fool.
“Perhaps they did not,” he replies hesitantly, “Though, I seemed to benefit from one or two of them.”
“Describe them for me, the ones you appreciated most.” Her request is like an order he cannot refuse, a direction in a commencing whirlwind of his own thoughts. He sits up straight, closes his eyes, and recites:
“The ice bath. Not the forced submergence, but simply the shock of the temperature.”
Charlotte hums acknowledgement, encouraging him to continue. She’s come to stand beside him now, bringing his head to lean against her stomach as she runs her fingers over his hair.
“The … confinement. Not the pain or torture of it, yet the immobility… there was something to that.”
Charlotte hums again in consideration. George feels her thumb brush back and forth over the hair at the nape of his neck. “Anything else of note?”
George closes his eyes, basking in her touch as he considers the question. After a long minute, he says quietly:
“The lack of choice. At times, I find myself overburdened with important decisions in my duties, I would enjoy doing without for the more trivial matters. I do not… I do not wish to be present- in my mind. I wish to drift, if it is possible, in such a way which will allow me to be more conscious for the rest of the time we have together.”
Charlotte’s hands move to both his shoulders, pulling him back gently. He opens his eyes and allows himself to lean fully into the chair. When he feels her kiss on his head, he smiles softly, his hands rising to cover each of hers.
“Thank you, my love, for sharing this with me. I am aware that you must always give yourself to and for your nation. Therefore, I am ever so grateful for every sliver that is mine and mine alone.”
George catches the faintest hint of possessiveness in his queen’s voice and squeezes her hands in response.
“When can it be done?” he asks.
“Tonight, if our staff can be relied upon to acquire the proper materials.”
“Use my man, Reynolds, for anything of this nature. I am already assured of his discretion.”
“You are certain?”
“Yes, take Reynolds.”
“Then I shall leave Brimsley with you for the time being. He can send for me if you are unwell.”
George gives a nod of assent, then inclines his head towards the room’s bell. “Call them in.”
Charlotte rings, and their two most loyal servants enter, the King’s man and the Queen’s man, side by side. Both have professionally blank expressions, despite what they may have overheard. This was as expected, though George is glad that the Queen’s man, ‘Brimsley’ his wife had said, did not falter in the face of unseemly or disreputable topics.
His Charlotte explains the temporary switch. The men exchange glances briefly, but show no other outward displays of emotion. They both meet the news with a curt, “Yes, your Majesty” and a bow.
Charlotte turns back to him and one of her hands reaches out to caress his cheek. He holds still, barely breathing at this demonstration of care in front of her man, the only one he does not yet trust in his company. Perhaps he will need to do something about that, if they are to make this arrangement work moving forward. It is helpful, then, that Charlotte will be leaving her man with George while making her preparations this afternoon. He will use the time wisely, he thinks. It will not be for nothing that he learned how to extract information at court.
His wife pulls back, schooling her expression to neutral.
“I will send for you when the preparations are complete,” she announces.
He smiles at her. “I await your summons with baited breath.”
She smiles back, sweetly, the way he hopes she always will, with love and acceptance clear in her eyes, and turns away from him, beckoning Reynolds to follow after.
George watches her go. When the door closes, he turns to the Queen’s man.
“ ‘Brimsley’, is it?”
The attendant turns to him from his poised waiting position.
“Yes, your Majesty,” he answers.
“Tell me about your family.”
The man hesitates, then seems to relent to the order and shares a sparse account of elderly parents on an estate with three older brothers and two sisters.
“Your brothers, are they in business?” George asks, taking up his quill and jotting down some notes.
“Yes, your Majesty,” Brimsley says promptly.
“Of what manner?” George prods.
Brimsley gives him a more complete overview, now seeming to understand what his King has been searching to learn. George looks up at his face, then.
“How much do you care for them, your family?”
The man blanches, his eyes going wide. Recovering his trepidation, he replies, “A great deal, your Majesty.” There is only the faint suggestion of a tremor about his voice.
George grasps his quill once more, looking away from the servant's face to allow him the chance to regain his dignity. This is also for his own sake, to keep from displaying such intense emotion as was surely present.
“You see, Brimsley, I care for my Queen a great deal. Since she cares for me and has seen fit to take charge of my care, you have been made aware of a secret of the Crown by circumstance of necessity. I require absolute obedience from you on this point: you must not make mention of the actions taken for the sake of my health to anyone outside myself, the Queen, the Dowager Princess, or Reynolds. Do you understand?” George demands.
The man answers, “Yes, your Majesty.”
“If my position were to be threatened, by rumour or attempted coup, the Queen’s safety would be in peril. Should this happen, your position as the Queen’s Man would also be in jeopardy. I state this in such plain terms in case you are thoughtless instead of careless. If instead, no talk reaches those outside the individuals mentioned, recommendations of your brothers’ businesses of your brothers will be made to the lords of your county. Remember always, I have the power of the nation and your family’s names at my fingertips. Am I understood?”
He hears Brimsley gulp from the other side of the room before repeating; “Understood, your Majesty.”
“Very well. Wait outside the room while I finish with this,” George orders, still facing the wall above his desk.
Once he is alone again, with Brimsley just a shout away should he require anything, George takes three slow, steadying breaths. He squeezes in and extends his fingers, clenching his fists so hard that he leaves small red semi-circles in his palms. Once he feels settled, he lifts his quill once more and works on finishing the final sections of the speech while awaiting his dear wife.
Chapter Text
“Enter”, comes his wife’s voice.
George, who had been asked to come at his convenience to the room where Charlotte was waiting, nods at Reynolds as his man took the place just outside the door. Collecting his thoughts, his expectations, his hopes, the Ruler of Great Britain bottles everything spinning around his mind, then figuratively launches the bottle into the sea before opening the door.
Inside, the room glows, lit only by candle light from dozens of candles illuminating every corner of the room. His lovely wife, the love of his life, sits with her skirts displayed across the bench at the bottom of the bed. Beside her, a large porcelain tub holds cubes floating in water. A blanket is laid out at her feet, one of the fluffy duvets that looks like a cloud.
George crosses the room, stepping around the blanket to reach her. She rises to greet him with a kiss. They linger there, hands cupping each others’ neck and cheeks, kissing again and again until they pant for breath.
Looking up at him, Charlotte asks, “Are you prepared, my love?”
George takes her question like the first sip of wine and savours it, considering all the facets of its flavour. Is he ready to try something new, even though it may not work how they both hope? Yes. Does he trust her wholeheartedly with his mind, body, and soul, to bring him out of this if it goes badly? Yes. Is he in the right mindset to make a decision on what he wants? Yes. Does he know that she will love him, no matter his answer? This is a certainty.
“I am,” he answers.
She smiles at him, warm as the sun on his back at first light. “Let me undress you.”
George felt his stomach drop. Surely this was not meant to emulate his daily ritual with his serving man.
“I -,” he gulped, then continued, “I wish you would not.”
His wife tilts her head at him curiously. “And why is that?”
She wants him to explain it to her? Did she really, truly not understand him as well as he thought she had? Regardless, she was asking him to participate in the charade of vulnerability, therefore he would oblige her. It was not as if he had not endured worse.
“I do not wish to evoke memories of the routine of my duties. Someone comes to dress and undress me every day and night, because a king must be perfectly presentable when representing his country, and his clothes must be properly cared for. Every tear or loose thread dealt with and every stain removed to as close to perfection.”
As he speaks, Charlotte’s eyes widen slightly. ‘I suppose she had not understood this previously,’ he muses.
He continues, “Though it is all quite comfortable, and fits as a glove, none of it has ever felt mine, save that shirt-sleeve I wear to toil and sweat every morning in the garden.” At that last admission, he felt a smile cross his lips for a brief moment. Charlotte held his gaze and smiled back; a lovely, adoring expression which made him warm all through to his bones.
“I apologise, dearest. I did not realize the impact that the suggestion would have on you. I only wish to care for you out of love.”
He smiles and walks to her, approaching her in her gorgeous gown and stopping just in front of her breathing space. “I am well aware of your care for me. Your actions demonstrate it each time we are together, and even when we are apart. You do a great many things for me, my dear. Would you please refrain from this one task?”
“Of course, George. You need only ask.”
He smiles at that, leaning down only slightly to kiss her forehead. She then looks up at him with eyes twinkling.
“You are going to undress yourself slowly, while I languish here to watch”
His pulse skips a beat in his chest.
“Oh?” he asks, half-teasing, the other half just to buy him time. “Am I?”
“Indeed,” his wife replies, smiling knowingly. ‘Has she noticed my nerves at such a request?’ It was fine to have another look upon him during the act of copulation, or how she had done several times afterwards– holding his head in her hands and running her fingers along his chest and arms– but to have her watching him and him alone, this was intriguing.
‘I should start immediately’, he thinks. ‘Each second I hesitate, she grows more certain of the request.’
He gives a nervous chuckle. “Very well, my lady,” he says with mock seriousness. Charlotte simply continues to smile at him, his attempt to dissolve the growing tension undercut by her wholehearted conviction and good intent.
He begins undressing himself, avoiding her gaze at first though he feels it on him, able to view his whole body as he undresses. He unbuttons his cuffs and unties his neckcloth and shoes, then starts at his shirt buttons. When he shrugs off the garment, he glances at her quickly, noticing her darkened pupils alighting on his bare skin. Her mouth is parted as she observes, her focus pointed and uninterrupted.
Blood rushes to his cheeks as he feels them warm, yet he feels no embarrassment. How could he be, with such a beautiful woman paying him such close attention?
‘She must have asked me to do this– in part, at least– for her own pleasure, meaning she wants to watch me for the sake of her own desire.’ This reassurance boosts his ego enough to force his shoulders back and body fully upright.
This room has tall windows, but with the passing of the hours, sunlight had long faded from their glass. Through them now, the sky shines a brilliant mix of pinks, oranges, and purples as the sun sets beyond view. The fading brightness illuminates George as he removes his stockings, trousers, then finally his underclothes.
Finally, he meets Charlotte’s eyes, chin raised with a confidence he had rarely felt so strongly for himself, rather than his title. And there she is, staring up at him with a faint smile, adoration in her eyes and hunger on her parted lips. Their gazes lock and hold for a long moment, an exchange of trust passing between them.
She beckons to him. “Come lay down.”
He slowly descends to his stomach to lay on the blanket before her. He stiffens as he feels the weight of her gaze on his back.
“Get comfortable. You will not rise for quite some time.”
George smiles to himself, shifting his chest to find an agreeable position. What a woman. What a queen she is, ordering him so elegantly and with such dignity. ‘She could lead a lamb to the slaughter and it would thank her for the honour of her company,’ he thinks.
The russell of fabric sounds beside his head. Charlotte’s delicate fingers traipse up his arms, which lay parallel at his sides.
“Face towards me, arms under your head.”
He obeys, readjusting his head to the other side. His view is now almost completely obscured by the lower skirt of her exquisite gown. It hangs over her legs from where she sits beside him on a pillow, leaning back on the bench in front of the bed.
“Close your eyes, dearest,” she says softly.
His eyes stretch wide in surprised amusement before acquiescing. When he does, a gentle touch brushes against his hair. She smooths over where his own stress-ridden hands had ruffed it not hours before. Gradually, the caresses move to his face, his wife softly tracing his strong features. Then the back of his neck, then his collarbone, then his shoulders, then …
Charlotte’s hands leave him for just a moment before returning slippery and wet with oil. He smells it on her hands as she reaches to rub the substance into his exposed back. The warmth of it surprises him as she spreads it over his skin.
It is nice, he tells himself, and it is, but his fingernails still press into his palms under his head. He is not used to being exposed like this. Though Charlotte is the love of his life, nothing supersedes the lessons taught from birth about how he is the future line of the throne- that harm could come from anywhere at any time. Even in the Doctor’s ‘care’, he had never been blindfolded or forced to close his eyes; he could always see what was about to happen to him.
Still, his muscles relax a fraction as she continues her even, steady application of the oil. Her fingers provide more pressure in some particularly tight muscle regions, pushing into the tissue.
She takes her time, moving fluidly across his exposed skin. Bit by bit, she rubs the oil into the meat of his shoulders, then crosses his back to the lower neck, then to the other shoulder, and back across to both shoulder blades. Once that’s done, her steady hands return to the top of his spine, pushing and pressing into the muscle around it and moving ever downwards. Towards the idle of his back, her fingers diverge to follow each underlying rib to the edge of his back.
The touch on this part of his vulnerable body, the future of his kingdom held within his pitiful bag of meat, makes him tense up like spring about to lose.
Damp hands grasp his own.
“Release your grip, my love,” Charlotte says. She gently, though firmly, pulls down on his shoulders, which he only now notices have retreated up about his neck. She reaches down to his hands next, uncurling his fingers to reveal the series of half-moon marks on his palms. He hears a long exhale.
“Maintain your concentration on sensations and the motions on your skin.”
George is coherent enough since this little interlude to answer fully. “I will try, dearest.”
“That,” says his Queen, “is all I shall ever ask.”
She leans over him once more and kisses the side of his neck, exposed by the tilt of his head laid against the ground. She resumes her motions, skipping from the ribs down to the muscle at the base of the spine and surrounding his hips.
George had begun to feel the heat of her body leaning over his, pressing closely to him on the floor. The candles on the low tables surrounding them also began to heat his skin just shy of too warm.
Which was why, a moment later, when he feels the cold and wet of an ice cube at the nape of his neck, he slumps into the floor. The feeling was so refreshing, with the gentle brush of Charlotte’s fingertips around it.
She moves the ice side to side at first, zig-zagging down his neck and coasting over his arteries on either side. He can feel his shoulders tense as the temperature gets too cold in that sensitive spot, and she removes the cube before leaning down to his head.
“How are you feeling, my love?”
Her voice is a gentle lilt in his ear. He drags himself out of the depths of his mind to croak out an answer for her.
“Mmnhh-fine,” he says.
“Shall I continue, then?”
“Yes,” he whispers, “please.”
“Very well,” she replies, and he hears the rustling of her dress again.
This time, the ice sensation is surrounded by the soft threaded fabric of a hand towel, pinched around the edges to avoid too much drag on the oil, but enough to keep the cube from melting too quickly from the heat of hands.
George shudders slightly as his wife draws circles with the ice over each shoulder, crossing his upper back and painting cool wetness across it as she traces the shapes of his shoulder blades. She slides it into the dips between both sides of his neck and his pectoral muscles, reaching over him to press into the area just above his clavicle.
Defensively, he draws his shoulders up against the cold. Gentle fingers prying at his hands once more prompts him to open them. He seems to have fisted his grip again. He releases the tension, allowing Charlotte to rub and hum concernedly over the marks in his skin not of her doing.
He closes his eyes and bites back an apology. She, a most incomparable and capable woman, now the sovereign of his nation, cannot trust her husband not to hurt himself (to hurt the country) when she tells him not to do so.
New sensations race through his body as George’s hands are filled with bunches of fabric placed in each. They are soft and of fine make. His wife curls his fingers around them, making the suggestion clear without a word: if he needs to clutch something, these should suffice instead of marking his own hands.
A ridiculously saccharine smile breaks across his face. He loves her so much. Every careful act and consideration spells out in crystal clarity how much she cares for him, and not just the ‘him’ that is “His Majesty, the King of England”, but the ‘him’ that is George.
His skin is starting to prickle with cold, gooseflesh appearing along his arms and legs. Charlotte must notice, because the next thing he feels are her skirts shifting over his rear and legs. Then, to his great surprise, her weight settles just below his rear, her legs bracketing his on either side. Something else rustles before he also feels the weight of a light blanket over the rest of his legs.
“I am hoping this position will allow for better balance, as well as provide that element of compression we discussed. However, if at any point you wish for me to remove myself, I expect you to tell me. Is that understood, George?”
The feeling is so wonderful, her words so soothing, that he can barely manage a quiet sigh of:
“Yes, dearest.”
Her hand caresses the back of his head as he breathes in and out heavily, sinking fully into his own skin at last. She praises him, “Good reply. Now, on with it,” with this last spoken seemingly to herself.
Only a moment passes before he once again feels the ice on his back. Charlotte guides the cube down his spine, then traces each line of muscle and rib on either side in an alternating pattern, soothing his thoughts with the steadiness of her hand.
As she moves further down his back, he groans softly and arches away from the sensation where his skin is more sensitive to the cold. Then a delicate hand pushes down on the back of his neck, pinning him to the floor. It’s not a heavy weight, he could throw it off if he really tried, but he does not. Her message is clear; hold steady, endure, submit. He melts into the floor, as if the weight atop him is that of a mountain, and finally the tightness in his neck starts to unwind.
Keeping that hand in place on his neck, Charlotte traces unpredictable patterns and shapes on his skin with the ice. Eventually, even her weight and presence atop him is not enough to keep the cold away. The hairs on his arms stand on end and he presses his face down into the carpet. His wife must notice, since she removes the ice and takes a towel, drying off the melted water on his skin. With the biting cold and roaming patterns gone, George sinks more fully into the carpet, his body finally going limp with released tension.
Charlotte hums above him. Her hand caresses his body, flank to nape, and he adores every second of it. He sighs in contentment. They remain like this for some time as she continues to trace patterns on his skin, lightly trailing her nail here or there then soothing any scratch with a gentle caress. Her movements are not methodical, but meditative in the way George had always been told prayer should be.
Eventually, Charlotte shifts her weight to one side, centering herself on the back of his thigh. He feels a damp patch from her underclothes and frowns slightly, what could that-
She immediately rises. “I must have sweat through my underclothes, my dear. Perhaps you should have the opportunity to help me with that in a minute.”
George, in the most relaxed and blissed mindset since their last coital embrace, attempts with little dignity to snuggle further into the towel pillow he has created. Yet, with that suggestion, he lifts his head a smidge to assure her.
“Anything you like, my dear. Only give me a quarter of an hour more, if you please.”
And he can hear the smile in her voice when she replies, “Of course, my love. Take all the time you wish.”