#isnottogive

Headcanon- Love

Secretly, Richard likes to write love letters.

They are quite awful love letters, because he does not understand what sort of content should go in a love letter, and has no inclination to. Part of his letter might praise a woman’s beauty and poise, but then it will dissolve into a dissection of what he does and does not like about her, or turn out more like a contract, dictating what intended receiver of the letter should improve upon and continue to do in order to permanently keep his affections. Sometimes the only relation to love in the letter is the name of the woman he writes to, and the ending, Love, Richard. Sometimes he fills page after page with rhetoric and poems and rhapsodies, and then signs off with a “from” instead of “love”. Love, he has found, depends entirely upon the moment.

He wrote one letter to Mistress Shore, and one to each of his previous mistresses. He has written 54 to Lady Anne, soon to be 55. He does not intend on sending any of them. In fact, he doesn’t even read them himself,  for he burns each one as soon as it is finished.

Secretly, he likes to imagine her expression if she ever read them, which he would never, ever let her do, but he likes to imagine it nonetheless. He likes to imagine it being winter when she reads it, frost pressing against the window panes as she pours over his words. Perhaps as he rests his head against her knee, watching her eyes flick back and forth across the page.

He likes to imagine her looking down at him after she’s finished, regarding him for a moment, then simply saying, “Me too” as response to all he’s written.

He likes to think that’s what love is, what it should be anyhow.

Surprise tainted the features of Katherine as she was approached by the King’s wife. She had never thought to meet the step mother of her precious daughter let alone be addressed by her so thoughtfully. Although, really, there was no malice to be held as she had been his mistress a long time prior to the marriage between the two.