She made a face when he said it as though the thought was so repugnant it was only natural that it should elicit an accompanying physical response. But then her expression neutralized, and she returned her attention to the bit of fabric in her hands. A long while elapsed as he waited for a response, maybe even a rejection, but to his chagrin, she merely resumed sewing.
"Did you hear what I said?" he asked stubbornly with a tinge of rancor this time.
"Yes," she replied shortly, "And it's ridiculous."
For a moment, it seemed she might elaborate, but no. She pursed her lips, and he was left to admire the delicacy with which her spindly fingers handled the threads, the intricacy of the designs she wove. It was almost criminal how she could manage to do such things in addition to all the things he could do. (It nearly made him wonder whether he was at a disadvantage as a man.)
"It's not," he insisted, almost defensively, as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and straightened to his kingly nature. (Or as kingly as he could manage at his age.)
She ignored him; her pace continued unfazed.
"Don't be sentimental," she said matter-of-factly and stopped again, but this time he caught the slight depression her teeth made on her lip, the slight shift of her weight and unsettled flick of her wrist, and he seized on it.
"There's no one better for me than you; we're intellectual equals."
"The King would never allow it."
He barely opened his mouth halfway to answer when she added testily, "Enough people already think I'm your whore; I don't need to propagate the image."
The notion amused him, and he would've pressed if the downward slope of her brow wasn't such a blatant warning not to.
"You're being sentimental," she warned again, this time with the slightest, temporary lift of her gaze, "And we both know you can't afford sentimentality if you've any grand designs for political power, hm."
He rolled his eyes; she snapped and knotted the thread she was working, and he vaguely wondered what those hands could do to him if she wanted.
Silence crept back into the room, and it wasn't so much uncomfortable as it was obvious that he was throwing a bit of an internal fit at being dodged and outwitted.
He leaned back into the bed with his hands behind his head and the slightest whisper of a resigned sigh.
"So," he stressed clearly and calmly, "You'd rather have my brother, hm? Which I suppose isn't much a surprise; he is the heir."
"Jealousy is unbecoming of you," she snapped, obviously agitated now as she swept out of her seat and turned away.
"And uncalled for and unjustified; as you said, I'm your intellectual equal, nothing more and nothing less."
"I didn't permit you to le—"
"And," she interrupted firmly, throwing a long glance over her delicately exposed shoulder, "I attend to you out of my own short altruism; beyond that, I've no obligation to you, so I suggest you hold your tongue."
He ground his teeth, made to stand up, made to hit her maybe, but then she added, "Prince or not, you can't afford wandering thoughts so early" and was gone.
