Chapter Text
“I don’t have my own horse, I ride Rousseau.” Sara stated it clearly as if it was totally uncontroversial.
“You ride Felice’s horse?” Felice’s mamma, Smysan, was puzzled, as if she was surprised to find that Felice might be generously sharing her prized, beloved thoroughbred when she herself would have kept the weird girl away from him.
Felice looked anxiously around for a moment, giving out a weak smile as her mind attempted to find words to contradict Sara without actually lying. “I ride Rousseau,” was the best she could come up with. She confirmed it as firmly as she could, wishing she was close enough to Sara to kick her under the table to give her a clue to shut the fuck up.
Smysan and Poppe looked confused, but Sara even more so. “I ride Rousseau every morning and almost every evening. I clean the box stall, I feed him. I ride him.” Sara stated it simply, wanting to confirm the facts. The truth.
All eyes turned to Felice, except Simon who looked down to his plate and loaded up his fork. He tried to nudge into Sara a bit, but she didn’t get the hint. Linda clearly wished she had never mentioned that Sara rode.
Felice’s pappa, Poppe, was still puzzled and turned to face Sara, “Why do you ride Rousseau?” His voice betrayed the utter cluelessness of parents who have not the first idea about their children’s likes and interests.
“Because Felice doesn’t want to.” Sara had completely missed the tension and politics of the exchange, and was still thinking the truth just needed to be simply told.
All eyes returned to Felice, her mamma simply uttering her name, but underlying it, a demand to explain why Felice had failed again to meet her mamma’s expectations. Yet another way in which Felice was disappointing.
Wilhelm, at the head of the table, took a breath, desperately trying to think of a way to diffuse the tension, create a distraction so that the entire table wasn’t bearing down on Felice, now that her deception had been revealed. But nothing came to him. Simon still loaded his fork, but no-one else was eating.
Felice was mortified. Her desperately and carefully cultivated image of proper upper-class horsey-elite had been laid bare as an illusion. Her fake posts revealed. She had only accepted Rousseau because he had the right pedigree to be an Ehrencrona possession, but unlike a huge diamond, this possession needed skill and dedication, and a level of fearlessness that Felice simply didn’t possess. Pony club had been fun, all dressing up and velvet fur; but this beast was temperamental, and unlike his namesake, was not interested in fairness and giving people a chance. The equine Rousseau was moody and volatile, and Felice was afraid of him.
Before she actually erupted in tears, Felice muttered apologies and rushed out of the dining room. Linda gave wide-eyes to Sara to follow her friend, but Sara missed the cue. When Wilhelm realised that Smysan and Poppe were also not sympathetic to their daughter, and in fact it looked like no-one was going to follow Felice to offer support, he hurriedly stepped up and pursued her.
She hadn’t gone far and he found her, tearful and whimpering, in a nearby corridor. When she confided that she felt she could never get anything right, her parents demanded so much, and it just didn’t fit who she was, or even wanted to be, it of course chimed perfectly with him. Few people knew better than Wilhelm how it felt to constantly disappoint your family. A shy, reserved prince of the realm? That’s an oxymoron, princes by definition are appealing, extrovert, good at small talk, and spread joy.
“Everyone thinks you’re perfect,” he offered sympathetically, stepping closer. He hoped to be reassuring, and it seemed to work, the stuttered breathing through tears seemed to pass. And when she expressed doubt, he had to agree that he certainly thought so.
Suddenly her lips were on his.
His mind bounced around like a firework in a confined space. What the hell? It was months since someone had last kissed him, and here it was again. Why could he never predict when a girl was going to launch themselves at his mouth? He never seemed to choose it, he was always the object of the gesture, never the initiator. He was temporarily overwhelmed, but, actually, maybe this was ok. Felice smelled lovely, and although her cheeks were a bit wet, her lips were soft and squashy. It was all much nicer than the last time a girl had thrown herself at him, which had been all vodka, vape and sweat.
It only lasted a few seconds, and when Felice pulled back to check his expression, he gave a hesitant smile. It was enough to encourage her to kiss him again, and this time she lingered a little longer. It was perfectly nice. His senses took in a little more as his hands rose to her arms either side. Again, Felice pulled away first and then rested her cheek on his front. His arms continued their climb around her back and he squeezed her into a small hug.
Hugging Felice was an entirely new experience. Wilhelm was hug-starved. He didn’t remember ever hugging his mamma, and hugging his pappa was unthinkable. He got hugs from Erik from time to time, but they were always somewhat macho, accompanied by a back-slap, or worse, a neck-choke-hold. And Erik was tall and bony. Felice fit into the crook of his neck, and she was soft and undeniably, wonderfully, female. He had never felt breasts before, hadn’t really thought about what they might feel like pushed up against him, didn’t know that they would be distinctive which was silly really, because, obviously they stick right out, especially Felice’s. Girls that had got that close to him before had (in retrospect) been puzzlingly flat-chested.
“Feeling better?” he asked gently, totally unsure what was supposed to happen next.
He could feel her nodding against his collarbone, though he could have had no idea about the enormous smile that was illuminating her face. They stood in the hug for another minute and then he coughed to clear his voice, punctuating the moment and hoping it might help to make a little more sense of what had just happened, “Shall we go back? I’m still pretty hungry.”
He could feel her nodding again and they separated. As they walked side by side back towards the dining room, their knuckles banged together but he felt no urge to link fingers. The whole thing was probably innocent, just a moment of comfort, never to be repeated, no need to mention it ever again. Just one of those things.
---
“We kissed!” Felice was triumphant. She had grabbed Madison the first chance she got and dragged her away to a corner of the garden.
“Who? Who did you kiss?” Maddie was puzzled, was she supposed to just know, was it written in the stars?
“Wilhelm! Obviously.” Felice pulled Maddie into sitting side by side on the stone wall. They were slightly hidden from view by the garden’s stone statue of the discus thrower.
Maddie’s eyebrows resumed their normal location - she didn’t ask a follow-up question. Felice totally ignored the lack of curiosity and started to retell the whole story.
When Felice finally drew breath, Maddie interrupted with, “So, what, are you like, seeing each other now?”
“Yes! Well, I am. I mean, yes, of course. We kissed.”
“Are you sure that he kissed you back, that way you say it, it sounds more like you ambushed him. Did he want to?” Maddie wouldn’t claim to know Wille well, after all, he’d only been in the school for ten days or so, but she didn’t have him down as a playboy.
“Of course he did. He hugged me afterwards.” Felice was still confident that this was the beginning of love.
Maddie nodded and shrugged. “And that’s what you want?”
“Of course it’s what I want. Have always wanted, ever since I was a little girl. Mamma gave me a huge smile when I walked back in with him. She was super keen that we got together and will grill me for all the details as soon as we’re in the car together.” Finally, she’d pulled off something her mamma approved of.
“And are you sure that it’s you who wants to date him, and not just your mamma?” Maddie was still a bit disdainful – who would want the stress, the publicity of dating a prince?
Felice frowned for a minute, then decided that Maddie must be jealous – who wouldn’t want the celebrity, the wealth, the prestige of being a prince’s girlfriend? Maybe even his wife. Sixteen was a bit young to get together, but she knew people who had met at sixteen and been together for forty years. Well one couple. Life could be a fairytale for them; she could have that too.
“It’s going to be perfect.”
---
Simon and Wilhelm were the last people at the table, scoffing pudding. Linda had taken Sara aside to try to explain what had happened, and Poppe and Smysan had gone off to the stables to check on their investment. The boys had sat nearby in class a few times, most memorably the unfortunate ‘biggest scroungers off the state’ conversation. After that, Wille had wanted to get to know Simon better, but there had been few opportunities to talk so far. Wille was keen to develop the friendship.
“So, that wasn’t the smoothest parent’s day lunch ever!” A safe start, to joke about the awkwardness. He sneaked a look at Simon, who was focussed on his pudding.
“Felice couldn’t take her eyes off you when you two got back.” He raised an eyebrow as if he knew exactly what must have gone on.
Wille looked down, it had begun to feel a bit embarrassing. “Don’t, she… we…” He stopped, it seemed weird to confide his confusion to Simon, who he barely knew.
Simon continued, “And her mamma was practically combusting with enthusiasm.” He sniggered as he continued to scrape his teaspoon to get the last few smudges of chocolate mousse from the ramekin.
Wille wrinkled up his face and sat back in his chair. “Don’t! I’ve met her a few times and she’s the biggest suck-up. She’s so, so, ingratiating, like some eighteenth-century matriarch trying to marry her daughter to the richest, most eligible gentleman in the land.”
Simon couldn’t suppress his laugh, “And that’s you?”
Wille scrunched up his eyes, “No! I didn’t mean that, I was trying to insult Smysan, not brag about being a prince. I hate being a prince. Shit, I didn’t mean to say that.” He blushed and looked down.
Simon was disbelieving, “You hate being the richest teenager here?”
Wille shook his head, “Obviously, being rich makes things easy, but you can be rich without being royal.”
“So you’d drop the royal, but keep the money?” Simon’s eyes were sparkling dangerously, but his mouth definitely had turned up corners. He was baiting Wille, just for the fun of it.
Wille was caught in Simon’s honesty snare again. “Well, when you put it like that, um yes. But so would you! Surely anyone would be rich if they have the choice?”
Simon shrugged. “To me, rich implies exploitation.” He pushed away his now definitely empty bowl of mousse.
Wille’s eyes opened wide, the concept had never been put to him like that before. He swallowed, “I suppose, well, um, when you put it like that, um, there probably is a degree of um, selfishness, that is inextricably intertwined with, um richness.”
He was so earnest, so sincere, that Simon caved. He pushed his chair away from the table and stood, “I’m fucking with you, Wille. Of course, life’s easier if you’re rich than poor, and it is possible that not all rich people are exploitative, selfish arses.”
Wille had copied Simon’s actions, but purposefully tidied his place setting, picking up the two or three napkins that had fallen to the floor, and stacking the crockery so it was a little easier for the wait-staff. Simon had already taken a step away, so Wille rushed a couple of steps to continue the conversation, “So you concede, that some of us might actually have good intentions?”
Simon bumped shoulders with him, “One or two, but frankly,” he looked around, “I’m not sure about anyone here, present company excepted.”
Wille beamed, there seemed to be a compliment in there somewhere.