𝐀 𝐒𝐖𝐀𝐍'𝐒 𝐋𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐘 - Cinderella AU

XXIX - and though my head, my hands, my heart

xxix.

HE HAD MADE TO LEAVE THEN. THE DUCHESS OF BASINGSTOKE had watched him go, standing as she was at the threshold of her absent husband's estate as the King of Angria had mounted his steed while the royal physician inserted himself into the Duchess' carriage that had brought the man along.

Isadora hadn't realized that the King of Angria had arrived on his horse. Augustus, she remembered the animal's name with a curious fondness. Though her own exposure to King Alexander Casimir's horse had been next to nothing, her son's own familiarity with the animal bordered on love, and if Isa could respect one thing about what had been, she would respect the King's ability to transfer the strength of his own love towards anything to Archie.

Ever since her departure from the Angrian palace and into the Duke's estate, she had observed the King's own mannerisms in her son. Each time the recognition was a sharp jab in her chest, but jabs had a way of making themselves at home, so that the next time would be a welcome blow.

Isadora was no fool, she had realized quickly that the King had been the first and the most impactful male influence Archie had ever had in his almost five years of life. She realized that, but with that realization had come the knowledge that she had torn away that influence from the child. How many times at nights did she tell herself that she had done it for Archie alone so that he wouldn't grow up to hate her for not giving him his biological father? How many times? Isa knew she had lost count.

The King's leap onto his horse was swift, as his dark skin gleamed under the stark sunlight washing his form. The color of the suit he wore was brightened in the light, but like the color of his steed, it seemingly could not overpower the gold of the Angrian King's skin and his sharp chocolate eyes as he looked at her.

Isadora hadn't realized he was looking at her from atop his steed from the distance, so vested was she in observing him, drenched in the heavy composure that she wore to silence her heart and the fluttering veins under her skin.

She had stayed at the threshold of the estate, shadowed and protected from the wrath of the sun courtesy of the estate building, while the entirety of everything starting just two steps in front of her was basked in the pouring sun. It was a hot day, and she had to clutch her composure tightly in order to not express her worry at the simple fact that the King had chosen to ride the journey back to the palace in open air.

He was looking at her from the distance, holding onto the reins of his horse with one hand but not steering the animal towards the gravel path and the main gates of the estate. It took Isa little time to figure the King's contemplation of something.

He wasn't merely looking at her-he was weighing something in his mind while he did. He was distracted and conflicted. In the direct sunlight, the furrow of his brows, narrowness of his eyes and the tightness of his skin-she could tell that all these changes weren't merely a response to the brightness and the heat.

After the physician's interruption to inform of developments in her maid's health, the King had taken a step back. Not physically, for after a recheck Isa had realized that it was only she who had taken several steps back in her anxiety, the King hadn't moved an inch.

He had taken a step back mentally, it seemed. For he didn't speak to her again. He let her go to Lucy after the physician bid his approval, and it was when she was with the maid that the royal physician and the King both expressed the desire to take their leaves.

"He will be available to you whenever and where ever you wish, and he will answer to me if he doesn't comply."

The sentence still throbbed in her brain, doused in the King of Angria's heavy baritone. He had made the royal physician available to her needs—nay, he had decreed it to be so. The royal physician had no choice but to comply, and thankful as Isa was with this development, she was slightly glad to see no inconvenience in the doctor's face.