Detachment
Title: Detachment
Rating: PG-13/R-ish
Pairing: Walsingham/Elizabeth
Genre: Schmexy
Summary: Elizabeth is heartbroken...and Walsingham decides to teach her a lesson
Warnings: Schmexyness and nudity
Disclaimer: If I owned 'em, you really think I'd spend all my time online? Also, if this is well-received...the lessons may continue.
The great Elizabeth was certainly a sight that evening in her nightclothes, huddled behind the throne in her chambers. The candlelight provided her no warmth, no shelter from the events of the day. The vaulted ceilings rang back only the silence, and the pitiful choking sound of her sobs.
Eyes closed against the salt within them, she leaned her forehead against the unforgiving wood beside her, taking her elegant hand and passing it through her unkempt red hair. In that moment, she was not Queen; only a lovesick, heartbroken child.
A heavy door opened, and she heard footsteps, calculated, catlike footsteps that walked somewhere toward the center of the room and ceased.
“Leave me,” she barely whispered it, expecting whichever of her maids it had been to turn and obey.
“I shall do no such thing.” It wasn’t one of her ladies at all.
It was Sir Francis Walsingham.
“What are you doing in here?” she stood up, hiding herself behind the throne, “Get out! I am not even dressed!”
“Forgive me, Majesty, but the matter I press is most urgent.”
“Then will you give me a moment to make myself decent?”
He nodded tersely, and closed his eyes.
With a huff, Elizabeth crossed the room to her bed and pulled the dressing gown off of it, wrapping it over her shoulders. She returned to her throne, wiping her eyes as she sat upon it.
“You may look now.”
Walsingham opened his eyes, and immediately they met her own tired, tear-streaked ones in a gaze fueled with negative emotion, thought which emotion, he had hidden well from her.
“Your Majesty does herself a disservice, tangling herself in love affairs,” he spat the word “love” at her.
“It is for me to decide upon whom I bestow my affections, Walsingham.”
He laughed humorlessly. “Affections. You wound your own heart by simply bestowing them in the first place.”
“What would you have me do? Go through my life alone? Never feel love?”
“I would have you go through your life with caution, Majesty.”
“Thank you for your concern, Walsingham, but it is unnecessary. You know nothing of my heart or my affections, as you never will, and I do not have to brook your condescension.”
“Of, course, Majesty.”
“You will leave me be, then.”
“I shall not.”
She drummed her fingernails impatiently on the arm of her throne, “What did you say to your Queen, Walsingham?”
“Majesty,” he bowed mockingly, “Your enemies believe a woman will rule only with her emotions. You must not allow yourself to be governed by them, if you wish to rule with strength.”
“I see no reason why my private life is any of my enemies’ business!” she raised her voice indignantly.
“You are the Queen,” his voice raised as well, a fraction higher than hers, “Your private life is the business of everyone! Your body belongs to England, and you know that well! Your heart belongs to England! How can you expect to be a fitting Queen to her, cowering behind your throne like a frightened child? And for what?”
“He deceived me!” she stood.
“That he did, and had you been thinking with your head, rather than that weeping heart of yours, you would have seen his deception!”
“Get out!” she yelled again, “I am Queen! You have no right to speak to me in this way.”
“You are Queen, and you have my allegiance,” he nodded, voice back to its usual quietness, “But even I cannot protect you from broken hearts.”
Again he bowed, lower this time, and backed away, turning to leave.
“Wait,” she said, her voice strained as though the word fought to stay in her mouth.
He turned back to her. “Yes, Majesty?”
“How must I guard myself?”
A smirk spread over his lips and into his piercing eyes, which to her horror, she noticed, were raking themselves over her.
“You must learn detachment, Majesty.” He came closer, “You must learn…to fulfill your physical needs, while being immune to the needs of your heart.”
“Walsingham!” she gasped, turning red as her hair and looking away.
“Your Majesty asked,” he inclined his head. He was barely a foot away from where she stood.
“And how…” her voice trembled, “How to you expect to teach me these things?”
“The way I was taught,” the raw silk of his voice caressed her ears, washed over her as he closed the space between them with one stride, “By example.”
His hand flew to the nape of her neck, and he crushed her mouth beneath his, his lips sitting against hers. She opened her eyes and saw that he was watching her, and his mouth spread in a sneer as she fought to pull back.
She drew a breath and his tongue slid in, hot, lewd, and demanding. He dragged it along the roof of her mouth and then back again, waiting for something. It finally came as she opened her mouth wider for him, sighing softly. He pulled back.
“Wha…” she blinked rapidly a several times.
“Good girl,” he smirked again, before raising one long, elegant finger before her face as his expression turned serious, “I will not be gentle. I will not be tender. Do not expect me to hold you, nor should you expect any comfort from me. I am going to teach you how to satisfy your needs without making love. Do you understand me, Elizabeth?”
She didn’t even notice he had said her name, merely nodded and whispered, “Kiss me again.”
He shook his head. “I won’t have you falling in love with me. Love is not for great Princes. Am I clear?”
She nodded again, tears welling up again for a reason she couldn’t quite pinpoint.
He circled around behind her. “Feel no emotion when I touch you...only sensation,” his hand reached up and gently combed back a lock of her hair to behind her shoulder, and he leaned in, breath rasping by her ear, “Become. Your. Body.”
She nodded again, swallowing the lump in her throat and shivering as his teeth closed around her earlobe.
His hands moved forward and took hold of her hips, pulling her back against him. They traveled up her body swiftly and untied her dressing gown; he let it drop between them and kicked it aside. He then unfastened his own cloak, and it dropped as well. “Turn around.”
She obeyed.
“Well?” he shifted his weight back on his heels and clasped his hands behind his back.
Her throat was dry, and her hands trembling, as she reached up to fumble with the frogs down the front of his doublet. Each one seemed harder to unfasten than the last; her fingernail caught on the fourth and broke in two. She looked up at him as she blew on the wound; his face showed only impatience, and not a stitch of pity.
Beneath the deep blue velvet his linen shirt hung open, revealing a V-shaped section of his chest. With a swift tug, it was over his head and on the floor with his doublet, and he was half-bared before her. He was not at all what she had expected; lean and wiry, his body certainly possessed its own peculiar strength.
“Intrigued?” he couldn’t help taunting her.
“Yes,” she sighed, itching, but not daring, to touch him.
He took hold of her hands and placed them on his abdomen, clenching the muscle beneath the skin. She gasped with the movement, “Oh, God.”
“I am God tonight,” he whispered, moving his long hands off of hers and up to caress her neck rather forcefully. He leaned in again and kissed her, more roughly than before, and pulled her closer. She gasped again has she felt him against her. His thumb pressed down ever so slightly on her windpipe, and he held it there until she coughed into the kiss.
“What sort of man are you, Walsingham?” she asked as she caught her breath.
“One who knows what he wants,” he reached down and pulled at the neck of her nightgown, ripping it in two as though it were paper.
He took a step back and began to circle her appraisingly, eyes moving over every line, every curve; she felt as though he must be able to see through her skin.
“Beautiful,” the word left his lips like it was written in smoke.
“You think so?” she asked nervously. Being naked before a true lover was one thing; being so before Walsingham was another thing entirely.
“If I say yes, will you fall in love with me?” he asked without looking at her eyes.
“No,” she said shakily.
“Yes, Elizabeth, you are quite pleasing to the eye. But then, you always have been, even clothed.”
“How is this supposed to be helping me?” she demanded.
“Helping you?” he grinned wickedly, “This part is for me.”
“That isn’t fair,” she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Pout all you like, you won’t stop me.”
“And how do you know that?”
He stopped behind her, fingers curling gracefully once more around her naked hips, “Because…secretly, you’re enjoying yourself.”
“You’re a vile man, Walsingham,” she couldn’t help but smile.
“And you, Elizabeth,” he began to kiss her neck slowly, sensuously, “Are a libertine of a woman.”
~Fade to Black~