Diamond in the Rough

Author’s Note: This is based on “The Long-Nosed Princess,” one of my favorite fairy tales when I was a kid. I was in the mood to write something silly this week. I know someone will think I’m demented for giving a story like this the slashy treatment, but then did I ever say I was sane?

The whine of fiddles and the stamping of feet nearly drowned out Bobby’s boast.

“You’re done. Everyone knows you’re done.”

“Ya think, huh?”

Wickedness gleamed in those hazel eyes before he threw back the shot. His throat worked it down in a noisy gulp, and he wiped the stray droplet from his chin with the back of his fist.

“Play me something with a little pizzazz in it,” he barked to the quartet in the darkened corner of the tavern. Bobby threw up his hands in disbelief. His smile held disgust.

“You’ll fall on your ass! Five coins says he will!” He beckoned to his friends for support.

“You already owe me five coins,” Hank muttered, but he slid the pence into the center of the table. Warren ante’d up beside him as he lazed beside him, booted feet propped up on the neighboring table. He sipped his tankard of ale and stared blearily up at Bobby. His own coins clinked next to Hank’s.

“Surrender, already. Give it up, pup.”

Before Bobby could retort, the quartet raised their instruments and fired off a rollicking, quick tune. The denizens of the tiny pub clapped their hands, already sore from such abuse over the previous two hours.

And he was up again.

His partner giggled for him as he looped one burly arm around her corseted waist and swung her up on her feet. Her friends looked on jealously as he spun her into a jig. It was a stamping dance, not meant for ladies and gentlemen but perfectly suited to this crowd.

Her heart thundered as he pinned her with a wolfish smile. The whiskey he drank made his breath hot as he steamed her temple.

“Ya look like a woman who likes ta dance,” he husked. She couldn’t stop giggling, but her stomach flipped. He was holding her entirely too close, in front of too many people, but she was having too fine a time to object. He spun her, then led her back the other way, staying too surefooted for a man who’d drunk so much over so short a time.

Bobby cursed, smacking the table with his fist. “Damn him! Damn his eyes! AGAIN! He did it AGAIN!” Hank crowed, turning to clap Warren on the back so hard he choked on his ale.

“What’d I tell you?”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” Warren muttered. “And that’s ten coins you owe Hank now.”

“Shit!”

Logan and his partner stamped and whirled over the floor, shameless and with abandon. Bobby shook his head. How on earth did he do it? No matter what anyone threw at him, Logan just shook it off! He sighed and scrubbed his palm over his face as Logan gave his partner a jaunty bow and kissed her hand. His lips were supple and hot against her skin, and a hectic flush spread over her cheeks.

It was sickening to watch. Logan was cavalier about the effect he had on women and how appealing they found him. Men around him clapped him roughly and shook his hand, admiring his devil-may-care tendencies and nerve. He was a man’s man, in more ways then they knew.

His appearance was striking, rather than handsome. He lived in rough work clothes, dressing like the peasants of his kingdom. He had no patience for court and its posturing. His parents despaired of civilizing him, but there was nothing they could do. He was their only son; despite how much he exhausted them with his antics, they adored him.

Victor champed at the bit at the door, arms folded across his broad chest. He was gigantic, easily filling the door and dwarfing everyone else in the tavern by at least a head. He watched Logan in amusement as he made his goodbyes to every woman in the vicinity. Ignoring propriety, they let him.

He kissed the last blushing miss, and she touched her lips in wonder, looking pleasantly dazed. “Please say you’ll come again tomorrow, Logan!”

“Please, please, please!”

“You can’t go now, you just got here!”

“You haven’t danced with me yet!”

“Good, sweet night ta all of ya,” he rumbled. He stopped at Bobby’s table and smirked. “Gonna bring more coin with ya tomorrow night?”

“Bastard,” Bobby grunted sourly as he lifted his own whisky to his lips. Logan was too quick, however. “HEY!”

“Dancin’s thirsty work,” he shrugged, downing the drink and slamming it back down. He nodded to Hank. “Ten pence?”

“Aye.”

“Then ya can pay me back tomorrow,” Logan told Bobby.

“Castle gates’ll be closin’ soon, Highness,” Vic reminded him casually. He clapped his brass pocket watch shut. Logan shrugged, then grinned.

“I’m out. Don’t drink too much, Robert.”

“Blast your eyes,” Bobby muttered.

“Safe ride, Logan,” Warren offered, reaching for his hand without getting up. Logan shook it firmly, repeating the gesture with Hank’s grizzled blue paw.

A chorus of disappointed cries followed him from the tavern. Victor helped him into his roan’s saddle, even though he didn’t need it. Despite Logan’s constant grumbling that he didn’t need a groom, Victor gave him the king’s money’s worth in service.

They rode back with the music drifting further and further away behind them, replaced by the sounds of wind in the trees and crickets.

“Yer havin’ too much fun with the locals,” Victor muttered. “Don’t ya ever get bored?”

“Nah. Ya kiddin’? It’s good ta stay in touch with the citizens every now an’ again, eh?”

Victor snorted. “That’s what ya call it, huh?”

“Ya could’ve joined in any time.”

“That ain’t my job.”

“Ya call this a job? Ya don’t hafta follow me around everywhere I go at the drop of a hat, bub.”

“Think I gotta clean the wax outta my ears…I think ya just told me I don’t hafta follow ya around. By definition, yer Highness, that’s exactly what a groom and royal bodyguard does, last time I was in school.”

“Ya got kicked outta school fer gettin’ too familiar with the girls in the cloak room.”

“Naw. I got kicked out fer gettin’ caught.” Victor sighed as he listened to Logan whistling a tune and wrinkled his nose at the strong stench of whisky. “Ya’ve got an early day tomorrow and ya stay out til all hours dancin’ jigs?”

“Gotta enjoy my last days as a free man.”

“Yer a prince. That don’t make ya a free man, bub.” No one else dared to be so familiar in his court. Victor was nothing if not frank.

But Logan wasn’t like any other prince.

They rode through the thicket; lanterns and torches glowed in the darkness from the cottages they passed, lighting the way. The windows of those homes were dark, satisfying Logan that his countrymen were safe and at rest for the night. Different scents mingled in the air, some pleasant, some making him wrinkle his nose.

“Widow Jones asked for an extension on her taxes again this month.”

“Does anyone know why?” Logan inquired.

“Old man died. Drowned in the river when they were fishing a few weeks ago.”

“So why wasn’t I told?” Logan made a noise of disgust. “She’s a widow. She needs ta eat. Her taxes can wait til she either moves back in with family or someone weds her again.”

“That’s what I figured,” Vic shrugged, then nodded in agreement. “Would you like to send some men to the Jones cottage in the meantime to make repairs? She has a leaky roof.”

“I’ll take some myself tomorrow,” Logan said.

“Nay. Don’t get ahead of yerself, Highness.”

“Don’t remember askin’ ya fer permission.”

“Aye. Ya didn’t. But ya have plans tomorrow that involve meetin’ yer betrothed.” Logan made a face as he remembered the thing he’d been dreading for weeks.

“Shit.”


*

The footmen in the royal stable greeted him pleasantly, still drowsy from interrupted sleep. They were familiar with Logan’s late nights but indulged him the same way they had when he was a boy. They’d expected him to have married by now. Logan was one of the most eligible bachelors among their neighboring lands, but at forty, he was also one of the oldest princes. His mother bemoaned her lack of grandchildren, and his father was tired of it, insisting on heirs under threat of banishment.

But the king and queen were more forward-thinking than their forefathers, and they had an eye on their only son’s happiness more than the legacy of their kingdom. They sent out messages by couriers on horseback to the neighboring palaces in their search for an eligible consort. Many replies returned, resulting in numerous invitations to court, royal balls and country gatherings and festivals so that Prince Logan might meet his future queen.

But every effort failed miserably.

Logan was who he was. He wouldn’t pretend to be anything else. He offended too many sensibilities with his bluntness and off-color humor, as well as his complete lack of artifice. Princesses thought he was a philistine barbarian; but the townswomen of Logan’s kingdom adored his big heart and rakish charm. He was a guardian of widows and orphans, helping with barn raisings and plantings every spring.

He was quick-witted and hardworking, and he had little patience for idleness or fools. Logan adored the hunt, often running his horse until it was lathered. His mother nearly swooned every time he returned home with blood flecking his jerkin and mud on his leather boots, looking haggard and wild-eyed as he came with his men through the gates carrying his kills trussed up on a spit. He was handy with a bow and arrow, sword, sling and hunting falcon. Victor’s claim that he was his bodyguard was laughable, but to his credit, he was a more than adequate companion for Logan’s jaunts, taking just as much lusty enjoyment from violence when it arose.

Logan and Victor crept into the castle through the kitchen. Victor filched a bit of leftover roast from a copper platter, licking the juices from his fingers.

“There you are,” barked a familiar baritone. Logan winced, then turned to face his father’s wrath. “Nice of you to return so early, son.” Jonathan shook his head at his son’s appearance. “You smell like a distillery.”

“Evenin’, Father.”

“Your Highness.” Victor bowed low and backed out of the room. He shot Logan a wink on his way out. Logan scowled, then sighed. Vic’s look seemed to say Better you than me.

“I don’t know what I pay that heathen for,” Jonathan began,” if he slinks back in here looking as guilty as you do. Why, James? Do you enjoy keeping your mother and I up late, worrying about your return?”

“I’m not a boy anymore, Father,” he said softly.

“No. You’re not a boy!” he snapped. “You’re a forty-year-old bachelor with dwindling prospects who needs to take a wife and have a son and give me an heir!” His father was slight of build and growing more wizened with advanced age, and his features were more patrician than his son’s, but they had the same eyes that seemed to stare right through all who saw them. “Enough of this carousing, son! I won’t have it! You’re a prince, but no one would know it by the company you keep! And would it kill you to dress like a gentleman instead of a beggar or common minstrel?”

“You sound like Mother, now.”

“She’s nearly given up on trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” Jonathan continued, throwing up his hands. “Your mother civilized ME, once upon a time, and I’m a better man for it!”

“I ain’t sayin’ that ya ain’t,” Logan agreed as he sat down and helped himself to a drink from the milk jug. He felt a sharp slap upside the back of his head. “OW!”

“Don’t act so flippant,” his father chided him, planting his fists on his hips. “Tomorrow I want to see you make some effort, son. I’m running out of options with you. You could be a good catch if you tried, but you refuse to try. I’ve paraded more women in front of you then I can count –“

“Two hundred and thirteen,” Logan quipped, rubbing the back of his head. It smarted. He plucked a tidbit of roast from the platter and popped it into his mouth.

“And I’ve decided to take a different tack.”

“What? No cotillions? Balls? Talent shows? Juggling acts? Spring harvest festivals?”

“It’s autumn,” his father said blandly. “And no. I’m getting old, James. And I’m tired. I want a grandchild that I can dandle on my knee and I intend to get one.”

“Dandle?” Logan muttered.

“Don’t sass me. Go. Get to bed. Now. I want you refreshed and smart in the morning. I’ll leave you to Jean-Paul and Pietro’s tender graces at sun-up.” Logan groaned.

“Father…if ya love me, please spare me that.”

“It’s because I love you that I’m doing this. You’ve pushed my hand. Sleep well.” Jonathan bent down and kissed his son’s cheek. “I’m doing this for your own good.”