Carina turned her head to the right, and saw that everybody was now looking at her, and wished to be anywhere else but right there in that moment.
No matter how strongly she wished, though, she couldn't magically teleport herself away, so she merely attempted to calm her nerves down and shut the terrace doors again, making sure nobody could hear what she was about to say next.
"Are you crazy?" She asked, nerves going haywire, her eyebrows scrunched up in frustration.
Spencer blinked, surprised by her sudden mood change. "Excuse me?"
"I'm asking you if you're crazy, Your Highness. You don't even know me! Why would you want to begin courting me all of a sudden? It just doesn't make any sense!"
"That is the whole point of courtship, is it not? To get to know you?"
"Yes, but I'm asking why you want to court me in the first place! We've only just met!"
"Oh, well, I thought you were unlike all the other women I've met so far. Most of them are too afraid to even approach me, let alone speak to me. And the other half try very hard to seduce me so that they could potentially become the next queen. You weren't scared of me, and you weren't attempting to seduce me either, so I knew you were special. You also happen to be the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, and I liked the sight of you smiling."
Carina could only gape as Spencer laid out his reasoning so matter of factly, his expression calm as if he were speaking about somebody else's feelings and not his own.
"I...I think usually you need a bit more than that before you decide you wish to court someone..."
"....."
Carina looked carefully at Spencer, at his eyes that seemed to be very clearly communicating his hopes and doubts all at the same time.
Thinking about it rationally, she couldn't possibly just reject it out right, he was a prince after all, and thinking even further, she knew that having the power of having the interest of a prince on her side, she would be able to oppose her stepmother even more. It might be a bit questionable to use Spencer like that, just so she could win against her awful family, but she knew that saying no would likely only bring her disaster. Though accepting it would definitely bring in another type of trouble for sure.
She weighed out the pros and cons of the relationship carefully, and in the end came out with one answer.
"Alright." Carina said, finally, after a long bout of silence. "I'll accept it, your intentions."
The look of joy on Spencer's face made Carina wonder just what exactly she would be getting into.