Alexander held up one of the parchments but was not paying it any attention. He knew why he didn't want to leave for the trip. Guinevere.
After she prematurely retired the night before, he had lingered in the piano room, trying to recreate her beautiful rendition. It was one and the same she always gave, it was the same one he had first heard on that fateful day when she had stumbled into the piano room.
He remembered how she looked so engrossed with her piece it seemed nothing else mattered. The memory of her playing was vivid in his mind - the look of serenity on her face, the subtle movements of her hands, the soulful resonance of the notes she coaxed from the instrument. For another time, he would ask her to play a different piece. One of his, perhaps.
"Your Majesty," Edmund called, placing an enveloped letter before him. "This needs your seal."
