Despite his age and tactical advantage over the fledgling queen, stepping into her chambers felt something like being a fly, willingly stepping into the spiders web.  He could tell from the look in her eyes and the tilted bottle beside the couch that she had been drinking, and though she looked ravishing in the black dress, forcing him to lift his focus just a few inches over her head to avoid the desire to ogle her.  She beckoned him closer, asking that he sit beside her on the couch, and he stiffened at the simple, innocuous request in a way that was entirely unbefitting of their lengthy friendship.<br/><br/>"If it pleases her majesty all the same, I'll stand," he replied, keeping his posture rigid.  A single glance from her was all he needed to know that it did<i>not </i>please her -- not one bit, and with that simple look it felt entirely more as if it was not the colloquial request he'd hoped it was.  Reluctantly, he stepped forward and moved beside her, easing onto the couch and leaving fair distance between them.<br/><br/>She leaned forward to snag some papers on the table in front of her, pulling them closer and holding them out to him to inspect, giving him momentary hopefulness that perhaps his presence here was indeed as an adviser, nothing more.  He took the papers from her, scanning her impeccable penmanship and biting his lip as he considered the proffered terms, running simulations and calculations in his head and assessing their likely outcomes.  He knew how to play the wildcard, unpredictable on the battlefield when he needed to be, but he rarely leapt before he looked, and even more rarely landed anywhere other than precisely where he'd intended.<br/><br/>"It is a generous offer," he explained.  "Perhaps<i>too</i>generous.  The Magnate of Delstrath is cowardly, but quick to anger, and if he feels empowered by your offer of protection, he may become reckless in the negotiating chambers.  We could provide these numbers for aid, but we should not make his safety our responsibility, lest he rush to test it."  Moving to the edge of the couch, he placed the sheet on the small table, lifting a quill and dipping it into the inkwell.  He crossed out certain stanzas of the agreement, adding more in the margins, endeavoring to ignore the tantalizing way she shifted her body.  His peripheral awareness of the way her breasts tested the constitution of the fabric sent him doubling his efforts to expeditiously give her the guidance she needed.<br/><br/>"We offer refuge for he and his people, if they are besieged.  It offers security, but with the onus of incredible personal loss first.  This will hide our assets, and he will be more hesitant to test our commitment that way.  If he is wrongfully attacked, we may send the troops regardless of the agreement, to great fanfare I am sure."  He scribbled a few more words.  "Offer him a small monetary token for acceptance, perhaps a small discount to a shipment of weapons.  If you are firm with him, he will capitulate quickly during the negotiation, despite his posturing."<br/><br/>With a certain degree of satisfaction, Roland handed the sheets back to her for review, considering his counsel wise and thoughtful -- a job well done.  His heart sank, though, as she placed the sheets back on the table and sidled closer to him, the odds that this was not merely a thinly veiled seduction attempt dwindling by the second.<br/><br/>She called out his hesitance by name, putting too fine a point on his apparent insecurity.  Of course he could not hide his discomfort from someone who had known him since she was a child, through all of his trials and growth.  "Apologies, milady," he replied somberly.  He was just preparing to rise from the sofa, to address her as was proper and explain himself, when her leg hooked over his lap, and he found himself pinned under her weight, the trap sprung.<br/><br/>"Milady!" he nearly cried out, though she quickly silenced him.  Her reminder of the kiss cut to the quick, culling any notions that she had forgotten the stolen moment in her inebriation.  She seemed to remember it fondly, and he saw the latent desire in her eyes -- how she seemed to long to revisit that erroneous second that had permanently changed their history.  It made the rejection he needed to give even more painful, her intoxicating scent filling his mind hypnotically with thoughts of beautiful possibility.  "Milady--..." he began to demure, just as she shared that she knew another way he desired her, her hips and glorious junction shifting against a bulge in his trousers that he would just as soon have buried in the yard.<br/><br/>He felt cornered, trapped in place by a wonderful cage of smooth skin and thin fabric.  A shiver pulsed through him from his head to his toes as he looked up to her, trying his best to appear dismissive though he knew he could not fool her.  Worse, he could feel the need emanating from her, and it complicated matters tremendously.<br/><br/>Worst of all, she gave him an out.  An opportunity to simply shake his head and walk away.  It was a kindness, but it felt like a tightening noose.  Now he could not labor under the onus of fulfilling his duties as her supplicant, that he was giving to a woman of power as was requested of him in a feverish, drunken evening.  Now he was complicit in anything that happened.<br/><br/>"<i>Milady,</i>" he replied, as firmly as he could muster, though the absence of conviction was as clear as the gentle touch of his fingertips on her back as his hands raised to embrace her tenderly.  She leaned in, delivering a kiss of infinite softness to his lips, repeating the dire mistake that had played back in his head every single moment that he hadn't the sense to occupy himself elsewhere.  It dragged a half-moan out of him, the weight of her body pressing into him wondrously even as he planned his careful rejection.  He was the guardian of the realm, leader of her legions, her protector, and dearest friend.  To receive even an iota more from her felt like a betrayal of her father, who had entrusted him to give her wise counsel.  Where was the wisdom in this?  An older man in her bed, every bit as foolhardy as she and just as drunk, though he on lust, opposite of her alcohol.  What kind of man would he be to succumb?<br/><br/>"... Your grace," he whispered breathlessly as she disengaged.  "I--" he explained, losing his thoughts instantly, the sternness of his voice abolished by the simple, plush caresses of her lips.  "What could it possibly be?" he asked, a somber note in his voice.  "What will I be to you when the drink fades, when the cruel light of the sun shines through your window?  How can I be everything you need of me, when you realize I'm just a man, and not whatever you have imagined of me?"