Meet cute

The three of them met at the bookshop during off-hours: Artus, Marguerite, and her bodyguard Philippa. Philippa was as tall as Artus (and he wasn't short) and much more imposing, clad in armor and an unreadable expression. Her steely eyes (no glasses anymore) watched him closely—maybe judgingly—as Artus entered the store.

"Artus!" Marguerite bounded towards him, skirts poofing in all directions. The way she ran was charming the way a puppy was, but it wasn't proper. Luckily Artus brought just the book to fix that. "You're here! How was the rest of your week?"

Artus blinked at the unexpected question. "It was good, thank you," he said, even as flashbacks of endless paperwork and meetings zipped through his brain.

"I've come up with some ideas on how to capture the prince. Can I run them by you?"

"You have?" Artus had assumed they would be working off his lesson plans, seeing as how her original plan had been to read romance novels. "Let's hear them."

"Okay, ahem. So the prince will be there, and I'll walk in from here, and I'll be like—"

There were already lots of things Artus wanted to point out, but he didn't want to interrupt her enthusiasm. "How about I pretend to be him?" Artus stepped over to Rita's indicated there.

"All right." Rita pumped her fists as if cheering herself on. "Philippa, just as I described!"

"Yes, m'lady."

Wait, why is your bodyguard involved in this?

Rita marched awkwardly yet confidently towards Artus, and Philippa approached from the other direction. Once they both converged on Artus, Philippa elbowed Artus hard, crashing him into Rita.

"Oof! Ahem, I mean, are you hurt, my prince?" Rita asked with a smarmy expression as she cradled him precariously in her arms.

Artus struggled back to his feet. "Pardon, but is your plan to assault the prince?!"

"It's a classic setup!" Rita objected. "Girl is in trouble. Guy saves her. Girl sees how dashing he is! But because I want the prince to fall in love with me, I have to take the guy role."

"If Philippa Mazarin is the one attacking him, wouldn't he think she's on your orders?"

"We'll do it in a crowd so he won't recognize her."

"The moment she runs into him, his bodyguards will be all over her!"

Rita squinted. "... So… I infiltrate his bodyguards..."

"Are you trying to win the prince over or commit crimes against him?"

They reset to play out Rita's next idea, which couldn't be worse than her first one. Everyone was in the same place, except Rita now held a glass of water.

Philippa bumped into Rita (much gentler than into Artus, he noticed), and Rita spilled the water on her dress.

"Oh no!" said Rita. Artus waited. "... Oh noooo...!"

"..."

"..." Rita pouted. "You're supposed to come help me."

"That's your bodyguard's job."

"Is the prince's heart as cold as yours?"

No, but Artus didn't want to encourage this idea any further. "Let's not do anything clumsy that will make people say you're unfit to be a princess."

Onto the next ideas, of which too many still involved accidents.

Rita mimed holding a leash. “Is this your dog? He just ran to me and wouldn’t leave!”

“Dog?”

“No? Then: is this your horse?”

“How do you plan on getting the prince’s horse?”

“A carrot? Or, could you—”

“I’m not stealing the prince’s horse for you,” Artus said firmly. “You don’t need to engineer all these chance meetings. I’m in charge of arranging your meetings anyway. You can make a good impression then, like normal couples.”

“But that hasn’t happened in the novels I’ve read so far.”

“Now that you have me, you don’t need to learn from romance novels. Most of them are poorly written, anyway.”

"I used to think that too, but you know, the point of a romance plot isn't that it's believable, it's just supposed to make your heart race. From that point of view, what genre does it better than romance? You can read whole fantasy books without feeling any chemistry between the main characters!"

Artus felt personally offended. "The thought and creativity that goes into many fantasy books is of high merit. Compared to making a few characters come alive, making a whole world come alive takes much more care."

“Oh, I like fantasy too, I’m just saying—” Rita paused, then leered at him with a sly smirk. “Ooh, I see, so you're a fantasy fan."

"I..." Artus stumbled. "I read all genres of books, fantasy included."

"But you're far too learned to be reading romance, of course."

"I didn't say that. I simply prefer books that have richer worlds. A book of fiction should take its reader on a journey."

"An emotional journey is a sort of journey! Anyway, how about I lend you a romance fantasy book? Wait right here."

Artus called down the aisle that Rita disappeared down. "Lady Marguerite! We really should be making progress with today's lesson—"

"Call me Rita!" She was already teetering from the top of one of the ladders.

"Lady Rita," he said, catching up to the ladder this fantasy book must be at the top of. "First off, we have a lot of poise and posture forms to start practicing. Second, I didn't bring enough money to buy a book."

"That's why I said I'd lend it to you. Now where is that book?"

"... For how much?"

She slid halfway down the ladder to another shelf. "People charge to loan books?"

"This is a bookstore!" While Artus did not care if Marguerite Beaudennes' bookstore lived or died, it hurt him somewhere deep inside to see jobs done poorly. "Isn't the point of one to sell books? You can't go around lending them for free."

"But I want you to read it. You can just return it when you're done. Can you move the ladder that way?"

Artus pushed the ladder down the aisle. "Once I have it in my possession, no matter how briefly, it can't be considered a new book, and you would have to sell it for a lower price. I said I don't have money on me now, but seeing as I am creditworthy, you should just tell me to pay it later."

"But I'd feel bad if you bought a book you didn't like."

"Most people buy books they don't even read. That's how bookstores stay in business."

"Oh, of course, it's not F for Le Fevre, but L for Lefevre." Rita suddenly reached out far to the side.

"My lady, I can just—my lady!"

Rita lost her footing and fell from the ladder. Artus didn't have time to maneuver and just opened up his arms as she landed on top of him and sent them both crashing to the floor.

He heard Philippa come running from the front of the store. "M'lady, are you all right?"

"Ouch... yes, I'm fine!"

Artus opened his eyes. Rita had him pinned to the floor, her hair spilling wildly and tickling his neck, her slender fingers along his wrist.

"Sorry about that! I was just in a hurry..." Her mouth opened to continue her apology, but then she tilted her head. "Hah, this is just like the meet cutes I was proposing earlier. So how about it?" She fluttered her eyelashes and grinned down at him. "Doesn't it make your heart race?"

And Artus wanted to say no, that the only thing anyone would be in this situation was annoyed, that the only reason his heart would be racing was because she could've knocked out his teeth with a poorly placed knee, and not because of the flush of her cheeks and the faint warmth of her breath on his face. But having never been a liar, he instead turned his head away and moved to get up.

"As I said, you can't assault the prince."

They untangled themselves, with Philippa helping. As Artus dusted himself off, Rita held out the novel to him.

"Since I went through so much trouble to get this for you, it'd be very impolite of you not to read it."

Artus hesitated, then took it from her hands. "All right, but I insist on paying for it the next time I return. And we'll spend the rest of our time today on poise practice, because the prince's fiancée should not be falling off ladders, if for some unknown reason she must be on them."

"This sounds suspiciously like etiquette and not about romance at all..."

It was Artus's turn to beam back a smile.