skygiants

Haha, yes, the fixing of parents' marriage really could have used another scene or two for clarity. There's another sweet backstory bit about how the Claes family gardener (Tom) loves Katarina because of her care and attention to the gardens...which helped Tom deal with the grief he felt over the death of Katarina's grandfather (the current Duke Claes's father), who also had loved and cared for the gardens. So Tom becomes a surrogate grandfather to Katarina, in a sense.

Thinking about it a little bit more, there's something really sad in Katarina's obliviousness in that it's partly her ditzy personality but also partly out of existential, deterministic fear. The idea that obviously no one could really fall in love with her, because she's supposed to be the bad guy, right? That she can't entertain the idea of love for even a moment because it means a Bad End. I haven't really gone looking for fanfic, but I feel like it's an angle that demands fic writing.