by Emma Chase
I’m not doing it to keep busy. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.
I’m not very convincing.
I close the folder on my desk and glance out the window at the moonless black sky. My stomach growls at me for missing lunch. I step out into the hall and Cora isn’t at her desk, but someone else is there looking for her.
“Good evening, Alfie.”
He dips his head.
“How are you tonight, Chicken?”
“Mmm . . . I’m famished, actually.” I glance down at the diamond-and-sapphire broach gleaming on the bodice of my pale blue dress. “So hungry I could eat the crown jewels.”
“Sounds like they’d be hard to swallow.” He winks.
“Would you like to dine with me tonight? The new cook in the private quarters is fantastic.”
Before he can answer, Cora comes scurrying down the hall, her red hair styled beautifully and her purse in hand.
“All right, Dad. I’m ready to go now.”
Alfie kisses Cora’s cheek tenderly. And watching them, my smile slowly fades against my will. Because I’ve never had that—that effortless, easy closeness and affection. It’s always been on the other side of the looking glass. And there’s a hollowness inside me that fears it always will be.
“Cora and I were just heading over to that new place in Winchester everyone’s raving about for dinner. Would you like to join us?” Alfie asks.
I glance down at my shiny shoes. “Thank you, but no.” I ignore the burning in my throat and tight squeeze around my heart.
“Going to a restaurant always causes too much commotion.” I wave my hand. “You can’t take me anywhere.”
Alfie looks at me closely.
“Are you sure, Lenora? We’d love to have you.”
“No, no. I’ll be fine. Go on now—shoo.”
Cora dips in a quick curtsy. “Good night, Your Majesty.”
“Good night.” I smile tightly and turn to walk away first.
The walk to the private quarters seems longer than usual, the halls emptier, the echo of footsteps louder. Winston opens the door and a maid greets me in the foyer. She says Cook will have dinner served shortly.
“Just a light meal, please,” I tell her. “I’m not very hungry.”
I head toward the empty parlor and switch on the television, just to have some noise. And I don’t think about Edward again. I don’t wonder where he is or what he’s doing. I don’t think about what it would be like if he were here—how we would have a drink before dinner and talk about the events of the day, maybe watch that silly Honeymooners show that’s not funny at’all.
I move to the side table and poor myself a sherry. And I can feel Winston watching me. It’s strange—usually I forget he’s even in the room, but tonight, I notice.
“Are you all right, Queen Lenora?”
He speaks. That’s unusual too.
“I’m fine.”
After a moment, he speaks again. Gently persistent.
“It’s my job to protect you from things that could hurt you. If something is, I’d like to know so I can deal with it.”
I glance at the glass in my hand.
“Would you have a drink with me, Winston?”
I should be mortified to have thought the question, let alone asked it out loud. My granny Edwina is spinning like a top in her grave. But what’s the bloody point of being Queen if you can’t make your own rules at least once in a while?
“It would be an honor.”
I hand him a full glass and motion for him to sit on the sofa, while I take the chair by the fireplace.
“Tell me about yourself.”
“Afraid there’s not much to tell, Ma’am. I’m a man who enjoys his work.”
I sip my sherry and the liquid warms my belly.
“What about your life? Your family?”
“I’m not married. I was an orphan before I joined the military.”
“There must be someone? A sweetheart, perhaps?”
For the first time, he glances down and his eyes glitter with memories.
“There was a girl, when I was young. Her name was Melinda and her dad was a fisherman. I joined the military for her, to make something of myself . . . for us. While I was away in training, she went on the boat with her dad to help out. There was an accident at sea and she drowned.”
I cover my mouth. “How tragic—I’m so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
Those glittering eyes fall back on me and he says softly, “You remind me of her.”
“Do I?”
He nods. “She was like a force of nature. Strong, steadfast . . . beautiful.”
My eyes dart up at the compliment. Like some pathetic flower after a long drought—greedy for any drop of rain.
“You think I’m all those things?” I ask.
Winston exhales roughly.
“I think you are . . . magnificent.”
He says it with a sacred awe, the way one whispers a saint’s name in prayer.
I recall Thomas’s words, from so long ago—when things were silly and simple.
I think Winston fancies you.
And I look at the man across from me, the man who would give his life for me—I don’t know if I ever really looked at him before. He’s darkly handsome, powerful, intelligent, dedicated. Desirable in every way a man should be . . .
But not to me.
My pulse doesn’t throb when I look at him.
His eyes are the wrong color. Gray-blue . . . and I dream of dark emerald, like grass after a thunderstorm. His smile is straight and pleasing, not devilish and infuriating. The sound of his voice doesn’t warm me or make my head go light. He doesn’t say things that steal my breath away or make me want to laugh all at the same time.
Only one man does that. Only one ever has. And he’s the one who left.
And I’m the one who let him go.
I set my empty glass on the table and rise.
“Thank you for the company and conversation, Winston. Let Cook know I won’t be eating; I’m going directly to bed. We have a big day tomorrow. Good night.”
He gazes down at me a moment, and then he nods.
“Sleep well, my Queen.”
As I walk alone with my loneliness to my rooms, Alfie’s words echo in my mind.
Love is bloody awful, Chicken.
Yes. Infatuation is no picnic either.
The following day, the glass-and-gold carriage rolls its way down the main thoroughfare of the city. It’s a lovely-looking contraption—and awful to ride in. Hot as a goat’s ballsack, my father used to say, though how he came by that information, I have no idea.
But it’s tradition. Part of the summer festivities and celebrations the public looks forward to. The pavement is packed with people—cheering and laughing and holding up banners. Typically, the season culminates with a tremendous gala at the Palace—the Summer Jubilee Ball. This year, however, there will be no ball.
There will be a royal wedding instead.
Miriam and I sit beside each other in the carriage, waving through the windows to the crowd.
“Edward is still away on business?” she asks.
It’s what we told the press as well, to preemptively explain his absence.
“Yes.”
“He’s been gone forever,” she whines. “When is he coming back?”
“I’m not sure. A few more weeks, perhaps.”
Then I change the subject. “I’m melting. If I go the way of the Wicked Witch of the West and disintegrate into a puddle, the throne’s all yours, Miri.”
These are the things we joke about in our family.
“No thank you very much,” she replies in a singsong voice—her smile never wavering, like the professionals we are. “If they ever try to glue me to that throne, I’ll abandon ship faster than you can say abdication. You and Edward better pop out some royal babies quickly after you’re married.”
The mention of Edward and babies
makes my insides pulse with a mix of hesitant hope and cautious joy, and the near-constant ache of missing him.
But I smile and carry on. Because queens do many things, but I think we do that most often of all.
“How are we even related?” I tease my sister.
“It’s a question I’ve asked myself more times than you ever want to know.”
I start to laugh, but the sound is cut off by the sharp snap of breaking glass. And I squint at the window—staring through the perfectly round hole that’s there now. That wasn’t there before.
A pebble. Must’ve been a pebble is all I can think . . .
Until another shatter comes.
And another.
And the horses scream. And the glass explodes all around us, glittering shards falling down like sharpened raindrops. And the carriage churns and jostles like it’s lost a wheel.
Then suddenly, Winston is here. In the carriage, pulling me and Miriam to the ground. He covers us—spreading himself on top of us, pressing us into the floor so hard I can’t draw a breath.
He lifts his head and I look at his face. His lips are moving, telling me something, shouting—but it’s as if the whole world has been plunged under water and I can’t make out the words.
I strain so hard to hear . . . and then . . . everything goes black.
THIS WAS A MISTAKE.
I knew it on the first day, but I had to keep pushing, trying. I thought I could come out here to this gold mine and slip back into my old life for a time. I thought it would be easy, like flipping a light switch.
I thought wrong.
This doesn’t fit anymore, none of it. I’m not the same man I was when I arrived back in Wessco . . . or when I carried a lovely, stubborn girl through the rain.
My priorities have changed. I have changed. Everything has.
I can’t turn it off and I don’t want to. Lenora haunts me. I lie awake at night in my tent thinking of the sound of her voice, the smell of her hair, the ever-changing shade of her liquid-silver eyes.
During the day, I wonder what she’s doing. If she’s all right. If those tools in Parliament are treating her well. I promised I would never let her fall . . . and then I left her there all alone.
She’s the most alone person in the whole world.
The guilt eats at me, slices through me, right down to my bones.
But it’s more than that. More than guilt or obligation. There’s something else, something I don’t know what to call yet—a constant push, an urgent pull from the center of my chest where my heart beats. A desperate straining desire to return home.
To return to her.
All these years I’ve been out here looking, searching for where I belonged and what I was supposed to do. For my purpose. And I’ve finally found it; I’m finally sure.
Lenora is my purpose. She is my reason.
And I have to get home to tell her.
In my tent, the three guards on my security detail watch as I stuff my belongings in my bag. They don’t talk much and I think they probably hate my guts. For dragging them halfway around the world, into the jungle, sweating and miserable. Can’t say I blame them.
Outside the tent, Ian Kincaid calls my name. I grab my hat, step through the flap and look around. He’s at the docks, waving his arm at me. And it takes a moment to decipher what’s in his hand.
When I do, my stomach plummets straight to hell.
Because it’s a telegram.
An advisor from the palace—Smith something-or-other—meets me at the airport in Indonesia with the royal plane, an update and a proper suit. I don’t sleep a wink during the fifteen-hour flight. I spend the time torturing myself thinking that if I had been there, it never would’ve happened. Fuck me.
I wash and shave, and when I slip my arms in the sleeves of my suit . . . it doesn’t feel like hell anymore. It fits just right now.
I arrive back at the palace, and they tell me the Queen is in the infirmary, so I run down the halls to get there. When I push open the door and finally see Lenora—whole and unharmed and herself—the worry and guilt that’s had me knotted up loosens its grip.
And I’m filled with blessed relief. Because she’s here and she’s all right.
But then, as I continue to watch her across the infirmary . . . I start to feel something different entirely. Something twisting and ugly springs up.
Because she’s in a chair, sitting very close to the bed, chatting with that chud Winston. He’s shirtless except for a large bandage stuck to his chest and the sling cradling his arm. They talk in soft, familiar tones—almost intimate—then Lenora smiles at him. And it’s a real smile. The kind that dances in her eyes and lights up her whole face.
And I want to shoot the bastard. The same way they shot the evil fuck who tried to hurt her—right where they found him, on that same day, in an abandoned building across from the parade route.
I walk into the room. “Well, isn’t this nice?”
Lenora turns at the sound of my voice, and for a moment she looks happy to see me.
“Edward!” She stands. “When did you get back?”
Despite the fuse that’s been lit in my head, my eyes drink her in deeply. They’ve missed her. “Just now.”
“Duke Anthorp.” The bodyguard greets me, dipping his head in a bow.
“Winston.” I turn to face him. “Thank you for what you did. We are . . .” I glance at Lenora, then back again. “. . . forever in your debt.”
And though resentment sizzles in my throat, the words are true.
I loop my arm around Lenora’s shoulders, pulling her good and snug against me. “Come along, love. Say goodbye to your little friend.”
She looks at me strangely, but then turns to the guard. “Good day, Winston.”
And I guide Lenny out of the room. In the hall, I step back and look her up and down again—checking for injuries.
“Are you all right? Truly?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” She nods, her face soft. “Miriam, however, will probably have the vapors for a month.” Then, hesitantly, she asks, “How was your trip?”
“Unproductive.”
“Oh. Does that mean you’ll have to leave again?”
“Perhaps. We’ll see.” I shrug.
I don’t know why I say that—I’m not going anywhere. But then I get to the real problem . . . and my transformation into a horse’s arse is complete.
“What was that about?” My jaw goes hard as I lift it toward the infirmary door.
Lenora blinks, the prettiest picture of pure innocence.
“What was what about?”
“You and the guard. You two seem awfully . . . close. Even more than before I left. Is that why you told me it was all right to go? Just what the hell’s been going on around here?”
“You can’t be serious.” She looks at the door and then back at me, and her eyes darken to the color of sharpened lead. “You leave, for weeks, and now you’re here and . . . you’re jealous of Winston?”
“I don’t get jealous, sweets. But I’m not a fool either.” I try another tack and point at the door. “You realize he’s fucking your sister, don’t you?”
Lenora gasps, eyes going wide.
“Oh, apparently, you didn’t.”
Michael and I saw them humping against a tree in the garden a few days before I left. Miriam is an independent girl and I didn’t get the sense she was being taken advantage of, so I minded my own business. But Lenora is another damn story altogether—she is all my business.
“You can ask Michael if you don’t believe me. I guess it makes sense—she is the spare. Or has he worked his way up through the ranks to you now? Is that how it goes?”
Her dainty hands clench into tight fists. “The only fool here is me. Because I was happy that you were home.” She shakes her head. “It’s a mistake I won’t make again.”
It’s the hurt in her voice that breaks through the asinine. Heartbreak mixed with aching disappointment.
What am I doing? What the fuck am I doing?
“Lenny, wait—”
“Go to hell.”
“Lenora . . .” I grab her arm, but I barely touch her before she cries out and her face pinches with pain. I let go, breathing hard, looking for how I harmed her.
“What’s wrong with you?”
She lifts that stubborn chin. “Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
She’s favoring her right arm. As carefully as I can, I grip the sleeve of her cardigan sweater.
“Let go!”
And I pull it down her arm. Revealing a thick white bandage wrapped around her bicep. There’s a crimson discoloration in the center where the blood seeped through.
It’s like I’ve taken a sledgehammer to the chest, the kind that smashes your heart to pieces.
“Christ almighty. You were shot?”
She yanks her arm away.
“It’s nothing. It just grazed me.”
“Why wasn’t I told immediately?”
She slips her arm back through the sleeve of her sweater.
“We thought it best to keep it out of the press.”
“I’m not the press! I’m going to be your husband!”
She glares at me, all fiery defensiveness. And then she throws my own words back at me.
“But you’re not—at least not yet.”
Lenora takes a breath and straightens her skirt.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a country to run.”
Head raised and back straight, like a moving stone statue of the perfect queen, she walks away.
Leaving me to watch her go.
My plan is to let Lenora settle down and then in the private quarters, to explain some things to her—hash it all out. And this time, try not to massively fuck it up.
I don’t expect her to be done with her duties for some time; the sun is just setting and the sky is a soft, dove gray. So I walk out past the gardens to visit Thomas’s grave.
But when I arrive, someone else has already beaten me there.
“If you were here, I’d hit you!” Lenora paces in front of the gravestone, shaking her fist. “And it wouldn’t be any dainty-girl slap either. Oh no—it would be a punch right to the balls! Honestly, Thomas, what were you thinking? What have you done?”
