She said, looking at him pleadingly, hoping he would deny it. But he did not. He could not.
“Alex…” he put out a hand to reach her.
“No…,” she said and pointed a finger at him warning him to keep his distance. Her hair was all distorted, the eyes were red and she trembled like an autumn leaf. In that moment Jim just wanted to gather her close and keep her warm and safe. He looked pleadingly at her, beseeching her silently to understand but standing just next to him she seemed a thousand miles away.
Suddenly she balled her fists and moaned. A tearing pain had shot through her body and she went down on her knees. Jim bent down to support her. She was beyond the point of consciousness and did not resist.
As he stood her up, taking all her weight on to himself, she saw Eileen and the Doc striding towards them through the fields followed by a haggard looking Trevor. He had never thought he could be so thankful to see the bloke in his entire life.
“Mother…Alex…I think she is dying.” he said pathetically.
The earth stopped moving for Eileen, in that moment. Then in the very next one, she pulled herself out of the haze of emotions that were swirling inside her. Whether he called her mother or no, her son needed her right now.
“Jim” she called out sharply, “There is nothing wrong with Alex. She is going into labor. We have to take her to the cottage…now.”
Alex who had momentarily floated out of her mist of semi-consciousness fought him with all her might. She pushed away Eileen’s hand when she offered to hold her.
“Don’t touch me Jim Sullivan. You disgust me. You are just a hard-hearted scoundrel, for whom everything is a game to be won.” When Eileen tried to help her once again she turned on to her vehemently.
“Stay away from me. Your son has no feelings; no humanity he is just an emotionless empty shell. And you have made him so.”
Jim and Eileen looked at each other more with worry that anything else.
Then Jim snapped out of his trance and picked up the semi-conscious Alex into his arms and started towards the cottage followed by the rest of the party.
Chapter 19
Ruth Andreadora Sullivan was born a little before dawn. When Jim held his daughter for the first time, he was bewitched. The wee little thing had firmly closed her fist around her father’s finger and Jim had felt the squeeze of that fist around his heart. She had a firm grip and a blue gaze, just like his.
As his mother carried the baby away, Jim turned to his wife who had been sleeping peacefully since the time he had entered the room. Quietly he lowered himself onto the bed next to her and covered her hand with his where it rested over her midsection.
“Alex,” He said tentatively as she slowly opened her eyes.
“Jim, did you meet our daughter?” she said weakly but with a twinkle in her eyes. Jim nodded then said,
“She is beautiful, Enchanting, just like you.”
“She has your eyes.” she stated simply.
“Alex, about what happened in the field this morning…”
“I apologize for my behavior then; I was in a lot of pain.”
“Does that mean, you forgive me?” he said taking both her hands into his firmly and squeezing.
“As usual, you are not listening. There is nothing to forgive. I am not mad at you”
“Oh you were plenty mad,” he said smirking at the memory, then suddenly narrowed his eyes and looked down at his wife.
“What do you mean, as usual.”
“You know what I mean sweetheart. You are usually headstrong and bossy. And your daughter is just like you. As soon as she was born she created a huge racket and insisted that she be cleaned and wrapped and fed before anyone attended me.” Jim smiled dreamily.
“Poor Trev was out of his mind. He helped me get you here without complaining once of the obscenities you hurled at us. For that alone, he ought to get a rise.”
“The Doc and Eileen took good care of me.”
“Yes, they are a good team.” He said pensively. The suddenly looked down at her and said watching her reaction.
“They are getting married.”
“I know.” She stated calmly
“Why didn’t you tell me if you knew.”
“Doc just told me, while I was in labor. I thought he was trying to distract me.”
“Don’t know about you but I was distracted, shocked, stunned.”
“Jim.” she said, and he knew she was going to bring up the subject they had been both skirting around.
“I am sorry for what I said to you and Eileen, back in the fields. But you need to let go of your resentment.”
“Why?” he asked sulkily, not looking up at her, toying with her wedding band.
“Because it has let go of you. For some time now, I have noticed, you don’t feel the same antagonism for her, as you used to. But like I said you are stubborn and wouldn’t let go of the feeling. Being angry is easier for you than loving. That way you get to hide your emotions.”
“Quite the psychiatrist, aren’t we?”
“I don’t believe in Psychiatry”
“It’s an emerging science.”
“It’s humbug. The human mind is pure. It doesn’t need a doctor.”
“But there are minds that are ill. My father was.” he said once again mumbling under his breath and avoiding to look at her.
“Jim, the Doc will make her happy.” She said kindly rubbing her palm over his upper arm.
“He better. Otherwise, I will hunt him down and kill him.”
“Jim you are being ridiculous.” Alex laughed
“I have already told him so.” He said sullenly.
“No you didn’t,” she said shocked and tickled at the same time.
“Oh yes, I did. When he was out there pacing with me, before Ruth was born.”
“Jim, I love you.”
“I love you too. But there is something I need to read out to you first.” he pulled out a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and said waving it in front of her.
“What I that?”
“The missing part of the letter from my grandmother, that you never got to read.”
“Where did you find that,” Alex asked surprised.
“Eileen gave it to me. She found it in the drawer where the recipe book was kept. It must have fallen off.” Jim said. Then he slowly opened the sheet and held it up in a toast before he started to read from it.”
“…all my inhibitions disappeared when I saw the bond the two of you shared. Alex has transformed you. She has turned this game marriage of yours into a real one. The kind, I had always wanted you to have, the kind that will make you happy. I know it will irk you to know, but you are in love with her Jim. And love has made you a better more forgiving person.”
When he looked up at her, a lock of hair fell across his forehead making him look almost boyish and vulnerable. Alex lifted her hand to stroke it and he caught it in his, drawing it over the side of his face and placing his lips upon it.
“She is right. You have made me into a better person Alexandra. And for that, I love you beyond reason.”
The two lost themselves into each other’s compelling gazes as they heard Ruth scream and the Doc and Eileen laugh in the background. They had created a world around them, a world that held the promise of a lifetime of bliss.
A Royal Affair
Caroline Lake
A Royal Affair
Copyright 2016 by Caroline Lake
First electronic publication: September 2016
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not
to be construed as real. Any resemblance to person, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Warning: Due to mature subject matter, such as explicit sexual situations and coarse language, this story is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18. All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older, and all acts of a sexual nature are consensual.
A Royal Affair
Chapter 1
Light streamed in through the window, creeping across the sheets that draped across her body. She had watched it crawl closer to the tips of her fingers, not bothering to get up as the sun rose. It was the inevitable knock on the heavy wood of her door that had her sitting up finally, sighing softly. Soft, brown curls dusted down across her cheeks and bounced gently as she moved to sit up and adjust the light material of her night clothes. The swell of her chest had attempted to fall free overnight.
“Come, I am awake.”
As soft as the strains of her voice were, it carried across the room in a way that had the door clicking and shuffling open. Grey eyes gleamed at her through the scant opening and then a mouse of a girl was stepping through, dropping her gaze as she did so.
“Your Highness, the King… grows impatient…” The poor girl seemed uncomfortable with her message.
“Help me into my dress, Tia. Do take all the time you need, my husband could use a dose of patience… don’t you think?” She smiled as she stood, feet delicately dropping to the stone floor. Her voice was pitched with playfulness, amusement, of course. After all, the Queen couldn’t have anything truly awful to say about the King… could she?
Never.
“Of course, your Highness… Is there a particular gown you would like this morning?”
Her own head tipped, curls tumbling over a shoulder as she moved to sit at her mirror and untangle the locks. “The blue one…” The handmaiden hadn’t moved an inch until she’d gotten her answer, but then she was moving to find the dress.
“Ah… which… your grace?”
“Dark blue with the silver flowers around the neckline?”
“Of course.”
It wasn’t long before she was swathed in folds of cerulean fabric, curls braided and pinned back away from her face to reveal delicate cheek bones, a soft jaw line, and the glittering sapphire of her eyes. Blue really was her color, it did much and more for her eyes. Her fingers smoothed down the bodice of her dress as she peered in her mirror, a breath sucked in so that her tiny waist shrunk more and her chest filled the bejeweled neckline.
“If I may say so, your grace, you look beautiful.” The handmaiden’s voice was soft and meek, but heard well in the quiet of her room.
“Yes…” It was a quiet, thoughtful answer of agreement as she eyed her own reflection. Then she was moving to leave the room, down the stone hallways of the castle, but she paused before entering their smaller dining hall. Her eyes closed for a moment and she drew in a fortifying breath, fingers curling at her sides. One of the last things her mother had told her before her marriage had been to make sure that King Harold believed she was entirely devoted to him. Regardless of how happy she was to be there.
Perhaps she should have been happy… she was a Queen. Who wouldn’t be happy to be Queen?
She could still hear her mother’s words, “many would kill to be in the position you are.”
As many times as those words had echoed in her thoughts, she could not help but think that she would kill to get out of the position she was in. But that was a treasonous thought, wasn’t it? Not something that could be voiced aloud right then… or at any point in time. In the castle the walls had ears and eyes that no doubt reported back to the King.
As she walked into the room and took her seat, she smiled ever so softly at her husband. Her gaze lingered over every feature of his face as though trying to memorize each wrinkle and curve of skin. To any outsiders the look might look loving, adoring even, but the truth of the matter was that she was noticing everything that displeased her. While it was true there was no slouch to his shoulders nor a grey hair on his head… it seemed like even the way he spoke displeased her.
His hair was lank and brown, face rounded and soft, eyes an uninteresting brown. One after the other his features were ticked off the list in her head. There was a paunch to his belly and a dopy look to his face. She really wondered if he had the slightest clue how uninterested in him she was. He seemed flattered enough with the way she gave him a once over. The fool. He ought to have been dressed in motley.
“Hm?” The noise came from her, he’d asked her something but she hadn’t the faintest clue what. She hadn’t exactly been paying attention.
“My brother Jeffrey will be joining us; I had asked if you remembered him from our wedding. Of course there were so very many people there it would hardly be surprising if you did not remember him entirely…” He continued speaking even after she’d looked away, thoughts drifting back to that awful night that she’d had to endure. Before the day had been done she had consumed enough wine that it was entirely a blur.
Jeffrey. She vaguely remembered him. He had embodied her own sour mood and she remembered having wondered what he found so awful. He wasn’t the one marrying King Harold Karhardt, third of his name, ruler of the Nordland and the Sundi Isles.
Maybe he’d been jealous? As far as she could remember he didn’t have a wife, nor did he have any large tract of land, and he had been forced to watch his elder brother marry a beautiful woman and be crowned King of the Realm all in the same year.
Regardless of how he’d been at their wedding, he didn’t seem all too different from Harold… meeting him wouldn’t prove to be too interesting. Nothing ever was.
“Ah, here he comes now…”
The voice filtered in through her thoughts and drew her gaze up towards the door. Despite her decision to remain impassive and her expectation to be let down she couldn’t help at least making a cursory inspection of the newcomer. After all the dismissal wouldn’t really be a dismissal if she didn’t first glance towards him before finding something far more interesting to look at amidst the cutlery and daintily folded napkins strewn about the table. Like how many times she could count the king’s sigil that was sewn into each white swath of cloth.
The family resemblance was striking and not in a good way. Instead of finding anything that stood out in Jeffrey all she found were comparisons. If his cheeks were puffier, then his face would hold the same sort of rotund shape her husband’s did. If his belt wasn’t so tight that it crinkled up his clothes at the waistline, the rounded shadow of his stomach would have shown more. His stature was taller and each step he took heavier in an unnecessarily masculine sort of way.
The only sort of satisfaction she took from his arrival was the frown on his face and how obvious he made his desire to be elsewhere. Being of such close relation to the king he could get away with the heavy sighs, the obnoxious scrape of chair legs, and the abrupt clank of carelessness. Each action holding an attitude that she found herself enjoying, almost as if she was living vicariously through him. Indeed, the more disruption he caused, even with as subtle as it was, the more her mood lifted the slightest bit.
Perhaps this meal wouldn’t be as droll as the others, perhaps there would be some entertainment, if only due to the simplicity of sibling rivalry.
“Lovely morning, is it not?” Her voice chimed in, clear as a bell and perhaps having the slightest hint of satisfied sarcasm. If she read his body language right, he was probably thinking that it was, in fact, not a ‘lovely’ morning. He was stuck there just like she was though.
The questioning statement dragged his attention to her and she found it caught on her. Due to long hours of practice, both in front of the mirror and with her erstwhile husband, she managed to keep the look on her face open, her eyes blinking and widening slightly as though she were raptly caught by his interest.
“I noticed a storm on the horizon.”
Oh, a clandestine di
sagreement. Maybe it was his attempt at polite conversation? Nonetheless she found her back straightening, whether because of the way he stared at her or his dismissal of her false cheer she didn’t know, but she felt irritation swell in her chest.
“I rather like the rain… it makes everything seem to dull down just a bit. Peaceful.” And it meant that there weren’t too many noises to bother her if she wanted peace and quiet. Harold got so very disagreeable, though. It meant he couldn’t go out and hunt. Oh the poor creature… The snide thought came unbidden into the forefront of her mind. “But perhaps it will disperse by the time your hunting parting departs, dearest?” She added the comment, hoping to curb some disappointment and attitude from her dear husband.
“It was on the horizon.” This time Jeffrey’s statement seemed more of a disagreement than the first. A dismissal of her own hope for rain, as though it was too far away to even be worth noting, despite that he had noted it the first time himself.
At least Jeffrey had an obstinate streak that made arguing possible. It was almost enough to pose a challenge, to have her wanting to commit to arguing with him. The problem was it was such a subtle challenge she would have to bide her time to answer to it.
The excitement in her life must have fallen quite far if she found herself snatching something so petty to focus on for the remainder of the day. Sadly, it was enough to bring life to her eyes and color to her cheeks, the sigils on each folded napkin went uncounted, because every utterance suddenly held the potential for true conversation.
“The wind will surely blow it off course then. A man will be posted outside to keep watch on the weather, as a precaution.”
Of course, because just by being watched the weather can be avoided. She wanted to cast her eyes to the ceiling and let a sigh slip free, but before she could feel self-restraint restrict her breathing too much Jeffrey shifted in his seat and set his glass down with a heavy clunk. The heavy sigh that fell from his lips so absolutely fraught with disappointment that it drew almost every eye to him.
Romance: Pummel Me: A Boxing Romance Page 62
