Bound To You: Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

Blanche

“Goddammit!”

            With my back pressed to the wall, I watch John storm from one side of the tiny, two-room cottage to the other. A sofa is overturned, a lamp sideswiped. Only, the lamp miraculously survives the crash-landing by falling onto a threadbare rug. Not to be bested by an inanimate object, my husband snarls deep in his throat and sends an empty flower vase sailing across the room.

            It explodes against the far wall.

            “John.”

            He doesn’t give any indication that he’s heard me.

            “John,” I repeat, my tone sharp enough that he wheels around with his fingers digging into his nape and his shoulders rising and falling with agitation.

            If I’ve learned anything in the last eight days that we’ve traveled the length of England on our search for Henry Godwin, it’s that the man I wed feels his emotions to his core. They burn him alive—the want, the displeasure, the aching pain that keeps him awake at all hours of the night. As I hold his gaze now, silently begging him to walk away from the dark place gripping him fiercely, those blue eyes allow me to witness the self-destruction writhing within him.

            I tilt my chin to the armchair beside the Tudor-era fireplace. “Sit down.”

            “I can’t,” he echoes hoarsely. “Little wolf, I can’t stop until—”

            “For me. Please.”

            A tick pulses in his jaw, and I half-expect him to reject the request and shuffle me back into the luxurious Rover SD1 that’s parked outside, the same way he’s done ever since we left Edinburgh in the middle of the night. It feels as though we’ve been to every corner of England in the last week and a half, hightailing it from Newcastle to Canterbury to Bristol, and at least three different hamlets in between. Every mile has chipped away at some crucial corner of John’s heart, leaving him shattered and emotionally volatile.

            After hours spent wondering if we’ll ever find Godwin, I can’t say that I don’t feel the same way.

            So, it’s with a burst of shock that I hear John’s ragged exhale of acquiesce. Dropping his hands from his neck, he rights the overturned sofa and plants himself down on the gently faded cushions. His elbows go to his thighs, his palms turning up to the ceiling to cradle the weight of his forehead. My stomach clenches at the sight of the towering Prince of Wales brought down to this—a man drowning in hopelessness.

            Until this moment—until him, really—I had no idea that the male gender could be so vulnerable. It was never the earl’s way. My father ruled his household with an iron fist, first over my mum and then, once she left, over me, to hell with our wants or needs or dreams.

            It’s disconcerting to realize that I . . . Well, I like this John. Not him hurting, of course, but open. Emotionally bare.

            As I round the end of the sofa and eye the empty spot beside him, it hits me like a blow to the gut that my husband has become my friend. In a life where I’ve been kept sequestered from the world, like some precious treasure not to be shared, it’s slightly overwhelming to face the truth head-on:

            The Prince of Wales is my first real friend.

            My first lover.

            My first everything.

            Swallowing tightly, I ignore the waiting cushion and sink to the rug at my husband’s feet instead. Here, kneeling on the floor like this, I’m as vulnerable as he. I like that, too. I like it a lot. Balancing my palms on his knees, I edge a little closer and murmur his name. He lifts his tortured gaze to mine, then drops one hand to wrap around my wrist. His thumb finds my pulse. Feeling my heartrate accelerate beneath his touch, I wet my lips and vow, “We’ll find him.”

            “We’ve nowhere else to look.”

            “John—”

            Shaking his head, his thumb presses inward as if seeking the connection to the life fluttering in my veins. “This was it, little wolf.” He jerks his stare up to sweep a glance over the space, his eyes seeming to touch on everything and nothing, all at once. “This was it. We’ve been to all his other safehouses, even the one in Keswick that probably hasn’t been touched since my grandfather sat on the throne.”

            Of them all, the stone cottage was my favorite. Seated before the mountain of Skiddaw, in the Lake District, the old place boasted fireplaces in every room, timber beams along the white-plastered ceiling, and an unobscured view of the early morning fog misting over the village. The sparse décor of Godwin’s other houses made the Keswick cottage, structurally untouched though it may be, practically purr with its riches. Warm rugs covered the floors and oiled landscapes hung on the walls. Silverware sat nestled in kitchen drawers and an elegant four-poster bed dominated the bedroom. It had been dressed in lush duvets that felt like silk beneath my fingers.

            Something tells me that Henry Godwin purchased the place with John in mind, and that he’d made it a haven for the prince he could never have.

            An ache lashes at my heart, the sensation becoming too damned familiar. I’d felt it that night in Holyrood Abbey and then again as John opened the car door for me and I spared one last glance for the Keswick cottage, so obviously treasured but so very empty. Now, the imaginary fist around my heart squeezes that much tighter.

            I fear it’ll keep squeezing until the life is snuffed out of me.

            “I don’t . . .” John trails off, his eyes briefly squeezing shut. “I was a fool—no, I am a fool.”

            “We’re all fools in some way. Trust me, Your Highness, you aren’t that special.”

            He’s so worked up, so obviously distressed, that he completely misses my attempt to tease a smile to his face. “The man knows everything about me, Blanche,” he grits out, “everything. I thought I could say the same about him. How fucking arrogant was I, thinking that I could find him before Holyrood when I can’t even bloody figure out where the hell he is!”

            It’s instinct that drives my free hand to the back of his head, just as it’s instinct that has me yanking him close so that I can touch my forehead to his. His midnight hair is coarse and unkempt from driving with the windows rolled down. His skin is slightly clammy, as if he’s ill with fever. Despite it all, I force him to stay just like this, our foreheads kissing, our souls dragging in the same air to fill our lungs and purge our fears.

            I don’t let him go.

            I couldn’t, even if I wanted.

            Because this, right here, is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. The connection, the trust. The moment feels so pure, it would put me on my knees in gratitude before God, if I bothered attending Church more than once or twice a year. Unable to help myself, I slip my fingers through John’s hair and slide them down over the back of his neck, my eyes tipping up to soak in his handsome features.

            After a few minutes, the tension finally seeps from his shoulders and his weight sags into the comfort of my touch.

            “Tell me about the first time you met him,” I say softly.

            “Blanche—”

            “Tell me.”

            He shifts on the sofa, and I’m prepared for him to haul me off the floor and seat me next to him—to put me where he believes I belong—when he surprises me completely by using the backs of his thighs to shove the old settee across the floor, putting a healthy meter between me and the sofa. And then . . . and then my heart squeezes all over again.

            My big-framed husband lowers to the floor, kneeling as I am, and hooks his fingers around my nape to drag me close and press his forehead again to mine. Our breaths mingle. Our knees kiss. His blue eyes flicker from where he grasps my neck to settle on my face, and to say that my pulse is steady would be a bold-faced lie.

            I want to kiss him.

            And I desperately, desperately, want him to kiss me back.

            “The role of the monarchy changed under my grandfather,” John says, the words nearly spoken against my lips. “It was necessary change. The land was poor and venture capitalists were rich, and unless my grandfather wanted to end up in a revolution like Tsar Nicholas did during the first world war, he needed to hand over the reins to the people.”

            His thumb draws small circles at the base of my neck, but he never pulls back, and he never severs eye contact. My breath stutters, and from the way his gaze darkens, I know my response hasn’t go unnoticed.

            “He adjusted the role of king,” John continues, his voice a little gruffer, “stayed on the throne but let Parliament take the wheel, so to speak. But a king is still a king, and a prince is still a prince, and my father raised me as he was raised by my grandfather, and his father raised him.”

            “And how were you raised?”

            “To expect an early death.”

            I jerk in my husband’s hold, completely unprepared for that brutal dose of honesty. “Don’t say that.”

            John’s mouth pulls to one side, his smile grim. “Kings never last long, little wolf. Short life expectancy, by anyone’s standards. The good news is that the older I got, the more Father knew that he wanted something different for me—to live as he’d never been able to as a lad. But he couldn’t have having me risk everything in the process.”

            “So, he hired you a bodyguard.”

            “I was ten and Henry sixteen, and the moody bastard didn’t smile for months.”

            “I’m sure you made his life hell.”

            Low, masculine laughter reverberates through my husband’s chest and his thumb stops drawing circles to slip from my nape to the underside of my chin. Tipping back my head, he smiles down at me. “I was, undoubtedly, the worst. In my defense, Henry was my first friend, and I lacked the proper skills to endear myself to him.” Another low, gravel-pitched chuckle that warms my skin. “If I had a pound for every time that he vowed to throw me into the Thames, I’d be rich.”

            “You are rich.”

            “Richer, then.” John’s fingers trace my jaw before sweeping up to my browbone, his blue eyes tracking the movement as though he’s unable to tear his gaze away. “I locked the friendship down by the time I was off to Eton, just in time to learn that boys that age are more interested in looking up girls’ skirts than they are studying the constellations and picking them out of the night sky.”

            A visual of John’s lanky teenage frame bent over old books in a musty library slams into me, and I can’t stop myself from grinning. It’s not so very different than I was at that age, and I . . . Well, I like that, too. Knowing that we have our love for the stars in common, I mean. “The constellations captivate you, do they?”

            “They captivate Henry,” he says. “Back then, I was willing to do just about anything to force him to throw more than monosyllabic words in my direction.”

            I hold his gaze. Softly, I ask, “Do you know his favorite constellation?”

            “Antinous.”

            An obsolete asterism, from what I remember. Astronomers linked Antinous with Aquila only a few decades ago, but from what I recall, the original constellation was named such by the Roman Emperor Hadrian for his dead lover, Antinous. Legend had it that Antinous drowned in the Nile River and, believing the death to be one of self-sacrifice, the devastated emperor deemed that his lover was to be marked as a god in the heavens forever.

            I don’t know Godwin.

            I don’t know his likes or his dislikes, his wants or his desires, but in the eight days that we’ve hunted him across England, there’s one thing that’s become very clear about Henry Godwin: his love will die with John.

            It’ll be memorialized in his resignation from the organization that has owned his family for generations, just as the stars memorialized Hadrian’s love for Antinous.

            I swallow, hard, and release my hold on the back of my husband’s neck to press an unsteady hand to his chest. “John,” I start, feeling the quick staccato of his heart beneath my palm, “what if . . . What if Henry purposely chose a place to hide that you would never find?”

            The soft smile on his face dies a quick death. “No.”

            “You said that Holyrood will never let him go,” I say, jumping in over John’s rejection as if he hasn’t even spoken. “You said that Holyrood will kill him for leaving.”

            “Blanche, I know what I’ve said, but—”

            “He made his decision.”

            John blinks, his lips parting and slamming shut like he can’t even quite process the words falling from my tongue. And then, as if he’s coming out of a daze, he rears backward and crashes into the sofa that he shoved out of the way not even thirty minutes ago. “What you’re implying . . .” His voice is guttural, pained. “No, little wolf. No.”

            “He could have bought a ticket and flew to the States. Even changed his name to become anyone but Henry Godwin, heir to Holyrood.” Pressing my fists to my thighs, I keep my tone strong and unbending. “He could have skipped out of London without a word and no way for anyone to contact him, but he left a letter, John. He left that damned letter like it was an invitation to track him down and put him out of his—”

            “Don’t say it.”

            “—misery.”

            I’m not sure if I feel more miserable thinking about Henry Godwin making such a hard decision—or witnessing the torment play out across John’s features. That damned tightening sensation returns with a vengeance, choking the oxygen from my lungs. In all ways that matter, Henry’s impending death ought to be my saving grace.

            Maybe then John might look at me and only me.

            Maybe then I would know the sort of love that’s always eluded me.

            Maybe then I would be wanted.

            But I’m not so unfeeling as all that. If I were, I would be able to stop imagining Godwin shopping for the perfect, silkiest duvet for his stone cottage in Keswick, hoping beyond all hope that John would one day come to lie upon it with him. If I were, I wouldn’t feel such heartache when I think of Godwin putting pen to paper and asking for a fortnight of freedom before Holyrood came for him. And if I were, I would look back on my wedding breakfast and feel only rage when I think of a pair of resentful green eyes bearing down on me . . . instead of only empathy and grudging admiration.

            It may have taken me a few days to piece together the Henry that cornered me on the day of my wedding and the Henry whom John loved, but once I made the connection, it seems impossible that I didn’t notice the agony twisting Godwin’s rugged features as he warned me that I would never be able to handle a man like the Prince of Wales.

            Godwin didn’t fear that I couldn’t handle John. No, he feared that I could.

            The truth is, I can.

            I want to.

            “We need to return to Henry’s flat in London,” I say suddenly, pushing to my feet and bustling around the cottage to gather our things. “We can’t rely on what you know of him, John. Not if we want to find him in time.”

            “Blanche.”

            “We’ve come at this from the entirely wrong angle.” I grab my handbag off the small table near the entryway and sling the strap over my shoulder. “Where would he go that his father would find him, but you never would?”

            “Blanche, look at me.”

            At the raw, plaintive note in John’s voice, I turn to find him standing near the fireplace, his right hand planted against the stone mantle like he needs the support to keep on his feet. His blue eyes glitter with an emotion I can’t pinpoint, and when his throat works with a visible swallow, I find myself gripping the strap of my handbag a little tighter.

            “Why?”

            It’s all he asks, all he says—why?

            But spoken in that rough, broken tone, he doesn’t need to bother with elaboration. I understand, implicitly. Why would I help track down his lover? Why would I upset the tenuous start to our marriage by searching for a man who might ruin it all for good? Finding Henry Godwin will shove me back into my gilded cage, and as the earl did for years, that cage will then be placed back in the shadows.

            My feathers will lose their luster.

            The warmth in my chest will grow cold and so still that I’ll be forced to wonder all over again if a heart can still beat when it’s made of stone.

            Why would I help my husband find the other half of his soul?

            “Because,” I answer quietly, blinking back tears, “once upon a time, a sixteen-year-old bodyguard became your very first friend. It’s clear that there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for you and nothing you wouldn’t do for him.” I inhale sharply, hoping to dispel the pressure building behind my nose. “You’re my husband, John, but you’re also . . .” Giving him a small, self-deprecating shrug, I let the stone around my heart crack open. “You’re my first friend. I may have little experience with friendships, and even less experience with love, but I do know this: I vowed that you are my own, and that all of me belongs to you. And I’ll give it to you, every bit of me, because until this moment, I had no idea how much I wished for someone to look at me as you are now.”

            Blue eyes flashing with emotion, he rasps, “How am I looking at you?”

            “Like I’m your Antinous,” I say, giving him a tremulous smile. “Like one day, it’ll be my love for you that you immortalize in the stars. Maybe, if you’re lucky, on that same day, I’ll stare up at the night sky and see only you.”

_____________

GAH. I am not okay, friends. My eyes are still leaking from this chapter and no matter how many times I try to pull myself together, I keep thinking of Henry and Blanche and John, and the silk thread that binds them all. It’s so fragile, so delicate—and yet, so beautiful that it hurts me.

I’ll have two chapters for you next week but this scene felt too poignant and I chose for it to stand alone. Love it? Hate me for making you feel all the things? Leave a comment below or share a post in BBA with a spoiler warning* note at the top!