Ines’s lump grew bigger.What are you doing to me?he’d asked. Like he didn’t know. Like he didn’t want it. Like she’d caused him pain when she’d thought it was something good.
And the way he’d dismissed her…
Evelyne’s expression went back to concern, she reached out and took Ines’s arm and led her to the couch, then nudged her into a sitting position. Evelyne lowered herself next to Ines.
“What is it?” she asked.
Ines shook her head. “I—I’m not even sure I know. It wasn’t a fight.” Because it wasn’t. She hadn’t fought back. Alex had reacted, and she had gone away like he’d ordered.
Just like she’d always done. Obeyed. She couldn’t even be mad at herself though, because her heart felt bruised. Because he was scared and hurting, and Ines couldn’tunderstand. And God knew he’d never tell her, but Evelyne…
Ines studied her sister-in-law. A woman who had grown up in this palace, with Alexandre her protector from their awful father. A woman who had fallen in love, married, had a child despite all that.
Evelyne wasn’thurtby Gabriel loving her. She’dfoughtfor it. For him. It wasn’t the same, but she’d grown up with Alex. Maybe she could make sense of this for Ines.
“Evelyne…” Ines knew Evelyne’s loyalty would always be to Alexandre, but this wasn’t about getting Evelyne on her side. It was about…understanding. She studied her sister-in-law’s face. “Did it ever scare you to love Gabriel?”
Evelyne took a deep breath as if thinking that question through very carefully. “I suppose it did a little, but that wasn’t really the predominant feeling. It was more relief. That love could exist.” Her eyebrows drew together as she studied Ines’s face. “What’s going on, Ines?” she asked gently.
It was private. Alex would probably want this to remain private. Or at least rather that she discuss it with Jonet, not hissister. But Evelyne had to havesomeinsight, didn’t she? She knew her brother. She was married.
“I told Alex that I loved him, more or less. He did not react…well.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right person,” Evelyne said with a brightness that didn’t quite read as genuine. “You should have seen Gabriel’s horror at me loving him in the beginning.”
Ines wanted to smile. It had worked out for Evelyne, but this was different. It wasn’t fear, it was something deeper. Something more substantial. Hurt.Hurtto be loved? It made no sense.
“I don’t understand why it would…hurt him so. Gabriel was not hurt that you loved him. He was afraid. Of himself. I think I could understand that in Alexandre, but this ishurt. You were not hurt by Gabriel finally admitting he loved you.”
“No,” Evelyne agreed. “But Alexandre and I are not the same. Never have been. Both in personality and in how we were raised. As much as I love him, I don’t understand…the deeper level he keeps hidden.”
“But you were raised by the same man, in the same place. You were both hurt by your father.”
“Yes, but our lives were not the same. Frombirth. Starting out, he had five years with our mother. He remembers her. He won’t talk about her much, except in vague, glowing terms, but that means he remembers her enough that ithurtshim to. I know she can’t be quite the saint Alexandre makes her out to be when hedoesmention her, but she was a good person, other people have told me that. So Alexandre had that mother’s love and then lost it. That’s different than never having it.”
Ines supposed that was true. Not that one was easier or better, just that it would mark you differently. And he was marked by the way his mother had died, even if he didn’t acknowledge that. Everything she had today was because he’d been so worried about Evelyne he’d lost control all those months ago.
“The thing is, Alexandre was the boy, the heir. I was…” Evelyne shrugged. “I’m not really sure what I was to my father, but it was different for Alexandre. And I think, looking back, Alex made sure I didn’t know the depths of that difference. He never let on that my father might be harder on him than he was on me. Alex always wanted me to…”
Ines waited, but Evelyne was clearly struggling with what to say. Ines didn’t think it was out of loyalty, though, so she waited.
“I don’t know how to articulate this as well as I’d like, Ines, but I think he feels like, sometimes, we deserved the way Father treated us. Like weshouldbe punished for something. I don’t think it’s aconsciousthought. More like being brainwashed by Father. He knows Father was awful, wants to benothinglike him, but his mind was still affected by the things Father would have told him, taught him.”
Ines pressed a hand to her chest where an ache centered, spread. “I can see that,” she managed to say, without even crying, though it was a hard-won thing. Alex held so much on his shoulders. So muchresponsibility. That no doubt stemmed from some kind of guilt the horrible king had instilled on him.
Because she knew Alex had not loved or respected his father in any capacity. That he’d dedicated his life to being different, to changing Alis for the better was clear in everything he did. She’d assumed that meant that he’d rejected everything from King Enzo.
But maybe there were deeper wounds he didn’t know how to reject. Still, Ines could not figure out how that could connect to her loving him being such ablow.
“That doesn’t explain why me loving him would be something thathurthim though. Shouldn’t it be something…positive? Even if he didn’t feel the same. Love is a good thing.”
Evelyne nodded. “I’m not sure I could explain it. I’m not sure Iknow. What I do know is that anything positive, loving anything or anyone in this palace, would have only ever made him a target to my father. Perhaps it’s an old echo of that. Fear that it will be taken away?”
Ines sighed. It didn’t seem that straightforward. That sensible. But maybe Evelyne knew better than she did.
“The thing is, I only ever saw Alexandre handle Father expertly. He knew how to calm him, distract him, sometimes even stop him. But that had to have come from a place of… By the time I was old enough to be truly aware of things, Alexandre was a pro at handling Father. But he wasn’t born a pro, I can’t imagine. Perhaps our mother taught him. Perhaps he learned all on his own.”
The hard way, no doubt. Because Ines knew from her months of being married to Alex before King Enzo had died that Alex did not agree with Ines’s assessment. He did not think he was aproat handling Enzo. He had felt like he was always just barely hanging on, just barely escaping disaster for himself and everyone around him.
