My gaze snaps in his direction. His eyes are studying me, like he’s making sure that I’m whole. My pace eases. His expression is protective and impossibly gentle. It makes my throat tighten. I have to swallow before I can say, “I’m fine. Thank you for asking.”
Simon tempers his pace to match mine. He doesn’t speak again for a few seconds until he says, “The king was in high spirits today. Married life must suit him.”
“Maybe it suits him too well,” I mutter. “And that’s why he keeps getting married.”
Simon gives his head a small, disbelieving shake. “You speak of him with no fear. Do you have that much faith in him?”
His voice isn’t at all scared, yet he seems to think mine should be. I face ahead as I answer. “I don’t think Henry wants to hurt me. Not right now, in any case.”
Simon stops walking then. He keeps looking at me, and I wish he wouldn’t. His looking at me leads to my looking at him, and when I do that for too long, my mind wanders where it shouldn’t.
I’m grateful when he starts walking again, and I move beside him when he lowers his voice.
“This is a dangerous road we’re traveling down, Your Majesty.” His tone is thick. It feels hard to talk when I clear my throat and throw him a playful look.
“You mean this hallway?”
“No, not this hallway” he counters easily. “I mean the way I feel about you.”
My pulse jumps at his words. I slow my pace down again. I need to make this stroll last. “How do you feel about me?” I ask. I’m hyperaware of every sound, every footstep, every breath between us as I wait for his answer. When he speaks, he keeps his eyes forward.
“How honest would you like me to be?”
“Very honest,” I tell him.
Simon nods, inching the smallest bit closer to my side and dropping his voice again so no one can overhear. “Well then, very honestly, I feel as if there’s everyone else in the world, and then there’s us. And we belong more to each other than we do to anyone else.”
There’s a rush of heat to my cheeks and ears. We belong to each other. He belongs to me, and we haven’t even kissed. These Tudor guys don’t waste any time.
“And you think that’s dangerous?” I ask quietly.
Simon looks down at me, his gaze assured and unshaken. “I know that it is. But I’m accustomed to grave peril. Are you?”
I’m taken aback for a second. “You’re accustomed? Like, you’ve done this with queens before?”
Simon’s eyes widen in confusion. “What? No, I mean with jousting. I could die each time I joust.”
“Oh,” I answer quickly. “Sorry, I should have figured that.” With my jealous nerves quelled, I lean my head toward him subtly as we cross through a corridor. “What if I told you I wasn’t worth the risk?”
Simon moves closer to me, letting our arms touch. “Then I’d tell you that you were a liar.” A smile starts to spread across my face, and I have to bite my lip to keep it at bay as Simon goes on. “I don’t know how it happened or what changed, but I don’t want to go back to the way things were before. But if you want me to, I will. I think I’d do just about anything you asked me to—even if it’s staying away from you.”
We’re entering the king’s rooms now, just outside the Presence Chamber.
I cast a few quick glances around the room. We’re not alone, but no one is close enough to hear. My shoulders tense, but not from discomfort. I just know that our stolen moment it almost over, and whatever I say next needs to count.
I should think this through more. I should think long-term and endgame, but I don’t want to. Not now. “No,” I quickly tell him. “I don’t want you to stay away. I want the opposite.”
I murmur the words so quietly that for a second, I wonder if Simon’s heard me at all. But then I look at him. His eyes grow warmer. The muscles in his neck tighten. His controlled stillness has me lingering somewhere between exhilaration and panic. I want to do or say something, but I also want to keep watching at him as long as he’s willing to stand there. I could look at him for hours.
It’s just us now, despite everyone around us—like he said. It feels like I’ve taken a bite of something I shouldn’t have, and I already want more.
Just then, the doors swing open in front of us, and Archbishop Cranmer exits. Dressed in clerical vestments, he has a narrow nose and a dominant chin. His blue eyes seem too small for his face. He’s one of the king’s most loyal sycophants and I can’t tell if he loves or hates me.
“Your Majesty,” he says with a bow. “The king awaits your presence.”
I give him a small smile and a curtsy, walking into the Presence Chamber and looking back at Simon over my shoulder. His hands are pinned behind his back and his legs are tense, like he’s forcing himself to stay where he is as the doors close between us. They seal shut with aclick, and when I focus back forward, I realize what purpose the Presence Chamber serves. It’s Henry’s throne room.
Lavish tapestries adorn almost every wall. The gilded ceilings instantly draw the eyes up before they’re demanded back down by the formidable throne sitting front and center. It looks more eerie than it does powerful, and I don’t like being in here one bit.
