He walks off after another bow. I turn to look back in the room, holding Catherine’s story tight in my fingers before I gracelessly shove it into my sleeve.
Matthias is gone, and I’m well and truly on my own. No magical ritual is going to send me home. Not even a charismatic, semi-drunk astrologer is here to help me. History is out for blood and my head, and if our plan doesn’t work, then I might already be too late.
When I get back to my rooms, I’m optimistic that I can keep my spirits up, until I see the nervous look on Lady Rochford’s waiting face.
“What’s the matter?” I ask her.
“There’s something I need to tell you, Catherine.” She takes a tentative step toward me, then stops herself. “I sent a messenger to London to make contact with Simon this morning, but it seems that he never arrived.”
I look at her blankly. I try to tilt my head in question, but I’m suddenly unable to move. “What do you mean?”
She clasps her hands together in front of her, never veering from my gaze. “I mean that Simon is missing.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lady Rochford suggested that I sleep in her room tonight. She could feel my anxiety surging and thought I could do with the company. She wasn’t wrong.
Sitting on her bed now as she walks Theo, I find myself in a constant state of waiting. Waiting to see if Henry comes to find me. Waiting to hear the sound of armed men coming to drag me away. Waiting to hear news that Simon is dead or imprisoned or that he fled the country after I told him who I really was.
The waiting game is a strange sport. I’m in control of my own mind but not my fate, and it’s such a hard truth to reconcile. I try to concentrate on my breathing instead. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight, over and over and over.
My knees are hunched to my chest as I sit in the middle of the bed when the bedchamber door creaks open. I turn my head to look, expecting to see Lady Rochford, but Simon walks in instead.
But it can’t really be him, can it? My imagination is playing tricks on me.
“Simon?” I whisper.
He locks the door behind him and slowly begins to cross the room. I get up from the bed in an instant, walking barefoot across the floor to meet him halfway. I can see him and smell him and feel him, placing my hand on his chest.
“What are you doing here? No one knew where you were.”
“Lady Rochford invited me in. Do you mind it?”
I nervously shake my head. “No. But why did you come back?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“But Henry—I think he knows about us. He looked at my bracelet like he knew. What if he comes looking for you?”
“No one knows that I came back. No one knows where I am, actually.”
He brings his hand up to cover mine, and I feel the thrumming of his heart beneath the pads of my fingers.
“I thought with what I told you before you left, and with Henry coming home, you’d want to be as far away from me as you could get. I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”
Simon smiles—a peaceful one. “Why would I ever want to leave where you are?”
His words wrap around me like the fuzziest sweater after being out in the cold. I wonder how much he knows about what’s going on now. If he has any idea of what might be waiting for us.
“How much did Lady Rochford tell you?” I ask him.
He holds my hand tighter against him. “She told me everything, including the king’s suspicions of me.”
“How can you be here if you know? Why don’t you hate me? Didn’t she tell you that I ruined your life?” I try to pull my hand away from him, but he won’t let go. “What if I was supposed to save Catherine? What if I was supposed to save everyone and I failed? What if I didn’t change anything?”
“You changed everything for me.”
I pull again, but to no avail. My hand stays pinned to his chest. I never should have let this happen. I was too comfortable. Too confident. With our every conversation, every touch, every kiss, I endangered him. I knew from the beginning that Catherine’s life could be cut short, and Itook Simon along for the ride. I should have stayed away from him. If I really cared about him, I would have. Nowthisis where we are.
