“It has been my honour to serve you and teach you these past several moons,” he says. His voice is so gentle, his eyes so kind.
She leans forward and kisses him, her mouth open, her tongue reaching for his. He stiffens then pulls back with an “Oh” barely breathed. They stare at each other. His hands are curled into fists against his chest.
“I thought …” she begins. Tears spring to her eyes, and she does not know what hurts the most: his rejection, or the realisation of her foolishness. Kelaverinn stands, putting distance between them.
“You are a very kind queen, Your Majesty. I am a grateful teacher.”
“Do you not think me beautiful?” she says.
He pauses, and his eyes are full of pity. “I think myself old.”
The unsaid hangs between them:And I think you young. He does not use his wife as a shield. That smarts more than anything else – she cannot tell herself that he is merely faithful. He simply does not see her as a match.
He is saying more, but she does not hear anything else, her head and heart thumping. She scrambles to her feet and runs out of the room, and does not stop until she is in her bedchamber. The room is hexagonal, and but for the door, the windows and a single large mirror, it is all softness. Cushions, throws, rugs and curtains, all of them thick and warm, the kind of fabrics one wishes to lose oneself inside.
How dare he refuse her? She is beautiful, she knows she is. It is all she is, all she has.It is a good thing you’re pretty, her father had told her when she was twelve. Good, but not enough.
And now he is not only leaving her – she has ruined his impression of her. She cannot fathom why she kissed him. It is not even that he is terribly handsome. He was, in that moment, an echo of a dream.
Howard bangs a fist against the closed door. It feels good. She does it again and again, until her fists are sore. She reaches behind her back and loosens her bodice, pulling at the stiff front until she can breathe properly.
There is a mirror at one side of the room, wide and tall. Henry sometimes fucks her up against it, so he can feel as though he’s fucking two Howards at once. She stares at herself. Her cheeks are wet with tears. A droplet hangs from the tip of her nose. All she can think is:Henry will not like me. He will no longer think me beautiful.
She presses a hand against the mirror and stares at the place where real joins fiction. In the seam between the two, she sees the truth. She has spent her whole life wrapping a vision of herself for others, making a gift of her body and voice, until she had nothing left for herself. Andever since Boleyn rode into her life, she has been unwrapping the layers of tissue. So many layers, so much wrapping, so much concealment to entice, to seduce, to please please please please please please please please please …
Where is she?
CHAPTER FOUR
Cecilia
Cecilia wakes from her slumber with the suddenness of prey. Lorena is standing over her.
“They have found her,” Cecilia says.
Lorena nods. “The messenger arrived moments ago.”
The boy, Lorena’s brother, stirs on the other side of the bed and looks blearily at them, the moonlight glancing through the window and off his face in a way that makes him squint unbecomingly. His black, curled hair is messier than she’d ever allow in public. Cecilia throws off the coverlet and slides out of bed, walking naked to her clothes, which are pooled across the floor.
“Where?” she asks, as she pulls a linen shift over her head.
“They have traced her to the Fontis veh Noyt district. They have a string of doctrini surrounding her from a distance, and they’re awaiting your orders.”
“Good.”
Cecilia attempts to shrug her silk dress on, and gets stuck in the bodice. Lorena helps to tug it over her shoulders and lace up the back. That done, Cecilia takes Florin’s breaches and pulls them on, tucking the bottom of her dress into the waist.
“What are you doing?” he protests.
“I cannot very well go hunting through the city with a train, can I?”
“But what will I wear?”
“You can stay here until I return or make your way to your own room. It is not as if the servants haven’t seen you naked before,” Cecilia says. He grimaces, his boyish face even younger than usual.
“Don’t pout at me, or I’ll cut off your lips,” she says.
As she strides from the room, Lorena mutters something to her brother. Cecilia does not much care to know what it is – perhaps some pathetic attempt to stop him from coming to Cecilia’s bed again. As if Lorena could hold any sway over him. Cecilia is his drug. Even when his nubile body and heady stamina has grown tiresome and she has stopped calling for him, he will haunt her because the very thought of her haunts him. The inexperience of boys is outweighed by the power they freely give her.
