Page 76 of Fit for a King

She wound her arms around my neck and squeezed me tight, the years between us falling away as her love and warmth surrounded me, and it was exactly what I needed, the grounding presence I’d been looking for as my world spun out of my control.

When we finally pulled apart, she took my face between her hands and pulled me down to kiss my forehead.

“It’s so good to see you, my boy.”

“You too, Mum.”

She looked back at Nicholas, then whispered, “Are you sure you’re not in trouble?”

No, I thought. But she wasn’t asking about my personal life; she was talking about my professional one—although I guess they could almost be considered one and the same now.

“I’m not in trouble,” I assured her. “Nic— His Majesty surprised me just as much as you with this little detour.”

“Your father won’t believe it.”

“Is he home?”

“Yes. He’s in the sunroom.” She looked inside the house, grimacing as she realized she was about to host the King of Valoria in her tiny, run-down cottage.

“He’s not going to judge you, Mum. He’s not like that.”

She worried her lower lip, much the same way I did when I was worried over something, then looked back to Nicholas.

“Would you like some morning tea, Your Majesty?” She wiped her hands on her apron, and then gestured inside. “I could put on a quick pot, and I made some fresh scones this morning.”

Nicholas smiled, and my stomach fluttered. He was so handsome there in the sunlight smiling at my mother, and the fact that he’d gone out of his way to bring me home to visit with her made our horrid evening the night before vanish in the wake of her joy.

“I’d be delighted.”

She grinned like a schoolgirl as Nicholas approached. When we both stepped aside to let him enter, he stopped and gestured for us to go first.

“I insist,” he said.

His tone brooked no argument as we turned and headed inside. The cottage was made up of three rooms: the bedroom, the kitchen, and the sunroom. It was functional and small, and when the door closed behind Nicholas, it felt as though it shrank even more.

My mother twisted her hands over the skirts of her apron before spreading them out before her. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”

Nicholas looked around the tight space—a table pushed up against the window, a sink and basic one-burner stove sat side by side in the far corner, and, on the other side of the wall, the fireplace where Mum would’ve just finished baking her scones.

“It’s lovely,” Nicholas said, and I had to give him credit for sounding genuine when the room he was currently standing in was smaller than his royal chambers. “Can I help in any way?”

“Oh heavens, no.” Mum looked at me and gestured with her head toward the sunroom. “Noah, dear, why don’t you take His Majesty⁠—”

“Nicholas,” he gently interrupted. But even with the smile he aimed her way, there was no way on God’s green earth that she was ever going to call him that.

“Um, yes. Noah, take him to visit with your father. He’s going to be so pleased to see you both.”

I leaned in to kiss my mother’s cheek, then looked over to see Nicholas’s attention on the two of us. The expression on his face was one full of longing, and my heart broke for him as I remembered the fond way he spoke of his own mother.

It might have been years since I’d last seen my parents, but at least they were still here with me. Nicholas would never get another moment like this.

“It’s just through here,” I told him, stepping away from Mum.

Nicholas blinked me back into focus, then schooled his features as he followed me toward the small archway between the rooms. We had to duck slightly as to not hit our heads.

The sunroom doubled as a sitting room and greenhouse for my parents, giving them both a place to relax and also to putter about in. There were windows on all three sides of the space from roof to mid-wall, where my father had built a garden shelf around the perimeter.

They’d filled nearly every inch of the shelf with everything from trays of cooking herbs to bright, vibrant flowers and lush greenery. Plants hung from hooks in the roof with vines trailing down in two of the four corners. When we came to a stop just inside the transformed room, Nicholas leaned down and whispered by my ear, “They have their very own Winter Garden.”