The Prince's Bride

Chapter Fourteen

He would say it very quickly. An overview. The bits that provided an overview.

They were ten minutes from the edge of the wood. He could devote five to his history and use the remaining five to tell her again about the money and his letter for Elise. Five minutes to say it would be sufficient. He owed her nothing more than general motivations for his life’s choices. After that, they’d part ways. She could form her opinion and remember him accordingly. She could report to his sister that he was a man living life on his own terms. Or not. Whatever she wanted. It wouldn’t matter. She would be gone.

She glanced to him, eyebrows raised, waiting. He’d seen that expression before. Expectant; almost hopeful. A stab of something sharp and uncomfortable pierced his heart. He fixed his eyes on the trail ahead. He lifted his hat and then reseated it. He gripped the reins.

“My life and the challenges I face are...” he began “...they’re no greater than what you face.”

“Well, let us not make it a contest.”

He closed his eyes and snorted. She was clever. She was clever and generous and she had a serene, steady quality. She was like cool shade on a hot day. He wanted to nudge his horse closer and bask in it. He wanted to unseat her and settle her in his lap. He wanted to turn their horses around and take her back to his camp and keep her.

And now he was thinking like the reclusive, forest dweller. Which he was, honestly, so what did it matter? He cleared his throat.

“I was ten years old when my sisters and I were taken into hiding in England,” he said. “Elise was taken by a nun. I was taken by a soldier. I cannot say what happened to our baby sister, Danielle. According to Elise’s letters, no one will tell her where Dani was taken or by whom. This is another example of the control exerted over anyone with royal blood. The location of an exiled baby has been concealed. And for what? Sometimes, we’re controlled by what is said; other times, we’re controlled by what is not said.”

“Control exerted by whom?” she asked gently.

“Family. Loyalists. Advisors. Counselors. Tradition. History. Allies. Enemies. Anyone with a stake in power.”

“Your bitterness and frustration are justified,” she said, “but your change of heart is fascinating to me. When we were children, you seemed so very proud of your title. You seemed in awe of your father.”

“Forest life afforded me ample time to read, and I became a student of history and government and philosophy. And I witnessed the brutal execution of that father. Even at my young age, I knew his only crime was being a prince. Our family was torn apart—never to be restored. Danielle was not three years old when she entered exile. She’s been lost to us since then.”

“Your sister was very young, indeed,” said Ryan, “but you were hardly grown. To be taken from your family at the age of ten? You were a child.”

He shrugged his shoulders. Must he say what happened, and how it shaped his views, and also how it made him feel?

“This had to be the same year your family visited us at Winscombe,” she said. “You were ten and I was nine when we—when I last saw you. My memory of it is patchy, but I remember.”

“Aye,” he said. “We visited Guernsey in the summer. The Revolution would not rage out of control until late autumn.”

“I know you were old enough to remember meeting me and to write letters. We’d already begun to correspond, hadn’t we? You were old enough to forge our friendship, to know royal protocol, but not old enough to survive in the larger world alone.”

“Well, here I am,” he said. “Some version of me has survived.”

“How?” she said softly. “How did you survive?”

Another exhale. “I was ferried to England, obviously. The soldier who volunteered to steal me out of France delivered me to a small regional boys’ school in Marlborough, not far from here, actually. The school’s headmaster harbored me as an asylum seeker—he and his wife took me in.”

“Oh no, Gabriel—not a school for boys. The stories I’ve heard about boys’ schools—the abuse and neglect and bullying? I can’t imagine going from a palace to a boys’ school in rural England.”

“It was the best circumstance for exile, honestly. You’re correct, it could’ve been wretched, but the headmaster was a kind man, and his wife—who was French, and responsible for taking me in—was lovely. They had four children who were happy to share their parents. I was a student at the school; given a new name and said to be an immigrant from Flanders. At holidays and breaks, the headmaster’s family included me in their celebrations. The setting of the school allowed me to continue my studies, and the headmaster’s family meant I was not quite so alone. The other boys were curious but friendly. It was different than the Palais Royale, obviously; but there were no angry mobs and no executions. My final days in France... the imprisonment, the execution of my father? These put me off of palaces for good.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“We’re almost to Pewsey,” he said, changing the subject. “Are you fit to walk after an hour in the saddle?”

“Oh yes, I am well. But will you say the rest of your history? Before I go?”

“About France?”

“Well, no. Although, I’m happy to discuss your life in France. I was wondering about the school for boys. If you were fond of it, how did you wind up in the forest?”

He thought of the school, thought of his friends. For a moment, he could not speak.

She must have seen his struggle because she added, “Or can you tell me what became of your sister Elise? Did she pass exile in England in a girls’ school?”

He took a deep breath. This, he could answer. “Elise was not so fortunate in exile. She was neglected, or shall I say, she was ‘endured’ by her hosts. In a way, she was a prisoner.”

“Held prisoner, oh dear,” said Lady Ryan. “But where?”

“St. James’s Palace.”

“St. James’s? But do you mean with King George and Queen Charlotte?”

“Yes.” He sighed, thinking of what his sister had described in her letters.

Ryan made a whistling noise. “Who could guess that a rural school for boys would be better than the home of the king? But who designed your exile?”

He shook his head. “We know very little about who arranged it or why. Before he was executed, my father told us that royalist sympathizers were plotting to rescue and steal us away. He said we would enter exile in another country and be safe. He told us to be ready, that they could come at any moment. He did not tell us where, or how, or how long. It’s been nearly twenty years, and Elise has received very little explanation. I’ve vanished so they can hardly inform me. And we’ve no notion of what became of our sister, Danielle. I would not have made the connection with Elise, except she searched tirelessly for me. She searches for Dani still.”

“She searched tirelessly for you?” whispered Ryan.

“She looked for me, and she found me—or rather, she found the general location where I reside—and now we correspond. I’ve not been prepared to meet her, but we do write.”

Ryan said nothing, and he braced for her to press him. He knew his estrangement from Elise was odd and unjustified, but theirs was not a conventional family.

“So what happened?” she finally said. “How did you go from the boy’s school to the forest?”

He took a deep breath. “The short answer? A fire. The school was burned to the ground. The dormitory, the cottage that housed the headmaster and his family, the lecture halls, the stables. All of it.”

“No,” breathed Ryan. “Was anyone harmed?”

“No one died,” he said, determined to rush through this bit. “That is, so far as I know, no one died. After the fire, I left my host family for the woods and we have lost touch. They moved to Yorkshire and I fled to Savernake Forest. I’ve been here ever since.”

“The fire was so very devastating,” she guessed. “It was the last straw. After the trauma of the Revolution?”

“The trauma of being hunted and hounded was the last straw,” he corrected.

“What?”

“The fire that burned the school was set because of me. I was the reason for it. Seventy-five boys, countless teachers, the headmaster and his young family, staff, the livestock. All of us could have burned alive. All because the school harbored an exiled French prince. And that says nothing of the danger to the other families on the street if the fire had not been contained.”

“But what do you mean it was because of you?”

“I mean that—although I’d managed some semblance of a normal life at school—I was never fully at peace. Instead, I was constantly, maliciously, hunted. Sought by spies, and revolutionaries, and soldiers, and mercenaries. From the day I fled France, some party or faction have wanted me—a male grandson of the former king; nephew to the most recent king—captured, extradited, or dead; all three if it could be managed. They’ve wanted me so urgently, they dispatched agents to track me. I can only assume they would’ve tracked me to the ends of the earth. The headmaster and his wife were shocked that these spies and mercenaries found me so very deep within the English countryside—but they did. And eventually they burned a school to flush me out.”

“But are you certain?” she asked, sounding appalled. “This is terrible, Gabriel. I’m horrified for you—for all of you.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m certain. My life reads like a very bad, very improbable novel, but I assure you, it’s all happened. Before the fire, there were repeated harassments from men hired to hunt me down and capture me. There’d been failed break-ins to the school. Mercenaries turned up in our high street and waded into groups of classmates, scattering boys as they searched for a missing prince. They threatened local shopkeepers for information about a French orphan. The headmaster’s wife was frequently followed to the market. The carriage of my best friend was attacked after his parents collected him for holiday. The school and the boys were constantly surveilled, frequently harassed. The headmaster and his wife were, God love them, determined that I should have a normal life. They brought in dogs; they begged shopkeepers not to answer questions from strangers; they even hired a boxing instructor and taught all of us boys to fight.

“I survived only out of luck,” he said. “And also because the spies never knew exactly where to look or which boy I might be. And my classmates were very loyal. For more than a year, I hid in plain sight. And then, they set fire to the school.”

He hadn’t meant to say more than that. The edge of the forest was around the next bend. Still, once the story began to pour from him, he couldn’t seem to stop.

“They blocked the dormitory entrances after bedtime,” he told her. “Can you believe it?”

“No,” she said quietly. “I cannot believe it.”

“They blocked the entrances and set the building on fire. Only one door remained unlocked, and their plan had been to force us out that door so they might search the face of every boy. It was a shite plan—all of the mercenaries who came for me were sloppy—but this represented a new level of danger. But I knew, even as a boy, that I could ignore it no longer. The fire itself was fast-moving and voracious. Within minutes, it had become an inferno; a petrifying, hot, blinding monster. If you’ve never seen a building catch fire, it truly looks like hell come to earth. The outline of the structure is visible, but its shape is made of fire. Flames shoot upward to the sky. Meanwhile, the inside of the building becomes translucent, so you can see through the walls. It’s this skeletal framework that rapidly dissolves into a living furnace. All the while, chaos reigns. People were frantic, trying to save the surrounding buildings; trying to account for the missing; trying to reckon with the loss of their every possession.

“I remember looking around at my classmates, standing barefoot in the snow. I heard the cries of the livestock, stampeding in terror. For a terrible quarter hour, the schoolmaster’s baby daughter was lost in the confusion, and his wife was inconsolable, sobbing in the middle of the street. The child was later found, but she could have easily been killed.”

He took a deep breath. “And you’ll have to remember, this was not my first trip around the sun. I knew the escalating nature of bloodlust. The week leading up to my father’s beheading was...” He shook his head. This he would not discuss.

He finished, “I knew that the only safe thing was to remove myself from the school, from Marlborough, from society. And so I did. The forest was not far from the school—close enough that my classmates and I had trooped through the trails and swum in the streams. The great expanse of it was not known to me, but I was familiar with the first mile or so.”

“And so they simply let you go? The headmaster? Your teachers? A boy of eleven was allowed to make his life in the forest?”

“I ran away,” he said. “That same night, I ran. The schoolmaster was busy looking after his family and finding temporary lodging for the boys. I scribbled out a note and shoved it at a teacher. Then I walked to the forest, sought out the darkest, windiest, most formidable path, and threw myself down it, running as fast as I could. I had no destination in mind, no plan for survival; I wanted only to remove myself from the men who hunted me so that my classmates and host family would be left in peace.”

“But how did you survive?” she asked.

“Samuel Rein,” he said. This part of the story was easier to tell. His chest loosened. He could breathe again. “Samuel Rein discovered me—or actually, it was his dogs. I’d passed out beneath the upturned roots of a felled tree. I was hungry and cold and rather belligerent, but he coaxed me to his camp; he clothed me, fed me, gave me time and solitude. And then, he suggested I stay on, just for a while. He was a widower with twin sons. The boys had only rudimentary schooling, and he wanted them to learn to read and write. I told him that I was a danger to him and his children, that I was hunted, that no one was safe in my company—he laughed. He actually laughed. I was offended, of course, but then he showed me how very hidden they were—how far from Pewsey; farther still to Marlborough. No roads, not even a trail. Also he was a giant bear of a man. Formidable looking. It would take a very large ransom for any mercenary to take on a man like Samuel Rein.”

“And you considered it. You said yes,” she guessed.

“Do you know what convinced me? At least in those early days? The animals. I’d always had a deep love of horses, and I could not resist the promise of riding every day, of learning how he healed wounded animals. He saw my indecision and offered a trade. If I would teach his boys to read and write, he would teach me to break horses. It was meant to be temporary; but a fortnight turned into a month, a month turned into the spring. And then I found myself living among them in the camp like a member of his family. It was...” he breathed in and out “...a saving grace for me. I would be dead if not for him, I’m certain of it.”

“And your fear about bringing danger to his doorstep? You were able to release this?”

“Well, I do feel safe in the forest, obviously. I also felt safe with Samuel, as I’ve said. His boys were vulnerable but he was teaching them to be woodsmen and horsemen and fighters—he was teaching all of us to be resourceful. And there were no women in camp. The image of the schoolmaster’s wife, sobbing in the road during the fire? The thought of her baby burned alive? I was so very haunted by these. With just the four of us living rudimentary lives, our existence felt inconsequential. No, that’s not true. It felt profound and of no consequence at the same time. But what mattered was, I felt far less afraid.”

“And that is when you wrote me for the last time. The letter that led me to you here.”

“Yes.” He sighed. “My final princely act. I hadn’t written from the school because it did not feel safe. The forest felt more secure, I suppose. I wanted you to know that I was ‘out there’ somewhere. I wanted to tell you goodbye. It was foolish, I—”

“It was a very great relief to me,” she cut in. “That letter. I read it a hundred times. I prayed for you. When Maurice came, it was my first thought. I hope you don’t regret sending it to me.”

Gabriel thought of this. “No,” he finally said. “I don’t regret it.”

After a silence, Ryan said, “You mentioned that Samuel Rein was a widower?”

“Yes. His wife died of a fever,” he said. “Sadly. It was why he moved to the forest. Grief. Also too much interference from relatives about how to raise his boys. Samuel had grown up in Savernake Forest. When he lost his wife, he returned to it.”

“Did he ever leave the shelter of the wood, or did he seclude himself like you?”

“It was his strong preference to never leave, but he was compelled to attend market days in surrounding towns to meet with clients. Once or twice a year, he traveled to Newmarket. But these were very quick, very detached forays into society. He made camp in whatever wood was nearby—he never lodged in an inn. Outside craftsmen were hired only as necessary for essentials that couldn’t be made by his own hand.”

“So resourceful,” she marveled.

“Yes. He would consider my current lists of store-bought ‘necessities’ to be very extravagant, indeed. ‘Indulgences,’ he would call them.”

She chuckled. “Like what?”

He glanced at her. When she smiled, her face was so very pretty, it made his chest ache. He looked away. “Sweets, for one. Newspapers from London and Paris. Proper linens and down pillows. Clothing I don’t have to sew by hand. New hats and gloves when the leather wears thin.”

“Oh yes, indulgences, indeed,” she laughed. “But Gabriel, is there truly a lingering threat? Even now? The Revolution in France has been over for more than ten years. As I mentioned, Maurice believes the monarchy may be restored in France. We think this is one of the reasons he’s so covetous of Winscombe. He needs money if he is to reclaim his position in court.”

“The Prince d’Orleans,” Gabriel said, “whomever he is—be it me, my cousin Maurice, whomever—is a potential challenger for the French throne. My guess is, he doesn’t want a position in court, he wants to be king—head of the court himself, head of everything. He always harbored delusions of grandeur.”

“But is that possible?” she gasped. “Could the Prince d’Orleans ascend to the throne if France restores a monarchy?”

“If the monarchy returns to France, my uncle Louis-Stanislas should be king—in theory. However, the Orleans branch of the family could challenge him for it. I know this because my sister has been harassed by the courtiers of our uncle in recent years. The school that burned? That was most likely done by revolutionaries. Ten years on, there are fewer of those zealots running about, but loyalists have taken over where they left off. Someone is always hunting an exiled prince.”

“What do you mean, they harassed your sister?” she asked.

“They’ve hounded Elise for my location; but her husband is rather forceful and he’s put a stop to it. Luckily she doesn’t know exactly where I am. She couldn’t tell them, even if they reached her.”

“But if your uncle’s men found you,” she asked, “could you simply tell them—now as a grown man—that you have no aspirations to the French throne, that you simply wish to be left alone? Are you still so vulnerable?”

And this, Gabriel knew, was the crux of the matter. The line between life-and-death solitude and preferred solitude was as thin as the leaf of a fern. Did he simply want to be left alone? He wasn’t afraid of the outside world, but he would always be afraid for the safety of Elise and her family—even for Lady Ryan, if she left here bandying about his name and title. Furthermore, the customs and crowds and chaos of society repulsed him. He knew himself to be wholly unprepared to return, and he had no notion of how to condition for that sort of thing. The mere thought of it made his shoulders ache, and his chest tight, and his palms sweat.

Lady Ryan was gracious about his life in the wood, but to most people, he would be a spectacle. He wanted no part of their judgment. And that said nothing of the filth and soot, the noise, the buildings that blotted the sun, the rivers that teemed with offal and the runoff of latrines, the clocks that counted off hours of the day so no moment was wasted?

Worst of all would be the loss of his freedom. From anonymous woodsman to obligated prince. He could not.

“I don’t want to defend my solitude, Lady Ryan,” he said. “It’s best for everyone that I’m believed dead. I’m loyal only to myself. It’s safer that way. For everyone. I’m—” He glanced at her and then away.

“I’m sorry I cannot help you,” he finished. “I’m sorry I’m passing you off to Elise and Killian Crewes, her husband; but I pray they can help you. And I pray you can forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” she said. She flashed him a genuine smile. “I understand everything you’ve said and I don’t fault you. How could I? You’ve endured so very much, and you’ve carved out a life that is safe and fulfilled. You deserve this peace, Gabriel. I want nothing less for you.”

Her words were sweet and sincere but instead of absolving him, his stomach twisted into a knot. He was angry at himself, angry at his cousin, angry at the plague of being born a prince.

“Stop—please,” he breathed.

“Stop... riding?” she asked.

“Stop talking.”

“Alright. I wasn’t actually speaking at the moment but alright.”

“Enough has been said.”

“I understand, Gabriel.”

“The trail to the village of Pewsey is just there.” He pointed through a screen of saplings at a clearing, splashed yellow with sun. “You’ll turn right beyond the tree line and see a small brook with a little bridge. Cross the bridge and follow the path to the stone fence. There’s a gate to the left. Through it, you’ll find the main road into town. It becomes the high street within a quarter mile. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Yes, I understand.”

“I’m sorry I cannot go closer. I’m sorry I—”

He stopped and closed his eyes again. He sighed. “You should be perfectly safe. It won’t take ten minutes to reach the inn from here. You’re sure you understand?”

“Oh yes. It’s perfectly clear.”

He nodded and forced himself to think of everything she needed to know about the money and the letter. If he focused on these logistics, he would not think of letting her go. He reached into his coat for the packet. She shifted in the saddle beside him, preparing to dismount.

“Wait,” he said. “Let me help you.”

He swung from his horse and tethered him to a tree. Striding to her, he reached up. His hands closed around her waist and he had the errant thought: I’ll not touch her again. I’ll not lie with her again. I’ll not hear the sound of her voice, ever again.

She laughed a little when he lifted her. It was a delighted, heartbreaking little trill, and he marveled that she could find joy despite everything she faced. Shouldn’t she be jerking from him and stomping through the trees, shouting thank you for absolutely no help at all?

When she had her footing, he tipped his head down, unable to resist a final look at her pretty face. His hands gripped her waist. He could smell her. The wind tussled her hair. Her smile went a little off. Her lips were turned up, but her eyes grew very bright. She blinked. She crinkled her nose.

“Sorry,” she whispered, lowering her eyes. When she looked up again, her eyelashes were wet. She was crying.

Gabriel frowned and tugged off his gloves. “What’s happened? Why are you crying?”

“May I ask you a different sort of question? Before I go?”

“Alright.” His heart was pounding.

“My letters,” she said. “Why did you keep them? All this time, from France to the school, from the fire to your camp?”

“Oh,” he said. It was the last thing he’d expected. He wasn’t sure how to answer. “Will you stop crying if I tell you?”

“I’m not crying.”

He smiled. He took a deep breath. “I cannot say why I kept them except... I wanted them? For one thing, I suppose I felt duty bound. Believe it or not, but I was quite invested in being a prince, once upon a time. And my father had compelled me to carry on like a member of the royal family, even in exile. I was too young to know how to embody that, except to remember my commitments. And the most outstanding commitment in my life was my betrothal to you.

“Secondly, I was fond of you, Lady Ryan.” He smiled, thinking of the boy he’d been. “We’d met twice, and on both occasions, I’d been impressed at how not-awful you were. Even though you were a girl. And English. Our correspondence began, and your letters... in a way... delighted me.” He gave a shrug. “When the time came for me to escape the mobs, I simply grabbed them up. And I haven’t been able to let them go.”

Now she let out a little whimper and dropped her face into her hands.

“You’re still crying,” he observed.

“Because I will miss you,” she said simply, looking up. “And because our history has broken my heart. Ignore me. Please.”

“Don’t, Ryan. Please.”

“Will you kiss me once more, Gabriel?” she whispered.

“What?”

“I would not ask except... what could it possibly matter now, if we mean to say goodbye?”

“You’re killing me.”

“If we part ways, I needn’t worry about how I may seem, or how out-of-character I may behave, how bold or how brazen. It won’t matter, will it, after you’ve gone?”

“You cannot want this,” he whispered, his heart racing. He’d felt heavy and tired, revealing these truths to her. Now his body lurched to life.

She bit her lip. “Oh yes. Yes, I do want it.”

He should’ve challenged this; he should’ve asked her again if she was certain. He should’ve bowed over her hand, kissed her knuckles, and stalked to his horse.

Instead, he locked his mouth over hers with a force so strong, she tipped backward. He caught her with a hand between her shoulders and another behind her neck and leaned over her, holding her at a slant. True to her request, she didn’t pull away, she clung to his biceps, pinning herself to him and kissing him as if she would perish if she did not.

Gabriel showed no restraint. He kissed her until he had no breath. When, finally, he raised his head to gasp for air, Ryan scrambled forward, burying her face in his neck, nuzzling his beard, breathing him in.

Gabriel returned for more, pulling her upright and walking her backward. He hustled them beyond Fleur, beyond Anton, and backed her into a fat sycamore. He pressed her against the peeling bark and aligned his body against her, using the leverage of the tree to press against her, kissing her all the while. With one hand, he felt his way down her side and cupped her bottom, tilting her hips into his need. With the other, he gripped the back of her neck, raising her face up to him.

“Ryan,” he breathed, coming up again for air.

“I am here,” she whispered, gathering the lapel of his coat in greedy hands.

He glanced down. Her eyes were closed, her mouth parted, her face flushed. He’d never seen anything as beautiful. He had no idea how he’d managed the restraint not to make love to her last night. He wanted to hear her laugh, he wanted to bask in her attention, he wanted to earn her forgiveness, he wanted her.

“I’m sorry,” he said simply. She’d come here offering many of these things, possibly all of them, and he’d refused them.

She didn’t answer. She kissed him again. She kissed deeply and frantically, and he wondered if she felt the same urgency he felt; the desperation and hunger? He was out of words for his desire. She was like a missing piece of himself he’d not known he’d been searching for his whole life.

And then, without warning, she turned her head to the side, she gasped in and out, and she allowed her hands to fall from his coat.

Gabriel pulled back, studying her, memorizing her. Her tears had stopped. She was neither laughing nor frowning. She was simply looking through the trees in the direction of the clearing.

Releasing her felt like hollowing out a piece of his chest with a knife. He reminded himself that she was only doing what he’d asked. It was what he wanted and what he didn’t, in the same terrible moment.

“Do you have the letter?” she asked, still breathing hard.

“What?”

“The letter, Gabriel. For your sister Princess Elise.”

With a final squeeze of her hips, he let her go. He took a step back. His hat had fallen and he stooped to get it. He wiped his mouth. “Yes. I have it. And the money. Pay for the horse stolen by Meade. Hire a carriage to take you to Mayapple. Do you remember the way to the high street? Shall I tell you again?”

She shook her head and rolled off the tree. She staggered a little, smoothing her cloak over her shoulders.

“Can you manage?”

“Yes. I can manage.”

“Here,” he said, handing her the packet of money and the letter.

She nodded and extended a trembling hand.

“Goodbye, Gabriel,” she said, taking two steps back.

Wait, he thought. Not yet. Not this second. Not—

But she took another step. And another step. And then was walking away, winding through the trees. She slid a hand along the neck of the mare when she passed. She did not look back.