Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
I am about to ask again about the crew when Henry sighs and sets his glass down. “I think it’s time you know the truth.”
My stomach clenches.
“It’s something I never intended to tell you. But the time has come when I can no longer deny what I know to be true. I owe it to my realm and to my people.”
I blink at him and pick up my own glass, because I’m starting to think he was right about needing wine to get through this conversation. I don’t say a word, and instead bring the glass to my lips and drink deeply.
What I wouldn’t give for Captain Sharpe’s port right about now. Or his arms around me…
“Christopher-Henry,” the king says, his voice oddly stern.
I take a second longer than I should to lower the glass, lick my lips, and set it down again.
“Did something happen to my father?” I ask, and I cannot account for the strain in my voice or the tightness in my chest at the thought.
My father, for all intents and purposes, despises me.
And yet, after losing the crew, the thought of losing him and being truly and utterly alone in the world is too much to bear.
“No, Christopher-Henry. Viscount Falmouth is fine. He’s on his way here now, with his wife and their two children.”
I finally force myself to look at Henry. What does he mean by speaking of my family as if they are strangers to me? I swallow hard, trying desperately to work out where this conversation is going, while at the same time knowing deep down exactly what he’s going to say.
I don’t want to hear it.
“Elizabeth’s new baby?”
“A girl,” Henry says.
I can’t quite decipher how I feel about that. On one hand, it means I am still the heir to Falmouth. On the other, it means I am still stuck being the heir to Falmouth. “I see.”
“Christopher-Henry… I told you once before that I remember your mother,” he says, and reaches into the pocket of his waistcoat to pull out a small, round object wrapped in a faded scrap of blue and silver silk.
I stare at the design on it, the familiar lattice of small peaks, like rounded honeycomb in a pointed teardrop shape.
It’s so reminiscent of the bolts of silk from the marketplace at Nassau that for a moment I forget how to breathe.
“That was hers?” I ask without thinking.
He’s a little startled, but then he looks down at the silk and nods. “Ah… yes, this was hers,” he says. He leans forward and holds the small parcel out to me. “I’ve held on to it all these years.”
I reach for the parcel and am more than a little horrified when King Henry wraps his hands around mine after placing the silk bundle into my palm. He squeezes my hand gently, then releases me.
I sit back as if burned, breathless and shaken by the brief moment of contact.
I am not used to being touched so purposefully by someone who isn’t trying to bed me or dress me.
I swallow hard and stare down at the parcel in my hands.
The silk is soft and worn, and somehow, as I stare down at it, tiny dots of moisture appear on its surface, darkening the blue to indigo.
I sniff and blink a few times, then finally reach up to wipe the tears from my cheeks.
“She was a rare beauty,” Henry says as he watches me slowly unwrap the small bundle. “I’ve never seen her match.”
Inside the scrap of silk is a tarnished brass oval with a black velvet backing.
I brush my trembling fingers over the velvet as I draw in a shaky breath.
The small, round frame in my hands is no bigger than my palm, and the edges of the brass are worn down to an almost silvery shine, as if it had been handled constantly.
But that’s preposterous. Impossible.
I glance up at Henry, unable to stop the tears from pouring freely down my face. I’m not ready to look at it. I’m not ready to see her face.
Mercifully, he says nothing. He just watches me and waits.
My gaze drops back to the portrait in miniature that lies in my lap. I force myself to flip the small frame over, and there she is.
A sob escapes me as I stare into her face—my face.
For I can see now that Henry was right when he said I resembled her.
Her eyes are green like mine, but the drab olive color is enchanting under her long lashes, lined in black just like the man with the unusual pipe.
Her hair is a tumble of beautiful curls that fall around her shoulders.
Never before have I seen a woman in portrait with her hair down.
It feels like a violation to see her like this, but I am grateful all the same.
She wears no jewelry, save for pearl drop earrings, and her dress is a simple white frock that might have shown her shoulders if her hair had not been there to hide them.
She has high cheekbones, and the curve of her nose is identical to mine.
Her cheeks are flushed in a way that appears not to be rouge, but the natural color of youth and life.
Her mouth is drawn and relaxed, but something in her eyes stares back at me with pure, unadulterated melancholy.
I have lost all control of my emotions now. I am glad my father isn’t here. I can do nothing to stop the way my breathing hitches and shakes as I sob into my hands.
Some part of me hates King Henry for seeing me this vulnerable. No one but Captain Sharpe and Tristan have ever seen me weep like this—and even then it was nothing like this at all.
Why does he have this? My entire life I thought no portrait of my mother existed. I never once allowed myself to hope I might gaze upon her face. She’s so beautiful, it hurts to look at her. I turn the portrait back over and wrap it in the small scrap of silk, though my hands are trembling as I do.
When I finally feel able, I lift my gaze to King Henry. He’s watching me with a grim expression on his face. But he nods and does not chastise me. “Keep it,” he says. “It’s yours.”
I can’t thank him. I can’t bring myself to speak, so I merely nod and clutch the miniature to my chest, swallowing around the heart-sized lump in my throat. I can’t help but wonder if he would have shown me this sooner had my father not moved us away from court.
Then I wonder if this is the reason he moved us away from court.
“Her name was Yumna, daughter of Devran,” Henry says in the lazy lilt of one telling a bedtime story to a child.
“He was a coffee merchant from the Ottoman Empire. My father invited him to court one day to teach the courtiers how to drink coffee. He had both of his daughters with him, as his wife had long since passed and there was no one to care for them at home. His youngest daughter was not yet ten, but his eldest was fifteen, and she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.”
As he speaks, I am able to steady my breathing somewhat, though my breaths are still coming in little hiccups here and there. I no longer feel like I may pass out, but now my mind is reeling.
“The moment I saw her, I knew I had to have her,” he continues. “I wooed her. I sent her jewels and chocolates. She was shy. Their women are not allowed to look a man in the face unless they are married, you know.”
I didn’t know… nor do I think that is true. I saw my fair share of Muslim women at ports, and they were standoffish but not unfriendly. I bought a flower from one such woman, who smiled at me and bowed her head but never once refused to meet my eye.
“I fell in love with her,” Henry is saying when I come back to his story. “And eventually she with me. In a moment of passion you were conceived.”
Everything inside me goes still. I stare at King Henry as the room around me fades into blackness. Nothing exists but he and I and the distant crackle of a fire I can no longer see, which does nothing to warm the chill in my veins.
“I…?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer me but continues with his story. “I was married, of course… and she would have been ruined had anyone found out. I wrote to your father, my dearest friend. I begged him to marry her and raise the child as his own.”
Another punch to my gut. “No,” I breathe, rising shakily to my feet.
Henry is on his feet as well, and before I can get away from him, his arms are around me.
He clutches me to him, and my skin crawls, but I can’t bring myself to move.
“You are my son, Christopher-Henry,” he whispers into my hair.
Whatever semblance of control over my emotions I managed to achieve is lost entirely as my knees buckle, and I sink down into his embrace.
Every moment my father shied away from my touch and called for the governess to whisk me away plays back in my mind. Every moment he looked at me with contempt in his eyes. Never once did he feel love for me, and finally I understand why.
“You’re all right,” Henry says, and as I scramble to collect myself, I realize he’s been saying it over and over again. One last sob escapes me before I suck in a shuddering breath and push at his chest. I need air. I need space.
He releases me and I fall back a step, then whirl around and stumble over to the fireplace.
I lean against the mantel, gripping the solid wood as I hunch over and suck in the hot air from the fire.
It tastes of soot and bile, and the effect is immediate: I swallow hard and give a cough, but I manage to keep the now-soured wine in my stomach.
“I need—”
“I’ll leave you be for now,” Henry—no, my father says from behind me. “I’ll return when you’ve had some time to collect yourself.”
How can I possibly collect myself? I’ve lost everything, all at once.
I’ve lost Captain Sharpe and the twins. Billy and Mr. Tydes and Rodriguez and the whole crew.
Now my father and my stepmother, and even Victoria—whom I admit I never much liked, but I had always considered her blood. He’s taken all of them from me.
And at the same time, he has given me this immeasurable gift: my mother’s face… and him. My father. My real father, who pulled me into his arms without hesitation to comfort me in a moment of need.
That has to mean something, doesn’t it?
I listen to the sound of his heels retreating, but I don’t dare break my gaze away from the fire until I hear the click of the drawing room door closing behind him. He never answered my questions about my crew—about Captain Sharpe. A new wave of grief washes over me.
But even in my current state, I note that for the first time since I arrived here, the door to the apartments is left unlocked.