26. Miri
26
Miri
SIX WEEKS LATER
“W hy didn’t you tell me this when it happened?” Edward crossed his legs and took another sip of tea, his bright green eyes narrowing suspiciously at me from across the table. I’d hired a private jet to take me back to England, and now we sat in my rooms at Kensington for our daily afternoon tea.
After we disappeared together for nearly three months, Gran had been loathe to let either of us out of her sight again. Edward had officially moved into the rooms next to mine, and now that I could finally talk about Killwater without sobbing, I had agreed to tell him the entire story. I’d started with meeting Ivy at boarding school and confessed all of it, right up until Edward had been taken the day of the Washington-Fairfax wedding.
He had listened, promising to tell me what he had experienced while his mind had been taken over by the king.
“Would you have believed me?” I took a drink of my chamomile and smiled, watching as he squinted in deep concentration.
“No, I suppose not—not until I’d lived the experience myself.” He sighed and shook his head. “Honestly, Miri, don’t you think you’re being a tad ridiculous?”
I scoffed and balked at the suggestion. “How so?”
“It’s obvious you miss them terribly.”
“Bleeding hell, not this again.”
“Yes, this again.” Edward reached across the table to take my hand, squeezing my palm in solidarity. “You can’t marry the prince of Monaco.”
“Well, it’s entirely too late for that, isn’t it?” The wedding had been set for two weeks from now, and there would be no delaying it any longer. Because I’d run off so many times, the prince had gotten impatient with my flightiness. Now, he insisted on having my name attached to his as soon as possible. I didn’t have a choice. I never had.
I’d be the royal princess consort of Monaco in a fortnight, and damn the consequences.
It didn’t matter that I closed my eyes and all I thought about was them. It didn’t matter that they haunted my dreams, and every night, I was back at those ruins with Lex, Ivy, and Carter. I loved them, I did, but this was about more than love. This was about duty and honor and?—
Bloody hell.
Even I didn’t believe my propaganda anymore. Compared to dying and coming back to life, none of this mattered. Compared to losing Lex, this was a trivial game. Hell, I even missed Poppy. She’d betrayed us at the end and sold our family members to the king for her own purposes, but I had loved her. The loss of her amplified what had already been there.
I thought again about the fury in Ivy’s gaze when I left, how angry she’d been when I turned to go. She wouldn’t want me back. Not now. Not after I left them the way I had.
No. No, it was the right thing to do. I couldn’t go on like that. Lex didn’t want us to. He wanted us to be happy.
At times like this, when I questioned every decision I’d ever made, I could almost hear his snide, sarcastic voice whispering, Are you happy? Does all this make you happy?
I feared the answer was no and always would be for as long as I stayed away from my beloveds.
“Please, distract me,” I said, cutting off that line of thought. “You were going to tell me about your experience.”
“Oh…uh.” Edward’s cheeks turned an uncharacteristic shade of rosy pink, the tips of his ears damn near crimson. “There’s not much to tell, I’m afraid.”
I narrowed my eyes at that. “You were under the king’s mind control for nearly two weeks. Surely, there’s something.”
“It was like…an alternate reality. Like we were living as normal people.”
“We?”
“Katherine and me.” Edward cleared his throat and took another sip of tea, distinctly avoiding my gaze.
“Katherine?”
“Kit,” he corrected. “Though, I much prefer her full name.”
“I didn’t realize you had opinions about her name.” I raised my eyebrows at him.
“Miri”—Edward ran his fingers over his forehead and scowled, glancing out the window to the gardens below—“we were living together for quite some time.”
Uh-oh. That sounded ominous.
“How long?”
He winced before looking back at me. “I can’t be sure.”
“What do you mean you were living together?”
Edward’s lost expression reminded me of when we were children and his first dog had passed away from old age. He seemed scared and unsure, devoid of his usual confident swagger. “We were roommates, I suppose.”
“And?”
He opened his mouth, struggling to find the words, and before he could say anything more, the doors to my sitting room opened and a steward walked through to announce a visitor.
“Her Royal Highness Elizabeth, the queen consort of England.” He bowed before standing aside so Gran could push her way through.
“Oh my dears, my dears,” she said, giving me a gentle smile as she walked closer. “I’ve just heard the most wonderful news.”
“Oh?” I raised my eyebrows, expecting celebrity gossip or word from Edward’s elder brother on his annual world tour.
Gran looked at me with her bright blue gaze, curling her lips into an excited smile. “Yes, Reginald has decided to arrive early. He’ll be here the day after tomorrow.”
“Oh.” I loathed this type of update the most.
“Don’t be so glum,” she said. “Your marriage will be the highlight of the summer. Classically impromptu. We’ll do it in Aberdeen to give it a vintage ambiance.”
She meant secret. After the gossip surrounding Ivy and me, she didn’t want to make it seem like Reginald was my cover-up, though that was precisely what he would be.
I hardly cared about being the princess of Monaco or my upcoming nuptials. If it weren’t for everything else that came with it, the place among my family and a chance to restore my father’s name, I would have taken Carter up on all the times he’d asked me to move to the US and marry him instead.
Of course, that ceased to be a possibility when I left. I hadn’t heard from either of them in weeks, but I preferred it this way. The separation didn’t chafe like it used to. I didn’t lack for sleep nor did I waste away like some invalid on death’s doorstep. The magic had truly left us, but with it went my last bit of hope. I no longer enjoyed the sunrise. I found no pleasure in decadent foods. I no longer found anything joyful about the world around me. At night, when I was my most lonesome, I stared at the moon and swore I heard my prince of darkness calling out to me. I’d become pathetic, and I had no desire to change it.
Likewise, Edward had turned equally somber and morose. Since we’d been home, he hadn’t gone out to his usual nighttime haunts, nor had he paraded his retinue of slags through his rooms. We had both been irrevocably altered by what had happened on Beltane, and nothing Gran could throw at either of us would make much impact.
“Thank you, Gran,” I managed when she’d stopped rambling and looked at me for a response.
“Do try to cheer up before he arrives, yes?” She sighed and pinched my cheeks the way women used to do when trying to add color to their faces. “No one wants to marry a corpse.”
Edward snickered, causing Gran to snap her attention his way.
“And you,” she said, narrowing her piercing gaze. “Have you made up with the duchess of Hanover?”
He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Granny, please.”
“Don’t destroy this match, Edward.” She tsked her teeth at him, reminding me of all the times we’d gotten into trouble as children. “It took a great deal to get her parents to agree, especially after all of your… indiscretions.”
“I am perfectly capable of finding my own bride, thank you.”
“Then why have you not done so?” She raised her eyebrows.
Edward made a weak attempt at an excuse by gesturing vaguely to me and waving his hand around. “I’ve been caring for my little cousin, you know? She’s a bit more work than she looks.”
“Tut!” Gran shook her head and took a deep breath. “You’ll be married by the end of next year. End of discussion.” She was still muttering about her ungrateful grandchildren after she’d waltzed through the room back into the hallway. The steward shut the door behind her, and I glanced at my cousin with a thousand questions on the tip of my tongue.
“Have you talked to Katherine since—” Since you woke up in the Irish forest? Since you came out of a never-ending dream? Since you stopped being trapped by the king of fairies?
“No.” He shook his head. “What is there to say? It wouldn’t work out between us.”
“Well, that’s not very optimistic, is it?”
“Hmm.” He sat his teacup down and put his elbows on the table, a very ungentlemanly thing to do, but it gave him the advantage when he leaned in and narrowed his brilliant hunter-green gaze on me. “You’re the one to talk. When was the last time you spoke to your wife or your husband?”
I scoffed. “I’m not married. Not yet, anyway.” The words tasted vile in my mouth after all these years of saying I’d been wed to three people at the same time. But I wasn’t. I didn’t have the scars on my hands. I didn’t have the gift. Whatever we’d done on Beltane had reversed the magical tie that bound us together. Now, Carter and Ivy could be together untethered, and I’d marry Reginald just like I always should have.
“Miriam,” Edward said, a rumble in his deep tone informing me of his great displeasure with my behavior. “Do you hear yourself?”
“Edward, I’m fine.”
He snorted out a laugh. “Fine? Yes, you’re so fine that all you do is mope around this bloody castle like Henry VIII’s ghost. Will I find you in the showers next?”
Laughter bubbled up my chest and over my lips, and I shoved his shoulders while I tried not to cry. “Hush!”
“Will I see you lurking under the maid’s mattresses, trying to lick their feet?”
Hysterics took me over, and for the first time in months, I found myself grateful for one thing. If I had to have a kindred spirit stuck in this royal hellhole with me, I was overjoyed it was Edward.
Perhaps he had a point. Perhaps I’d been too emotional the day I left them. Perhaps going with no contact had been more separation than necessary. Perhaps I’d made a terrible mistake, and now I’d come too far down the rabbit hole to fix it.
I would have to marry Reginald, if only to save my pride.
“You deserve to be happy. So be happy.”
Lex wouldn’t have wanted this for me. He wanted me to go home, to live the rest of my life with Carter and Ivy. That was what he sacrificed himself for.
Was I besmirching Lex’s memory by marrying Reginald and leaving the others?
I didn’t know. And Lex wasn’t here, so who cared? Carter and Ivy would have each other, and me…I would let them.