Chapter Thirty-Four
Thirty-Four
The first time round with Arthur, Gabriel had sleepwalked into him.
He’d been taken completely by surprise by the whole relationship, having repressed his feelings for so long that it was almost like he didn’t have any.
His only childhood crush—or childhood curiosity, more than anything—had been on one of his father’s friends, and that was so confusing that he’d never spoken to the man again.
Arthur had crashed into his life, forced him to question almost everything about himself, and after the strange and terrible whirlwind of that summer, he had been left standing in the wreckage, trying to piece himself back together out of things that were irreparably broken.
It really did feel different now. He wasn’t asleep. None of this was happening by accident, or due to circumstance. He was making it happen.
He was dancing badly, catching Arthur’s eye, smiling when he laughed.
Watching Arthur link arms with other people, light on his feet, and always, inexplicably, come back to Gabriel in the end.
Prince Owain insisted that Gabriel share one dance with him, the leaders of two countries swinging each other around the room like fools, and Gabriel thought of his father, and knew that if he’d somehow been here to see it, he’d have laughed and laughed.
During a break in the dancing, Gabriel found himself standing next to the archbishop, who had, miraculously, stayed.
“I suppose this doesn’t bode well for my immortal soul,” he said breathlessly, and Cardinal Richards sighed, peering down into his drink before he answered.
“What is God to you, sire?”
“Umm…” Gabriel’s brow furrowed. “I suppose I tend to see him as a slightly disapproving grandfather. Probably because my grandfather was very pious, and from what I can remember, didn’t like me at all.”
“I see,” said the archbishop wearily. “Well, we’ll have to work on that. Go on, Your Majesty, go back to your…” He waved his hand, and then put down his drink and excused himself.
A singer came out to perform a ballad, and Arthur appeared by Gabriel’s side, whispered, “Come on,” took his hand and spirited him out of the hall.
When they reached the relative quiet of the spiral staircase, Gabriel said, “Arthur…” and Arthur turned around and kissed him, pressing him to the stone wall, smiling into his mouth.
Gabriel broke away to say, “We’re in a stairwell,” and Arthur laughed, took him by the hand again and practically bounded up the stairs with Gabriel in tow.
They were waylaid again next to a tapestry, and a third time in the hallway directly outside Arthur’s room, and by the time they’d made it past the door, Arthur was kissing him with both hands cradling his jaw, pushing him gently backward into the room, seemingly unwilling to break contact at all.
When the backs of Gabriel’s knees hit the foot of Arthur’s bed, he fell onto it, and Arthur fell with him, the two of them briefly separated by the momentum.
“Is this … a yes?” Gabriel said, winded, and Arthur laughed again.
“What if it were the world’s most confusing no?”
“Don’t joke,” Gabriel pleaded, moving away just a fraction when Arthur went to kiss him again. “I need to know for certain.”
Arthur was on his side, the dark waves of his hair swept over onto one shoulder, his gaze so intent that Gabriel wanted to look away. He didn’t.
“You love me?” Arthur asked quietly, reaching out to touch the buttons of Gabriel’s jacket.
“I love you,” Gabriel said. “I— I’m going to do it better, this time.”
“Then it’s a yes,” said Arthur. “I always liked this jacket.”
Gabriel laughed, weak with relief. “I know.”
“Are you telling me you wore clothes as part of your plan to woo me?” Arthur said, smacking his hand flat over the button he’d just been admiring. “You tried to entrap me with fashion? Who even told you what a jacket is?”
“I know what a jacket is,” Gabriel mumbled, and Arthur raised his eyebrows.
“Could have fooled me,” he said. “Can I take it off?”
“My jacket?”
“Mmm.”
Gabriel nodded, so Arthur hauled himself a little more upright, leaned over him, and started to undo the buttons. Gabriel’s heart was suddenly pounding stupidly in his mouth.
When he reached the top and the last button slipped free, Arthur kissed him so gently, and Gabriel felt movement and realized Arthur was unbuttoning his own jacket too. Then they were just in their shirts and breeches, the fine linens brushing together making a sound like the sea against the shore.
“Can I tell you something?” Arthur said, his fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of Gabriel’s neck.
“Yes,” Gabriel said. “Please.”
“I know you watched me out of your window like a creep, when I was on my daily walks.”
Gabriel knew he’d gone bright red. “Um. No I didn’t. I just happened to be … looking out of the window.”
“Every day, at the same time. The time I take my walk. I can add two and two together, Gabriel. I’d never do it willingly, but I could, if pressed.”
Gabriel relented. It didn’t seem right to start things again with a lie, even if it was a small one. “How did you even know that?”
“Because I always looked up, to check that you were there.”
“What?” Gabriel was genuinely flabbergasted. “No you didn’t. I would have noticed.”
“I did it just as I turned the corner, before you’d seen me. I had a system. The system worked.” He winced. “Well, it worked in that it was a small, daily torture. Wondering why you were bothering, when you were barely speaking to me.”
“I wish I’d seen you looking. I … hoped you would.”
“And then what?”
“And then…” Gabriel sighed. “And then I would have been mortified, stopped watching for you. Or found a different window.”
“Why were you peeping?”
“Because I missed you horribly,” Gabriel said honestly. “It was nice to see you and not have to…”
“Duck your head or run away,” said Arthur. “God, you’re fascinating. When you die, they should take your brain out and study it, to protect future generations from enduring all this romantic suffering.”
“I’m—”
“I know you’re sorry,” Arthur said quietly. “You don’t have to keep saying it. You’re showing it. That’s better.”
His mouth was so soft, Gabriel suddenly felt very aware that his was wind-chapped and rough, but Arthur didn’t seem to mind. He had all that fine stubble anyway, which left Gabriel’s chin feeling pleasantly raw.
“I thought you were perhaps … courting Sir Florian,” Gabriel said, when he could, and Arthur sat fully up.
“You thought I was courting your married cousin?”
“I’m told he’s very attractive.”
“He is,” said Arthur. “He’s also your married cousin.”
“I didn’t know he was married until two days ago,” Gabriel protested. “I didn’t know anything, he hadn’t told me.”
“Can you blame him? They won’t even let him carry a weapon around you.”
Gabriel’s hand had been bravely toying with the laces of Arthur’s shirt, but it stilled now. “What? That’s not true. He has a sword.”
Arthur shook his head. “He doesn’t, Gabe. No sword, no knife. His belt is empty.”
“But he’s been out riding with us … When we went after the Beast, the Green Knight, he could have … he couldn’t have defended himself at all.”
“No,” said Arthur. “And yet he’s here anyway, even though Sir Hurst obviously trusts him about as much as a bear with a baby. And I know … a bit about what that’s like, obviously, my father being who he was, and with everything that happened last year. I told you, Florian’s a good listener.”
“Yes,” Gabriel said, feeling deeply guilty, making a mental note to apologize to Sir Florian again and berate Sir Hurst, in whichever order he came across them. “You did. I thought you meant…”
“You thought I meant good listener,” Arthur said, smirking. “Ohh, I see. I don’t know. You’d have to ask his wife, her name is Sita, and she likes poetry and courtly love books, so I’m sure she’s quite the expert.”
“Don’t be vulgar.”
“Oh, don’t be vulgar?” Arthur said, holding his hands up, protesting his innocence. “I must have misunderstood what was happening here.”
Gabriel went very red again, and Arthur took mercy on him and kissed him on the temple, where the flush of color always met his hairline, then on the cheekbone, and then in the crook of his neck.
“That’s not … what I meant,” Gabriel said, focusing on the feeling of Arthur against him, Arthur’s mouth on his skin, all the things he thought he’d never get to have again.
“I suppose we can be a little vulgar,” Arthur said, sounding far too pleased with himself. “As we are in love.”
Gabriel lay there being kissed, the slow, warm drag as intoxicating as wine, and then something occurred to him and he struggled upright to a sitting position, pushing Arthur gently down onto the soft, mussed blankets.
Arthur looked up at him wide-eyed, caught completely off guard, all his smug satisfaction gone in an instant. Gabriel understood, looking at him, just how much he’d hurt him, and how terrified he must be now, giving Gabriel the chance to do it all over again.
“Gabe,” Arthur said, and Gabriel reached down to touch the rough, sharp line of his chin, the corner of his mouth.
“I just…” Gabriel said, and then he paused. Say it right. “It wasn’t enough, that I loved you. So I want you to … to know now, that when I say ‘I love you,’ I mean … I’m with you. I want to be with you. I’m going to … fight to be with you, and love you too.”
Emotion rippled across Arthur’s face. He might have been about to cry, but then instead he smiled.
Gabriel hesitated for a second, then pushed Arthur’s collar aside and ran his fingers along the skin there, leaning down with his arm braced against the bed to kiss where his fingers had just been.
He couldn’t stay balanced like that comfortably for long, betrayed by the physics of it all, so he lay down on his side and pulled Arthur to him, heard the catch in his breathing as every inch of their bodies met.
“Hey,” Arthur muttered into Gabriel’s neck, once there were fewer layers between them, Gabriel’s hand spread wide across Arthur’s ribs. “I want to be with you too.”
Gabriel drew back to take in Arthur’s flushed face, his rare expression of earnest concentration, and felt his chest constrict so tight that it rendered him breathless. This was so important. So delicate, so maddening, so worth everything he had to give to it.
“I know,” he whispered, reaching for Arthur’s hand and interlocking their fingers tightly against the bedclothes. “But thank you for saying it anyway.”
Later, when they were lying in Arthur’s bed under silks and furs, Arthur tracing soft nonsense into the skin on Gabriel’s shoulder, there was a loud, uneven rap at the door.
“Shit,” Arthur said, jumping up at once, pulling on clothes seemingly at random. Some of them were Gabriel’s. “Don’t come in, Sid.”
“It might not have been me,” Sidney said indignantly through the door, audibly drunk. “Come up to the roof, the wind’s stopped … winding. And bring Gabriel, cos I know he’s in there.”
Gabriel blushed, and he and Arthur helped each other dress properly, Gabriel exiting the room with one of Arthur’s too-loud cloaks flung reluctantly over his shoulders. They stumbled up the stairs, tired and stupid, laughing quietly at nothing and stopping to kiss in every convenient shadow.
Out on the battlements it was cold, but the clouds had been blown clean away before the wind died down, leaving a harsh, brilliant black sky, so vast that it made Gabriel feel wonderfully small. Someone had brought up cushions and blankets, a single lantern with a candle sputtering inside.
Gwen was already there, sitting with her legs tucked up and arms wrapped around her knees; she had Sir Leonard’s fur-trimmed cloak on, and he was sitting next to her, holding a flagon of wine and talking to Sir Florian, seeming completely unbothered by the frigid temperature.
Adah and Bowen lay on their backs under thick furs, lazily pointing out the constellations, and Sidney and Agnes were taking in the view, petals still falling from their hair, Agnes wrapped tight within Sidney’s arms.
“That was a good wedding,” Sidney said happily. “I think I love having weddings. I think we should have another one, when we get home.”
“All right,” said Agnes. “But the Prince of Wales isn’t going to pay for all of them, Sid.”
“We’ll invite him,” Sidney said seriously. “And then maybe he might.”
“I love love,” said Sir Leonard, toasting himself, and perhaps the sky.
Arthur leaned back against Gabriel, then twisted his head to be kissed; they had only been doing so for maybe a few seconds when Sidney said, “Outrage! Scandal!” They broke apart to find him pointing at them. “Just kidding,” he said, dropping his arm. “I already knew.”
Gwen had turned to look at them, and Gabriel noticed that she seemed pink-faced and miserable, even in the dark. He let go of Arthur and went to sit by her—whispering, “What’s wrong, G?”—and Gwen slumped, weeping, into his arms.