10. “Castle” - Halsey
“Castle” - Halsey
Henry and I haven’t spoken since yesterday, when he stormed out of my office after announcing he’d be sleeping anywhere other than in our bed.
I have no doubt the reason he walks into the White Drawing Room only seconds before Elizabeth Gable is supposed to arrive has nothing to do with being late and everything to do with wanting to avoid any further conversation with me.
His eyes dart in my direction as he enters but quickly drop to the picture in his hand again. Even from this distance, I can tell it’s the one Elizabeth sent. I want to know what’s going through that head of his, to run my fingers through his hair and coax him to tell me everything.
I stand from the settee and walk toward Henry. He doesn’t move away, but he also doesn’t look at me.
“Hey.” I place a gentle hand on his arm. “We don’t know that the photo is authentic.” Even though I’m pretty sure this is the same boy I saw downtown, I can’t be certain.
His eyes snap up. “Don’t start.”
“You know how realistic AI is these days. I just don’t want you to be disappointed.”
“You’re telling me you’re concerned about my feelings?” He chuckles, but there isn’t an ounce of humor in it. “You forget I know you better than anyone.”
“I mean it. I want today to go well.” I need today to go well.
“Then why are we meeting in your bloody intimidation chamber?” He shoves the photo into his pocket and glances around with an annoyed expression.
I study the room with its gilded everything and hard, reflective surfaces.
Every object in here is either white, glass, or gold, including the giltwood sofa, which has ornately carved griffins on both arms. A glass chandelier the size of a large sedan hangs from the ceiling like a judge presiding over a courtroom.
“I meet people here all the time,” I say.
“Yeah, people you don’t like.”
Before I have time to respond, the door opens, and a footman steps inside. Here we go. A blonde woman walks in behind him, holding the hand of a small boy dressed in school blues.
“Miss Elizabeth Gable and Mr. Axel Gable,” the footman says.
The air crackles with a nervous tension as the pair approaches us. Elizabeth curtsies in front of me, and her son tries to imitate her gesture, causing his small knees to point out in both directions.
Laughter cuts through the awkward silence, my own included. “It’s okay,” Elizabeth tells him. Her voice sounds like music. To Henry and me she says, “Thank you for seeing us.”
“Won’t you sit down?” I motion to the sofa. I don’t need to see Henry to know he’s rolling his eyes behind me. When they precede us to the cluster of seats, I elbow his stomach. The only sound he makes is a quiet umph.
Elizabeth settles her son on the settee, then sits beside him, already breaking protocol by sitting before me. Henry and I take the chairs opposite them.
I study her, this vixen who has swept in to steal everything away from me. She is effortlessly cool, like she was air-brushed into life, the kind of woman it’s impossible to like but also impossible not to.
She’s wearing a soft blue oversized sweater dress that accentuates her striking eyes. The collar is trimmed in black fur, and it’s belted at the waist. She looks delicate and confident. I didn’t know you could be both of those at the same time.
Her strands are styled in loose waves, not unlike Bea’s, but where Bea’s are perfection itself, Elizabeth’s are looser, more carefree, like she just spent the day at the beach and hasn’t had time to freshen up.
In short, she looks like a breath of fresh air, the kind of person who walks into a room and immediately garners the attention of every person in the place.
She pushes her hair behind her shoulder in a nonchalant move that would take other women decades to master.
Maybe she’s been practicing it for the past ten years.
She alternates between glancing at me and casting doting glances at her little boy, who is busy gawking at the room. She studiously avoids looking at Henry.
“Are we in a castle, Mummy?” Axel whispers loudly.
“Yes, we are,” she says. “And you, lucky boy, just met the queen for the second time in your life.”
The heat of Henry’s gaze scorches me as he processes this, and I know we will be having words later.
“Would you care for some refreshments?” I ask.
“What’s that?” Axel whispers to his mum again.
Elizabeth laughs, a tinkling sound that makes you want to hit rewind so you can hear it again. “It means snacks.”
His eyes grow large, and he pops his thumb into his mouth before glancing shyly at me and nodding.
I press the button on the table beside me, and seconds later, the server who was waiting outside the door enters the room carrying a tray of tea cakes.
She’s followed by another carrying the tea service.
After everyone has been served and the staff have left the room, I turn to Elizabeth. It’s time to get down to business. “Miss Gable, we’d like to hear what you have to say.”
She flushes, something that might have made me look foolish, but it only adds a spot of color to her cheeks, emphasizing her California-girl vibe. “Please, call me Libby,” she says. “All of my friends do.”
I refrain from raising my brows and sneak a glance at Henry instead. His eyes are focused on the little boy on the sofa, feet dangling over the edge, stuffing tiny sandwiches into his mouth just like someone else I know.
The cup in my hand rattles against the saucer.
“I feel terrible about the article,” Elizabeth says.
“I was having a few drinks with some friends—at least I thought they were my friends—and I made the mistake of telling them about my letter.” Her voice has a soothing cadence to it, the kind you long for when you’re in bed with a fever or homesick at summer camp.
“One of them is a journalist,” she continues, “and he’s the one who published the piece.” She wipes a bit of jam from Axel’s face with a napkin. “Needless to say, we are no longer speaking,” she adds quietly.
“You can imagine our shock at reading it.” I cross my legs and wish, not for the first time, that I hadn’t chosen this crimson pantsuit. Elizabeth does not appear to be the type of woman who is easily intimidated.
“I am truly sorry,” she says. “Like I said, I had a few too many drinks. I had no intention of ever telling anyone about sending that letter. Or about . . . Axel’s father.”
“Do you consider it responsible behavior to get drunk when you’re a parent?” I can’t help asking.
Beside me, Henry shifts in his seat. His glare weighs heavy on me, but I ignore him.
“Axel was with his grandparents that night.” Elizabeth runs her hand through her son’s dark waves.
They instantly spring back into place. She doesn’t even have the decency to look annoyed by my question.
“My parents adore him.” She gazes adoringly at him, and he beams back up at her, and I’ve had just about all of the adoration I can handle in a single day.
“Maybe you could explain your motivation behind reaching out. As I mentioned, it was very unexpected,” I say before Henry can join the fray of adoring fans.
“Like I said in my letter, I want Axel to know his father.” She shoots a tiny look at Henry, and I catch my first glimpse of discomfort in this woman. I tuck this information away for future reference.
Henry’s attention jerks away from Axel and onto Elizabeth as she says this.
Trepidation trips its way into the recesses of my heart as my eyes flick between the two of them.
Their gazes hold for just a second. Elizabeth drops hers back to Axel, running her fingers through his hair again, another nervous tick I can add to my list.
“Prince Henry is very busy. Perhaps we can come to some other kind of agreement,” I say.
Elizabeth stutters out a laugh. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Before I can answer, Henry crouches down on the floor in front of the sofa. “What do you like to do, buddy?”
Axel stares at him, then pops his thumb into his mouth, sandwich forgotten.
“Go on.” Elizabeth nudges him. “Tell him what your favorite toys are.”
He watches Henry for several more seconds before slowly pulling out his thumb. “Cars.” He immediately sticks it back into his mouth.
Henry chuckles and pats Axel’s leg. “Me too, buddy, me too.”
The scene is like a traffic accident. You don’t want to look, but you can’t tear your eyes away. You register the horror playing out in front of you, you know it’s going to haunt your dreams, but there is nothing that could make you shut your eyes.
“I brought some pictures.” Elizabeth rummages through her bag. She withdraws an envelope, which she holds out to Henry. “I thought you might like to see them.”
He carefully takes it from her, and my pulse skids as their eyes lock again, with more confidence this time.
This cannot be happening.
Henry opens the envelope and pulls out the stack of photos inside. “Are these of you?” he asks Axel, who looks at the one Henry’s holding out, then nods.
“Wanna look at them with me?” he asks.
Another nod.
Henry takes the empty seat on the other side of Axel, not so close as to be touching, but close enough that the three of them look like a bloody family sitting there, all perfect hair and perfect teeth and perfect fucking symmetry.
Nausea strains at the confines of my stomach, begging to be released in the form of the lunch I had earlier, but I shove it down with a fierce command to stay put. I need to get through this meeting.
“I think this is you as a baby,” Henry says. “But you were pretty bald, so I can’t tell for sure.”
A small smile lifts the corners of Axel’s lips.
Henry flips through a few more pictures, then says, “You had a race car cake for your first birthday? That’s awesome.”
The boy looks up at him, then back at the photos. He points to the next one in the stack.
Henry pulls it out. “You like this one?”
“What’s that?” Axel pulls his thumb from his mouth to ask.
Elizabeth leans in for a closer look. Henry holds the snapshot out for her to see. “That’s your present from Nana and Papa,” she says. “A toy piano.” She turns to Henry. “You play, don’t you?”
My head is screaming now, screaming for this to end, for this damn nightmare to be over.
For me to wake and find that Henry and I are still who we were two years ago, before he decided to ruin everything by wanting a baby and then producing illegitimate children when I didn’t give him what he wanted.
Henry answers that he does play, although I haven’t heard a sound from that piano in months.
I tell myself that this is public knowledge, that all of Wesbourne is aware of his skills on the keys, of his once-promising future as a pianist—if only he hadn’t been heir to the throne and more likely to be found in a club than behind a baby grand.
That she knows this small fact about him means nothing.
After all, Henry wasn’t one for pillow talk before he and I became a thing.
At least that’s what he told me. But then again, he never told me he’d had sex with a beautiful woman named Elizabeth and that she was the mother of his firstborn child, a gorgeous son who looks exactly like him and is already promising to be the light of his life.
I clear my throat, not because it needs clearing but because my head and the air do. Henry and Elizabeth both look at me, matching smiles on their faces like they’re parents at a soccer match and their little angel has just scored a goal.
“Shall we talk practicalities?” I force a smile onto my own face as if this whole scene isn’t making me want to vomit all over Elizabeth’s cutesy little ankle boots.
She gazes at Henry like she expects him to go to bat for her, but I’m his bloody wife. If he’s going to go to bat for anyone, it should be me.
As though he understands what she’s asking of him, he says, “Celia, maybe we can just play it by ear?”
My throat closes up, and tears prick at the backs of my eyes. Is he actually taking her side in all of this, pretending that he can cobble together a family out of the pieces of his past?
“If you just tell us how much you’re wanting,” I say, ignoring Henry and focusing my fake smile on Elizabeth, “we can get the check. I’m sure you have places you need to be.”
Her gaze flickers between Henry and me. “I don’t want any money.”
Sure you don’t. That’s what they all say the first time.
“You don’t need to be afraid of offending us. This is a delicate situation, and we want to make sure you are . . .” I fumble for the right words. “. . . taken care of.”
Henry shoots me a look that all but screams, Careful.
She shakes her head and tucks her hair behind her ears. “Axel and I are doing just fine.” At his name, the boy looks up from the photos in his lap. “I just want him to have a father.” Her eyes travel to Henry again. She is quickly overcoming her previous discomfort. “If you’re willing, that is.”
He grins, first at her, then down at Axel. “Get to know this cool guy?” he says. “You betcha.” He offers his knuckles to Axel, and the little boy pumps his own fist against Henry’s.
Elizabeth beams at them. As her glow emanates to capture both of them in its rays, it smacks me across the face.
She’s not here for fame.
She’s not here for money.
She’s not even here to sabotage me.
She’s here to steal my husband.