Chapter Fifteen #2
“Yes, I did. Count Villiers thinks you sent me to insult him deliberately. He thinks the king’s consort was delivering a message from the king.
” Finn’s hands clenched. “Everyone knows I don’t belong here.
The servants think I’m strange because I fix things myself.
The advisers think I’m incompetent because I don’t understand economics.
Now the visiting nobility thinks I’m actively hostile because I can’t navigate a simple dinner party. ”
“It wasn’t simple…”
“It should have been! It was two people, Darragh. Two. Not a state dinner, not a ball, just a minor noble and his wife eating food.” Finn’s voice cracked.
“If I can’t handle that, how am I supposed to stand beside you at the World Council summit?
How am I supposed to represent Safe Harbor when I don’t even know which wine not to serve? ”
Darragh stood, reaching for him, but Finn stepped back.
“I told you,” Finn repeated. “Right from the start, I told you I wasn’t suitable for this. But you didn’t listen. You said I was perfect, I was exactly what you wanted. You married me anyway.”
The accusation in those words hit Darragh like a fist. “Are you saying I shouldn’t have?”
“I’m saying you knew who I was and you married me anyway, and now you’re stuck with someone who can’t do the job.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” Finn’s eyes were bright. “You told me not to change, to stay myself, to be genuine. But genuine doesn’t work here.
The castle needs protocol and performance, and knowing which regional wine feuds to avoid.
You can’t have both, Darragh. You can’t have the authentic village carpenter and the polished royal consort. They’re not the same person.”
Darragh opened his mouth, then closed it. Because Finn was right. He’d been so focused on how much he valued Finn’s authenticity that he hadn’t thought about how impossible it would be to maintain that authenticity in a world built on carefully calibrated performance.
“I’m sorry,” Darragh said quietly. “You’re right.
I married you because I love you for who you are, but I didn’t think about how hard it would be to navigate a world that values performance over authenticity.
” He sat heavily on the sofa. “I should have helped you more. Actually helped you, not just told you you’re perfect and expected that to be enough. ”
Finn’s anger seemed to deflate. He sat in his chair again, suddenly looking exhausted. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“Neither do I.” Darragh leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“I don’t know how to help you learn what you need to know without changing the things I love about you.
I don’t know how to prepare you for the summit without turning you into one of those polished performers who bored me to death during the interviews. ”
“Maybe those performers exist for a reason,” Finn said softly. “Maybe the job actually requires that kind of person.”
“No.” Darragh’s response was immediate. “I refuse to believe that. There has to be a middle ground. Some way for you to learn the protocols without losing yourself.”
“And if there isn’t?”
The question hung between them, unanswered. Darragh wanted to promise everything would work out, that they’d find a solution, that love would somehow be enough. But the words stuck in his throat, too hollow to speak aloud.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said instead. “We’re smart men, we’ll work it out together.”
Finn nodded, but he didn’t look convinced.
They went through their evening routine in near silence.
The servants came to help Finn undress - he submitted to their assistance with resigned patience, but Darragh could see how much he hated it.
Darragh waved off his valet and changed in his own dressing room, listening to the murmur of voices from next door.
In bed, Finn curled on his side facing away. Darragh pulled him close anyway, pressing against his back, wrapping an arm around his waist.
“I love you,” Darragh said quietly.
“I love you, too.” Finn’s voice was small. “That’s what makes it so hard.”
Darragh tightened his hold, but he didn’t know what else to say.
The tension between them didn’t dissipate.
He lay awake long after Finn’s breathing evened out, his brain whirling with worries and possibilities.
He’d married Finn because he was authentic, honest, and so refreshingly real in a world of careful pretense.
But he’d also married him to be king consort - a role that required exactly the kind of performance Darragh had claimed to despise.
I have failed him so badly. Darragh had been so blinded by Finn’s personality that he’d neglected to see how much the contradiction between who Finn was, and what a king consort was supposed to be would hurt them both.
Darragh loved his husband more than he thought possible, but in the dim light of the night shadows, Darragh could see that alone wasn’t enough.
The question was how to fix it. How to help his husband without changing him.
How to teach him to navigate court politics without turning him into another polished, empty performer.
How to keep the person he’d fallen in love with while helping him survive in a world designed to sand away authenticity and replace it with a careful, calculated facade.
I don’t even know if that’s possible. He held Finn closer and hoped that together, somehow, they’d find a way through.