Chapter 31
B owing, Fraser addresses the monarch as is required of him. Unable to do anything but watch, I observe every inch of him, convincing myself that he really is here. He is real. Fraser’s broad frame is tense, his hair is just slightly too long and curls over his ears, and a path of stubble lies forgotten, missed on a patch of his jaw. So close, I could reach out and touch him, and even then, I’d fear that he’d disappear into a puff of smoke.
Then he turns to me. The music falls silent across the room, as if every other body has fled, until the only things taking up space, the only atoms that still float through this void are those that make up him and I. ‘Lady Alice.’ He bows before me like an almost forgotten acquaintance and I resist the urge to hold him by the face and force him to look me in the eye.
‘Fraser,’ I breathe but he refuses to meet my gaze.
‘Must I petition you to return to me, Pipe Major Bell? My wife has decided that it is only your playing that she can stomach so early in the morning.’ The king speaks, and with the sound of his voice, the music and chattering floods back into the ballroom with overpowering intensity. Cringing away from the noise, I try and recollect myself. I can’t cry here. I won’t.
‘You shall have to ask those who employ me, Your Majesty. Though I am sure they will not refuse you,’ Fraser replies, delighting the king and making him release a guttural chuckle.
‘If I remember rightly, Bell, you danced with my great-niece at the last ball, did you not?’ Fraser’s face flames, and I am sure mine is not much different.
‘Yes, indeed, Your Majesty.’ Still unable to look at me, Fraser continues to fulfil his duties to the king, though his body language would imply he wishes nothing more than to run away at the first possible moment.
‘Why then, you must do so again.’ He flings his arms out wide and grins like a jolly king of old. ‘Unless she has scarred you from the last time?’
Fraser forces a chuckle. ‘I am afraid, sir, that I am needed elsewhere at present. And I have always been a better piper than a dancer.’
‘How you tease us so. What a shame. Well, you had better get on then, Bell, and do whatever it is that is more important than taking the hand of my beautiful niece.’ I wish for nothing more than the ground to swallow me up and to plunge a thousand feet to a painful death. Fraser simply nods, bows to myself and the king, then departs across the dance floor, and out of the door.
Curtseying again, I excuse myself, and just like this time a year ago, I follow Fraser Bell into the night.
Catching him retreating across the gardens in a way so familiar, I can’t stop myself from calling out his name. Not stopping to acknowledge me, he continues at pace, with steps so heavy I can see the prints of his ghillie shoes in the dewy grass.
‘Please,’ I call into the darkness, the muted sound of music only just reaching us from so far away. ‘Talk to me Fraser, please.’
Turning sharply on his heel, he says, ‘You can’t have anything to say to me, Alice. You said it all just fine enough a year ago when you told me that everything was a lie.’ His face is flushed and damp with sweat as he finally looks at me. ‘I can’t do this. I can’t see you.’
‘Then why did you come earlier?’ Adrenaline takes over and I can’t stop the words that fall from me.
‘To support Sophie,’ he bites, and I have to take a step back. This all played out so differently in my head. He hates me, or at least he no longer loves me.
What now do I have to lose? The man I love is stood before me and I let him go without telling him the truth one too many times before.
‘I wasn’t good enough for you, Fraser.’
He had begun to walk away when my words halt him once more.
‘What?’ He looks at me with an expression so pained I can feel the jolt of it run through my body.
‘I couldn’t tell you I loved you back then, because I didn’t deserve you,’ I confess.
‘That makes no sense.’
‘You were going to give up your career for me. I couldn’t allow you to do that. I wanted to set you up with Sophie because I knew she was far better for you than me. What could I offer you? What could I give you aside from a promise that I’m not all of the things I had been up until that point?’
He stays stock still as I take a step forward and I use that as encouragement to step again.
‘Alice, I would have given up my entire life to have spent this last year with you.’ A tear drops over his waterline and drags the reflection of the moon down his flushed cheeks.
‘And what would have happened when you inevitably regretted it? You would resent me. You shouldn’t have to give anything up for me. All I have ever wanted is to see you happy, and I knew that as the person I was last year, I couldn’t be the one to make you happy.’
Fraser shakes his head and sucks in a shaking breath before he speaks. ‘Every day you walked the halls of Balmoral, or swore at me from your window, or I held you in my arms, you made me happier than anything I could have ever dreamed of. It was a feeling written only in the books, and even if this was all a dream, I’d have chosen to sleep forever just to live in it a little longer.’ Tears flow freely down my face and I am desperate to hold him. ‘You broke my heart, Alice.’
‘I know,’ I sob. ‘Before I met you, Fraser, I was sad beyond all measure. I’m not sure that I ever wanted to die. I just didn’t expect to live. It’s not like I was actively seeking a way to end my life. I just couldn’t imagine growing old; I couldn’t imagine having a family, or hitting milestones, or ever being happy. People always asked me what I wanted to be, what were my dreams, but I never had any. I never knew I’d live long enough to fulfil them, so there was no point having them. I have never thought far enough ahead. But, with you, Fraser, it’s like I am excited. It was like being woken from a sleep sure to one day kill me. I am excited to go to a supermarket and do a weekly shop, I’m excited to sit down in front of the telly in my pyjamas and fall asleep at 9 p.m. on a Saturday. You made me want to live that beautifully normal life. You make me want to live . I’m excited to see you grow old, and myself beside you,’ I confess. ‘I love you. But I had to figure out how to make myself happy first, so I could give you everything you deserve.’
‘And are you?’ He reaches forward and grasps me by the face. ‘Happy?’
‘Happier.’ I nod against his touch. ‘It’s taking time, but I’ll get there.’
‘You love me?’ Fraser sobs as he buries his face into the crease of my neck.
‘I do, and I have. All this time.’
In the space we shared our first kiss, he presses his lips to mine once again in a way so electric, yet so calming, I realise that it is right here, in his arms, that is my home. Sliding my hands through his hair, I hold him as close as I can, afraid of letting him go.
Fraser pulls away after a few beats of silence where even the owls and trees have nothing left to say. ‘Can we ever be together?’ Though they shine in the moonlight, his eyes are sad, troubled, and I don’t have an answer for him. ‘You say you don’t want me to give up anything for you, but surely you’ll have to give up everything to be with me.’ Stroking the hair from my face, he kisses me on the forehead and holds me there.
‘I don’t think I can keep you a secret forever,’ he mumbles against my skin.
Embracing him tightly, I feel his heart thumping against my cheek. Though the music carries across the gardens, and though voices can be heard for miles around, that throb in his chest is the only thing I can focus on. With his pipes, his foals, his dimpled smiles, Fraser Bell has shown me what a happy life can be. He has proven that not all has to be as is prescribed. I don’t have to hide everything I love just to protect the feelings of those who don’t matter to me.
Giving up tiaras, gowns, and posh banquets is nothing. They never held me when I cried. They never made me laugh in a loch and warmed me with their affection. They never kissed me as though I am the only thing in the world worth having so close. Fraser Bell did. Being with him wouldn’t be giving anything up, being with him would be finally choosing to be happy.
And I’m not afraid of happiness anymore.
Leaning up, I press a long passionate kiss to his lips, before pulling away and dragging him by the hand back towards the ball.
‘Where are we going?’ he asks as he paces beside me, furiously wiping the tears from his face.
‘To meet my parents.’ Pride flows through me as I grin and Fraser only returns a nervous gaze.
‘Alice …’ he begins.
‘Fraser, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.’ Stopping for a moment outside the door, I reassure him with a tender caress of his cheek. ‘Everyone I love is standing in this castle at present and I don’t think I’ll lose any of them by having you by my side. Nothing aside from the select few people in that room matter to me – no titles, no money, no reputation. It wouldn’t be giving it up for you, it would be being liberated.’
Bursting through the door, I spot my mother and father before the king, their miserable faces contorted into false smiles for their superior’s benefit.
‘Mother, Father,’ I interrupt their conversation. ‘Meet Fraser Bell, the love of my life.’
‘Alice, not now,’ my mother spits through gritted teeth, looking back at the king with an apologetic smile.
‘Yes, now.’ I grasp the king’s glass from the table beside him and clash against it with the ring on my forefinger. Soon the whole room bends their gaze to me, the band cease their playing, and not once does my confidence waver.
‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Alice Walpole and I am unashamedly, indubitably, and happily in love with Fraser Bell. I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.’