Chapter Fourteen #2
He took two careful steps back, clasped his hands behind him. He regarded her with the same cool detachment she had been giving him. Or tried. “I think I shall fly to Italy tonight. Handle some business.”
She did not say anything at first. Just stood very still. Eventually she inclined her head though. “Of course. Have a safe journey, Gabriel.” She even smiled at him.
He could not seem to manage the same. “Stay well, Your Highness.”
And he left. The palace and Alis and her.
For her own good.
Definitely not for his.
Evelyne cried herself to sleep. That night. And the next. And the next. She tried to tell herself all would be well. She had her brother, her sister-in-law and in two months or so she would have her child. She lived in a kingdom no longer ruled by her father.
All was well.
She tried to plan. Decorate the nursery. Decide on a name. Focus on the positive parts of the future.
But everything felt as though Gabriel should have some say, even though he had given up his say and gone to Italy.
She would have spent all her time alone, wallowing, but Ines insisted on sharing meals, and since she did not often eat with Alexandre, Evelyne felt honor bound to be company for her.
But now both Ines and Alexandre joined her in one of the parlors in the evenings. She must not be hiding her misery very well.
“I can require him to return, you know,” Alex muttered one evening as he read something on his tablet.
Evelyne looked up at Alexandre. Not only was he watching her, but so was Ines. They were both worried about her. She knew this because they were spending their evenings together. With her, to be sure, but usually they did not simply sit in the parlor like this together.
So she smiled. “I think I should only like you to require his return if it were to throw him in the dungeons.”
“I’m sure that can also be arranged,” Ines offered, earning her a sharp look from her husband. Which Ines ignored, going back to the blanket she was knitting for the baby.
Evelyne put her hand over her stomach. She felt some movement and tried to be comforted by his existence. Comforted by the reality of life.
She was used to not getting what she wanted, wasn’t she? A few weeks of having what she wanted shouldn’t change things.
“I do not want him forced into anything. He has made his choices. I will make mine.” Even if she was struggling to make any choice. It didn’t matter. She didn’t want to think about this. She stood. “I think I shall go to bed,” she announced.
And knew their gazes followed her all the way out.
Almost like they knew she was going to cry herself to sleep again.
King Alexandre Enzo Rodrigo Lidia was used to being told what to do.
His father had ruled him with an iron fist, and Alexandre had learned how to develop his own sense of duty under the chains of that evil man thanks to his mother.
So he liked to think he knew what to do with orders—how to determine if they were the appropriate course of action, if he should give the person doing the ordering the satisfaction of thinking they ordered a prince—now king—or if he would make it clear they had no say over him.
But he did not know what to do with his wife, standing here in this parlor, telling him what to do after Evelyne had trudged away.
“You must interfere,” Ines told him, with quite a bit of fire and determination he had never once seen from her in these near ten months of marriage.
She never told him anything. Never insisted upon anything.
She was usually exactly as he’d expected she’d be, what King Enzo had wanted the princess to be.
Beige. Malleable. Deferential. She was such a tiny little thing, Alexandre hadn’t given thought to the fact there might be any room for much else.
And now she stood, looking down at him in his chair. Telling him—a king—what to do.
He rather wanted to refuse her out of principle, but she was talking about Evelyne and… Well, it was all too clear his sister was miserable, and though he’d seen little of Gabriel, there was no doubt he was the same.
If he knew how to fix it, he supposed he would. The problem was the not knowing. He wasn’t about to admit that to his wife.
“And how do you propose I do that? Evelyne has made it clear she does not wish to make him do anything.”
Ines huffed impatiently. He’d had no idea she could be impatient.
“You need to convince him he is not this danger he seems to think. It’s utterly ludicrous.”
Alex frowned. “Evelyne told you…”
“Evelyne has told me everything. Because she is lonely and miserable and heartbroken. She needs a friend, and I have been that for her. And as perhaps the only impartial bystander here, I can tell you with certainty your friend is being an idiot. You must interfere, Alex. For your sister’s sake.”
She never called him Alex. He did not quite know what to do with this strange turn of events. And he always knew what to do, no matter the turn of events.
Ines inhaled deeply. When she spoke again, she sounded more herself.
Her expression was calm, her words rational.
“The truth of the matter is, we know what a loveless marriage looks like. We are quite happy to spend our time apart. Evelyne is miserable with Gabriel away. I would wager a guess Gabriel is miserable being away. But they cannot quite see past their own misery. We can. We can help them. We must.”
She did not say if we cannot be happy, at least they can be, but he felt it all the same.
“If I require him to come back here, Evelyne does not need to know it was at my insistence. Perhaps simply spending time together will…”
Ines was shaking her head. “You need to find some way to prove to Gabriel who he really is, not who he thinks he is. He is your best friend. You should know how to do this.”
Alexandre would not admit he didn’t have a clue. And he didn’t have to, because Ines whirled away, leaving him alone in the parlor. Chewing over her parting shot. And perhaps this new side of herself she’d shown him.
It wouldn’t do to consider that, though. Not when they no longer needed to create an heir. Thanks to Evelyne. And Gabriel.
So he focused on them.
It took him a little bit, but when he saw he had a meeting scheduled in the morning with the general, Alexandre began to form a plan.