Chapter Ten
ALEXANDRE KNEW HE could ignore Ines’s missive. He was not beholden to meet her for a walk whenever she wanted. Even her list had acknowledged that he was the one who determined the time.
But he had skipped lunch and dinner with her. He’d convinced himself it was for work. The work he’d neglected because she had upended his morning.
She needed to get it through her head that he was a king first, second and last.
He would tell her that now.
Outside the sun was low in the sky, the air getting cooler. The gardens were an explosion of blooms and chirping birds. He never took walks in the garden—who had the time? There had to be a reason for such things, and the last time he’d had a reason was when he’d been wooing Ines.
But now she was wooed. The end.
He thought of the way she’d recounted their first meetings. She had blurted out that she liked birds, in a kind of desperate rush. It had eased something inside of him. If she was nervous but willing to take on the mantle of his bride, then… Well, it couldn’t be so bad, could it?
So he’d endeavored to make her feel better about it. And she had held on to that kindness as some kind of sign that he was good…
There is only good in you if you make it, Alex.
There is no good in you. I will make sure of it.
He wanted to press his hands to his temples and squeeze the old voices away with it. He had not thought of those early days in some time. Did not allow himself to remember, wallow.
And the only difference in his life between all these years of shoving that turmoil away and having it live in his damn head was Ines. He did not blame her for his weaknesses. That was hardly fair.
But he blamed her for existing. For somehow reaching into his psyche and bringing those turbulent times back to the forefront. When his parents had argued, violently and viciously.
Over him. Used him as a pawn. A weapon against each other. And love with it.
In so many ways he had been some kind of linchpin in their marriage.
His existence had caused problems. His mother’s love for him.
His father’s love for her. She had not wanted that second child, had not taken care of herself because no matter how much she’d loved Alexandre, she’d known children were the death of her marriage.
Sometimes he wanted to believe that he’d been so young he’d simply misunderstood the things his mother had told him. He’d confused things.
But he knew he hadn’t. Love had been a bludgeon—and so he’d been used as one. And where had that gotten any of them? His mother dead. His country in turmoil. So many mistakes he now had to set to rights.
And Ines would dare claim she was loving him. Ines was now convinced she loved him? No. Something had to give.
Loving you is such a curse for us all, Alexandre. I am so sorry.
No, he would not go back there. His mother had died years and years ago. His father was dead. There was no use reliving the past. There was only the future—of Alis.
He walked through the garden, growing more and more irritated he couldn’t find Ines, when her message through his assistant had said the north side of the garden.
The side of the garden he avoided. Did Ines know that?
How could she? He had certainly never told anyone what he avoided or why. He rarely even thought of it.
He stood at the fork in the walkway. In order to get to the northern section, he would need to take a left. He would need to face that which hurt.
Well, what else was new when it came to Ines? Always forcing him into hurts that were better left buried.
He could return to the palace, refuse to take part in this ridiculous intimacy ruse, but then she would run away again, and he wasn’t sure what little hold on control he seemed to have could survive it. Particularly with Vinyes making comments about Ines’s holiday.
Plus, it was necessary to prove to her and himself that he was stronger than what strange feelings worked their way between them. These few months of torture would be followed by getting his life back.
He was used to those kinds of bargains, wasn’t he? Years of dancing around his father’s threats and whims had made him well acquainted with a devil’s bargain.
And he always won. Because here he was, the king. Alive and well and fixing Alis, one step at a time.
He walked along the path, knowing every step would lead him to where he did not wish to go.
But when had he ever had any say in where he went?
A good king was not beholden to his own whims. He was beholden to his country.
This he had learned from watching his father only care for himself—his ego, his temper, his wants.
His love.
Alexandre would be the best king, which meant rejecting all those things. No matter how Ines tested this. No matter what she was up to being in this part of the gardens.
The burial ground for one.
His mother’s grave was not in the Lidia family cemetery on the other side of the palace grounds—where generations of Lidia royalty including his father were buried in the shadow of a chapel.
If any god truly sanctified such an institution, it would have certainly burned to ash at his father being buried on its grounds.
Instead, the chapel survived.
Mother had originally been given an elaborate mausoleum in the capital city’s cemetery. Buried far away from the family and Alex himself.
Alexandre had argued against this, even as a child. He’d been slapped and locked in his room for two days for the audacity to demand something other than his father’s plan. He’d then been dressed up and trotted out for the funeral at the city center, surrounded by strangers.
The building, the stone, the memorial had been meant to show off the king’s wealth and power, but it had left Mother separated and alone. A symbol and nothing else.
Just like you.
Luckily, Alex had been ill and didn’t remember much of the funeral itself except feeling outside himself. But he had carried that day, that betrayal with him all his life. And he had always vowed to fix it when he got the chance.
So one of the first things Alexandre had done once Enzo himself was buried was to quietly have his mother’s body moved here—not to the chapel but to the gardens.
Not that he ever visited. But he’d wanted her safe and protected, as he had not been able to make happen in real life.
She was still alone here, but she wouldn’t be forever.
He and Evelyne’s family would be buried here.
And Evelyne came to visit. She even took Gabri sometimes.
Alexandre could not fathom why Evelyne would subject herself to such a morbid exercise, but maybe it was different for her since she did not remember Mother.
She had no memories of her voice, her perfume, the way she had snuggled him into her bed and told him stories of all the good he would do. Be.
Better than your father. Because you have all my love, and he has none.
Alexandre pushed the memory away. These memories only lead to one place. The bitter, bloody end, and that simply would not do.
Ends were over. He had beginnings to work out.
He spotted Ines in the distance. At the foot of his mother’s grave. She was kneeling in the grass, the light fading around her as there were many trees here to create shade.
So many emotions battered at his insides, he could not even find some anger amidst them to hold on to, to use as an anchor. Or armor.
He approached her like a man approaching his own death. “What are you doing here?” He had meant it to come out sounding like a clear-cut demand—not a rusty, unsteady plea.
“Thinking,” Ines said. She began to get up, and he rushed to help her to her feet. He did not look at the stone or the flowers she’d laid across the grass.
He might see that old flash of her dead body. Bloody. Desecrated.
Because she had dared die on the king, and even in death he had used his fists to make it worse.
Ines did not look up at him, instead kept her gaze on the stone. Alexandre breathed through the sickness roiling around inside of him.
But it meant he was looking at Ines. She was wearing the same outfit she’d worn in his office earlier—and even though it had been hours, she still looked a bit rumpled and mussed. Not her usual put-together, elegant self. Her eyes were a bit red and puffy. Almost as if she’d been crying.
Luckily there were so many pains inside of him vying for purchase this one did not cut him off at the knees.
“Would you tell me about her?” Ines asked quietly.
“I hardly remember her,” Alexandre lied.
“By all accounts she was wonderful. The antithesis to your father. I would like to know about that. My mother… Perhaps my mother was not always the way I know her. But for as long as I can remember she dulled everything with whatever substance she could find. And I think my father preferred it that way.” She finally looked away from the stone, up at him.
Her blue eyes a vivid blue—that the tears in them seemed to bring out. “I want a role model to look up to.”
He did not know what this was. He understood she might be upset with him for his behavior in the office this morning, but what did that have to do with his mother? With their child?
“What do you remember of her?” she prodded. The tears, the emotion in her didn’t seem to disrupt her determination.
“Very little.”
She sighed heavily, and she sounded tired. “Alex.”
Darling, what’s the matter? She’d asked him that as though she could fix it. Everything that was the matter. But she would fix nothing. And neither would he if he leaned on her.
It would all end in blood and death and bludgeons needlessly used against each other.
“I do not wish to rehash my memories of the mother I lost, Ines,” he said curtly. “Why are you pushing this?” Always pushing at the things he needed to stay locked away.
“I want to understand.”
I don’t understand you. She’d said that when he’d brought her back here. When she’d kissed him outside her room after running away for months.