19. Cora
Cora
“No, no.” I wave Isabel off. “I’ll be fine. I am quite all right.”
I take several deep breaths and attempt to compose myself, but I only break down sobbing again.
The two men I love. Brothers. At war with one another. Hearing Jasper banish Casen… it’s as if I felt the strike of his condemnation myself.
Isabel murmurs some comforting sounds and swoops in again with a damp cloth. She dabs my face, though there is no point to it. I cannot stop the tears. I’ve posted my maids outside my chambers to ensure I’m not disturbed, and I fear that I will need to keep them posted there forever.
It hurts. The pain in my heart is unrelenting. It is merciless. I wish I could go back. I wish it never got this far. It is my fault for not being more honest with them both.
After a time, Isabel coaxes me to come out of my washroom and into my chamber. We walk together as we would in the garden, albeit in much smaller circles.
“I don’t know how to fix this. I wish I could climb down the side of the castle and disappear,” I tell Isabel when all my efforts fail.
“Do you? If you do, Cora, I will find a way to get us both down.”
“No one would let us disappear,” I murmur to her. And some small part inside of me fights at the idea of leaving.
Isabel thinks about it. “You’re right. It’s not likely that we could slip away unnoticed.
We’d have to wait until the middle of the night, and your father would know you were missing by morning.
” She cocks a brow at me as if she’d truly do it.
As if one more person I love would destroy their life for my selfishness.
Thinking of my father’s distress turns my eyes glassy with fresh tears and I hate it. The emotions are far too much. Isabel dabs my face again. My eyes will be swollen until at least tomorrow. I can’t decide if that is a blessing or a curse.
“I’ve failed him,” I tell my friend miserably. “I have failed my father, and the kingdom—”
“Shh,” Isabel says. “You have not.”
“I have,” I insist. “Everything is ruined now.”
“It’s not ruined,” Isabel soothes. “We do not yet know what distressed Prince Jasper. Perhaps his brother had news from home that could not wait.”
Or perhaps I took a secret lover without knowing that he was the brother of a prince.
Perhaps I gave part of my heart to a man with a scarred face…
then gave the rest of it to his brother.
Perhaps I did not see the foolishness of my ways until Casen stood before me in the sunroom, and now I cannot see a way out of this cruel web I’ve woven that does not break my heart.
I’ve yet to confess to Isabel, my one true confident. Every time I try, my throat tightens and I swallow the words down.
I let Isabel think she has convinced me. She does not know what I have done in my chambers with Casen. No one knows now except Prince Jasper…and Prince Casen.
It is a blessing that only I heard the whispers prior to the banishment. A small reprieve.
Will it come to a brutal end for one of them? I don’t think I can bear it if that happens. I cannot watch their relationship sour because of what I’ve done.
There’s no way to decide between them. I gave myself to both men.
Will it come down to who I gave myself to first?
That would be Casen, but it was done without the blessing of my father.
I didn’t care about such things when I was with him in the dark, and in truth I do not care much about it now.
I only care about the heartbreak I will cause if I choose Casen.
Though I will not cause less heartbreak should I choose Jasper.
If either of them will have me, a voice whispers in the back of my head.
Even now, they could be preparing to ride out from the palace and return to their own kingdom. They might leave it to me to explain how Prince Jasper’s courting of me ended in disaster. Word would spread out through the kingdoms. There will be no one who does not know of me in the end.
And yet, all I can care about are the hearts of two men I gave my own to. I care not what others think or what would become of the kingdoms.
I force myself to think only of the gardens. There is nothing I can do now. I must wait for word from my father or the princes.
It seems like hours have passed before there is a tentative knock at the door to my chambers. Isabel takes me to sit in a chair by the window, squeezes my hand, and goes to answer the door.
It is my father, the king.
Isabel curtsies deeply, then steps aside to let him come through. As soon as he has entered, she sweeps into the hallway and closes the door behind her.
I know I should rise to greet my father, but my legs feel too weak to rise from my chair.
There is no telling what news he brings.
All I dare to do is look into his face. His brows are knitted with concern, though I cannot tell if it is concern for the courtship with Prince Jasper that may be in ruins or for me.
My father crosses the room and goes to one knee before me, taking my hands.
The emotions dry up in my throat. The last time my father knelt before me this way, it was after my mother passed.
I thought I would never stop crying then, either, and in those days I wept for the loss of her, but also the loss of everything we might do together.
I would never be able to discuss suitors with her.
She would never again talk with her friends to find out whose son might be available for a match.
My mother would not witness my wedding. Suddenly, it became ever more important that I do all these things perfectly.
If she could not be part of the courting process, I must proceed through it without a single flaw.
I suppose I have been weeping for that, too. For the mess I have made of all of this. I have not even allowed myself to think about how disappointed my mother would be.
My father loved her more than anyone. And for a few precious days, I thought I might have found something similar with the man who visited me in secret…and then with Prince Jasper.
That was before I knew who they were to each other. That was before Jasper knew who his brother was to me. There can be no denying that this is what they fought over. What other matter could have driven Prince Jasper to say such things, or Prince Casen to have had such an expression on his face?
My father looks up at me, waiting with patience I don’t feel I deserve.
“Cora,” he says, squeezing my hands gently. “I wish to speak with you, but I do not wish to distress you further. Are you well enough to talk?”
“Yes, Father,” I answer, finding that I am not only strong enough, I am desperate enough. I need to make this right and I need someone to confess to. The conversation is upon us. It is happening whether I am prepared or not. That is its own comfort. “Do you have news for me?”
“I think, daughter, that you may have news for me.”
A heat rises to my face although my father’s expression holds nothing but kindness and understanding. Still, I hesitate, my voice catching in my throat. How can I speak the truth of the situation to him? How can I tell him what is in my heart without erasing the love and acceptance from his face?
He seems to see that in my eyes, because he exhales and squeezes my hands again.
“You are my daughter, Cora. No matter what it is that you have to tell me, it will not change my love for you, and it will only be discussed between the two of us.”
“It might change your respect,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. “I fear you will think less of me.”
“It is not possible for me to think anything other than highly of you. You gave me a reason to live when I lost your mother. You remind me of her so very much. I would never think anything of you, but of love.” His words bring tears to the back of my eyes but I don’t let them fall.
“Perhaps other men might sit in judgment of their daughters, but I will not. That is a promise I made to your mother when you were born.” He pauses, closing his eyes for a few moments.
“And it’s a promise I swore I would keep to you all my life.
Nothing you might say to me, Cora, would lower your esteem in my eyes. ”
A few more tears slip onto my cheeks that I cannot keep from escaping after hearing my father’s words. I let them fall, breathing through them so that I might speak to him. I know I must.
My chambers feel too warm, but I think it is not the temperature of the room but my resistance to speaking the truth aloud. The time for keeping it to myself is over. My father is here, reassuring me, and I have never known him to lie.
“I love them both,” I admit, my voice steady for the first time since I fled to my chambers with Isabel. “Both princes. Casen and Jasper.” Their names spoken more quietly. As if saying them too loud would spoil the feelings I have for them.
More of the truth threatens to spill out from my lips, but I close them firmly and do not utter another word. My father does not need to know all the details of what took place in my chambers and on the picnic with Jasper. I’m sure he will come to his own conclusions.
I brace myself for my father to pull away in shock, but he does not. There is only silence between us for a time. I am nervous, but the words have been spoken. I cannot go back to a time before my father knew my feelings.
“This is serious, Cora,” he says softly. “You are my only heir.”
“I know, Father,” I answer and swallow thickly. An anxiousness runs through my blood and I know not how I remain steady.
“Your husband—the king of the kingdom, whomever you choose—he must be more than a lover.”
“In what way?”
“He must rule more than your heart. And he must be prepared to”—my father’s eyes darken for a moment—“he must be prepared to stand and defend any hurt he has caused you. If either of those men have—”
“They have not,” I say quickly, gripping his hands. “Father, they have not. These men have shown me—” Again, I shy away from the details my father most certainly does not want to hear. “They have shown me what it is possible to have.”
“Whichever man you choose must also be prepared to rule over a kingdom,” my father says. “Do you understand what I’m telling you, Cora?”
I meet my father’s eyes. He is giving me the chance to reconsider. Perhaps he fears that I may choose between the princes that own my heart. Perhaps he fears I may choose Prince Casen, who rarely speaks aloud—though that does not make him less worthy of a crown.
But perhaps he simply misunderstands my meaning. Perhaps I did not understand my own meaning fully until I spoke those words. I surely understand my meaning now. I’m so confused and so on edge, but I know what I want. I know exactly what I wish for myself.
I take a deep breath and straighten my spine, looking directly into my father’s eyes.
“I understand,” I tell him. “But it is not a matter of choosing between a man that could rule my bed and a man that could rule my kingdom. I believe both princes are suited to both tasks. I don’t only love them both. I want them both.”