Chapter Twenty-Nine
Twenty-Nine
It’s settled, then,” King Henry says as he paces back and forth in my bedroom. The fire is burning, leaving the whole room warm and cozy despite its size and grandeur.
A few days have passed since the Saint Nicholas Day ball and the excruciating interaction with my ex-father and ex-family. I hear they are still at court, but mercifully, I have not run into them since.
It likely helps that I don’t leave my rooms much.
“Sorry,” I say, turning to face him. “What’s settled?”
“Your Highness,” Thomas grumbles, “I can’t shave a moving target.”
I turn towards Thomas and offer a small, sheepish smile. He simply narrows his eyes, so I tip my head back and let him continue sliding the flat blade along my jaw.
“Your legitimacy,” King Henry says, exasperated.
“My…?”
“Have you been listening to me at all, Christopher-Henry?” my father grumbles as he steps over to me. “I’ve been talking about it for the past hour.”
I don’t remind him that we’ve been in my rooms for only the better part of twenty minutes. I dare not move my jaw as the blade slides along my skin. But when Thomas stops to wipe the blade on a leather strap, I shift my gaze to my father’s face. “No, sorry.”
He stares at me for a long moment before barking out a laugh. He’s annoyed, I can tell—but he’s also too good-natured to remain so. “I am going to legitimize you in the eyes of the law in a christening ceremony on Christmas Day.”
Before Thomas can lean back in with the blade, I sit up fully and stare at Henry. “You’re going to what?”
“You are my son, Christopher-Henry. I have no heir but you.”
“You want me to be the heir apparent?” I ask. “Me? A common bastard with a criminal record?”
Henry huffs and pushes me back into the chair for Thomas. “Running away from home isn’t a crime.”
“I—”
“Your Highness,” Thomas insists.
I shut up.
“You will be crowned Prince of Wales before the court. I won’t delay any longer. The queen no longer bleeds, and I won’t have my father’s throne usurped by some Hanoverian pretender because I failed to provide a legitimate heir.”
I stare up at the ornate ceiling of my bedroom as panic rises in my chest. I can’t be the heir to the throne!
I wasn’t raised for it! I barely speak any Latin, I have no decision-making skills at all, and after my last appearance at court I’m certain I would rather be keelhauled than engage in polite conversation with another spineless nobleman.
As a towel slides across my skin, I move to sit up once more. “Your Majesty—”
“You can call me Father in private, Christopher-Henry.”
“Your Majesty.”
He levels a look at me, and I level one right back. I’m not ready to make that leap yet.
He squints but doesn’t challenge me. Every day I see myself more and more in his features. It scares the living shite out of me, if I am being perfectly honest. But… it’s also a strange sort of comfort. I could almost pretend I haven’t lost everything in the gaining of this one thing.
“I don’t even know how to be a prince.”
“It’s quite simple, really,” Henry says as he sits on my sofa and reaches for his cup of tea. “You look charming, you kiss babies… you lay your hands on the poor and have discreet affairs with wealthy married women.”
The old Christopher-Henry would have absolutely loved that. I shift my gaze to Thomas, who is being very careful about his facial expression as he cleans up from shaving my jaw. I reach up to touch my cheek and slide my fingers along the silky texture of my skin.
“Well done, Thomas,” I say as I rise to join my father in front of the fire.
Thomas cracks a smile. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
“Much better,” Henry says as he studies me. “You were beginning to look a little too rakish.”
“That is the effect I was going for,” I note as I lift my own tea.
It’s an unusual blend, with bits of flower petals floating in it.
Henry has a great love for the teas of the Orient, and this is one I have never tried before.
“Speaking of… It’s been weeks. Please, Your Majesty, can you not finally tell me the fate of my crew?
I think I’ve been patient long enough. Surely, you must know what’s become of them. ”
Henry sips his tea and gives a low sigh.
“I have no intention of dying anytime soon, Christopher-Henry.” Again he has ignored my question, and I feel a familiar frustration rising in me.
“There is plenty of time for you to be prepared for the throne. But I will have you legitimized, and what better day to do it than Christmas?”
I can think of about 364 days better than the celebration of the birth of Christ for my rechristening, but I don’t say so.
Instead I watch Henry as he sips at his tea with a content expression on his face, and my frustration falters as an unfamiliar warmth swells in my chest. In these quiet moments, when he seems to truly love me as a son, my grief begins to feel a little lighter.
The nightmares begin to feel a little farther away.
I could do this. I could have a real family—a family by blood.
I could be the man he wants me to be, if I try.
“All right, Father,” I say at last, and I am startled by how much the smile on his face when I call him Father makes my heart ache.
He wants Christopher-Henry, not Mr. Kit.
And for the first time I wonder if I should let the Deliverance go.
Without them, I am the only one holding on to a person I can no longer be.
Henry sets his tea down and rises to his feet. I rise too, because I’m fairly certain I am supposed to stand when he does. Before I can wonder what I should do next, his arms are around me. He hugs me to his chest, pressing his cheek to the top of my head.
“Excellent,” he says into my hair. “I know you’ll make me proud.”
I stiffen, and there is a moment when I want to pull away from him and run from the room. But I take a slow breath and push that feeling away, allowing myself to just be held by my father. My true father.
Somewhere deep inside me, the Christopher-Henry that I used to be is weeping tears of joy.
Fine. I hate to admit it, I truly do… but I am rather dashing in this white wig.
I turn my head to the side as I study my reflection in the ornate mirror of my bedchamber.
I don’t recognize myself, but I don’t hate what’s staring back at me.
I could do this. I could be the Prince of Wales—I could be someone’s beloved son.
Even if it leaves the taste of bile and metal in the back of my throat.
“You may be the most conceited man I’ve ever met,” Thomas says from across the room.
“May be?” I ask. I don’t fling off the wig and tell him it’s all an act, tell him that I cry myself to sleep every night thinking about the men I grew to love as family. About the man I…
No, I dare not put it into words.
“I’ve met a few who may rival your confidence.” He’s sitting on the sofa, mending a button on one of Henry’s waistcoats from his youth.
“Have you? I suppose I’ll have to try harder.”
“You don’t have to try at all.”
I smile and make my way over to him to check his progress. For now I am wearing only my white stockings, lavender breeches, and a white shirt as I wait for him to finish his repairs.
“You do quality work, Thomas,” I say as I admire the purple lace. “If I don’t tell you enough, please know that I am well aware how lucky I am to have you.”
“Are you buttering me up?” he asks.
“Of course.”
“I won’t sneak any young women into your bedroom.”
“I’ll continue to hold out hope anyway.”
He scoffs and snaps the thread he’s just tied off, before moving to stand. “Come, let’s finish dressing you so you can ruin some poor young lady’s life.”
“I’ll undress myself for bed tonight,” I tell him as he ties my cravat with expert fingers. “It’s going to be a late night, and you deserve to sleep.”
“Now I know you’re buttering me up,” Thomas says, but he smiles anyway. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
Once I am dressed and Thomas has given his nod of approval, I am ushered from my apartments down to the formal dining hall, where our guests are already arriving.
The dining hall is beautiful. Countless tapers and sconces twinkle across the huge expanse of the table.
The silver gleams in the candlelight, and the smell of roasted meat, sweet squash, and hot butter gives the room an overall effect of obscene wealth.
Some small part of me misses the young man who might have delighted in the opulence of it all, but I’ll never be that young man again.
Still, something about it is warm and inviting at the same time.
It’s nothing like the dinners at my fath—at the viscount’s house in Falmouth.
And there is no tablecloth to hide the carefully carved and patterned wood of the dining table, just a runner of silk and lace that follows the entire length and drapes elegantly off either end.
“His Royal Highness, Christopher-Henry, the Prince of Wales.”
Oh no.
I freeze when I hear myself announced, then turn to stare at the steward with wide eyes. Abject horror sends my heart shooting up into my throat, and I must force myself to swallow it back down before I remember to breathe.
What on God’s green earth is going on?
I let my gaze cross the room, passing over face after face, all of which reflect back to me the same expression of shock and dismay at my announcement. When I finally find the king at the other end of the dining hall, he’s looking smug and proud, and far too pleased with himself.
I don’t know what to do, so I just stand there, stunned and staring, until the dead silence around me slowly shifts to a cacophony of whispers, and then to a soft roar of voices all clamoring to be heard.
I could kill him.
I could actually kill him.
Christmas is still two weeks away, and I thought I had time to prepare myself for the inevitable scandal of the king’s secret bastard son being raised to the status of a prince of the blood.
But apparently not.
When the floor finally releases my feet, I cross the room in a daze to where my father stands, soaking up the chaos around him.
“Are you mad?” I whisper when I am close enough that I know no one else can hear but Eleanor, who stands beside him with an expression that says she’d like to ask the very same question.
“I told you my plan.”
“You said Christmas,” I snap.
“Christmas will be your christening. Tonight is your coming out.”
“You are mad!”
Henry smiles and touches my cheek—and as much as I want to stay furious at him, when he draws me in and kisses my temple, I deflate a little and find myself leaning into the affectionate gesture.
“Enjoy the evening, Christopher-Henry,” the king says softly into my hair. “You were born for scandal… and I think tonight will be the first of many.”
I do my best all evening to avoid Digby Hale. Both he and his father have spent the entire night vying desperately for eye contact with me. The viscount and viscountess of Falmouth are also in attendance, but unlike the Hales, they have carefully avoided meeting my eye all night.
Shortly after midnight the festivities are still going strong, and I am sure I can sneak away without being seen, when Digby emerges from whatever shadow he was lurking in to block my path.
Damn.
“Digby,” I say stiffly.
“Your Highness,” he replies.
Wonderful. Now that that’s over with, I smile and turn to step around him. He has the audacity to reach out and take my arm. “I had hoped for an audience with you,” he says. “To catch up. I haven’t seen you since that night on your father’s balcony.”
At once he realizes his error and blanches. “That is,” he sputters. “I mean to say—”
“Good Lord. Let’s skip over the nonsense where we feel awkward about who my father is,” I plead, massaging my brow.
“You always were terrible at formality,” Digby says, grinning. Apparently, he thinks that because he had his tongue down my throat once, he can be familiar with me like this.
I lift a brow to let him know that I am not of that opinion, and he shuts his mouth immediately.
“I simply wanted to… extend my congratulations on your elevation,” he says after a pause.
I squint at him.
He seems to realize he’s digging himself a deeper hole and drops the shovel. “Perhaps we could take a walk through the palace and catch up?” he asks. “Like old times.”
Like old times?
The memory of the last time I took a walk with him is so vivid, I can still taste the blood on my lip.
“I’m very tired,” I say curtly. “It’s been a long night.”
I breeze past him to slip out the door before someone else can stop me.
The halls outside the dining room are blissfully empty of guests, though servants mill about, tidying up and waiting to tend to their employers.
I stop to watch them for a moment, swallowing down the lump in my throat as I consider how nine months ago I would have breezed past them as if they were naught but furniture in the room.
I might have gossiped while they stood mere inches from me, as if they hadn’t ears or tongues of their own.
I catch the eye of a footman carrying wood through for the fireplaces.
He hesitates, as if he might drop what he is doing at my behest, and I offer him an apologetic smile and shake my head.
I want to say something. To thank them; to apologize to them.
But I realize that all I am doing is making them uncomfortable, so I drop my gaze and continue through the hall.
I head straight for the entrance to the palace’s private apartments and make the long, lonely walk back to my own rooms. I wasn’t lying when I said I was tired—the amount of energy it takes to get through a night at court is immeasurable, and thanks to my father’s shocking announcement before dinner even began, tonight it felt doubled.
When I finally reach the entrance to my apartments, I find the fires burning, giving the rooms the deliciously warm glow of firelight, which is more than I expected after giving Thomas the night off to sleep.
The curtains are already drawn around my bed.
I drop my cravat onto my vanity and slide out of my jacket before draping it over the back of one chair.
As I reach up to work open the buttons of my waistcoat, I am suddenly struck by the unnerving sensation that I am being watched. I pause and turn to look around the room, my gaze wandering from shadow to shadow as my heart does a nervous skitter in my chest.
His voice, when he does speak, comes from the shrouded darkness of my bed.
“Hello, Kitten.”