Chapter Ten #2
“I still stay here on and off, between on-site projects,” he said.
She peeked into the living room, decorated in the same era as the bridal cottage, in its Scandinavian blues and whites.
This was where Gustav grew up, with creaking floorboards and tall windows that let in the daylight.
And yet there was something about the quiet of the place that struck Livia as almost sad.
“Was it lonely growing up here?” she asked.
“Not at first. Not until I came back from my first boarding school in the summer.”
That was a yes, then. She reached again for Gustav’s hand, warm and familiar.
They continued through the hallway and into the spacious kitchen, where they found another woman taking a loaf of bread out of the oven.
Her round face brightened when she saw Gustav, and as they exchanged greetings and introductions, Livia tried to imagine him as an eight-year-old, scampering through these rooms. She couldn’t.
Even the teenager she had known all those years ago was far from playful.
They crossed the kitchen to the double doors that opened onto a wide deck with a view of sea below.
“I thought we could take a walk around the grounds while we wait for lunch to be served,” he said, and there was something unfamiliar, something almost tentative in his voice.
They walked down a path that entered the forest again, with trees to climb and rocks to hide behind.
“I’m having trouble envisioning you as a boy,” she said. “What did you do with your time?”
“Run through the woods. Mitzi, the housekeeper, had a boy my age that would come to play after school, and Nils and I would build forts and dig in the ground for buried treasure. It was before I knew what being a prince was, back before I had heard the term Bastard Spare. Back when my father was just a stern man I saw a few times a year. But my mother always told me that I was special. Destined for big things.”
“Wasn’t that a kind of freedom?” she asked.
“I suppose so. One with a ticking clock.” The look on his face suggested everything she needed to know about how he felt about that freedom.
“Maybe not so different from the kind of freedom I had in the forest of the Alpine Institute, before I was old enough to know my place there,” she mused.
His expression was pensive. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Your mother was protecting you,” she added. “She probably thought she was doing what was best for you.”
Much in the way her own parents had thought—and still thought—they were doing what was best for her and Adele.
If Livia hadn’t been looking at him, she might have missed the way he winced, as if these words caused him physical pain. “She probably thought so. But it didn’t do either of us any favors down the road.”
She tilted her head a little. “It turned you into the person who came to the river that night.”
“The person you ultimately rejected,” he said, but there was no heat in his words. Instead, it sounded like he was considering what she was saying.
“The person I married.”
He flashed her an unexpected smile. “And it only took a heavy dose of manipulation with a side of semi-kidnapping.”
“It wasn’t your best look,” she said with a wry smile.
Then she sobered a little. “But I haven’t always done the right thing, either.
I didn’t give you a chance that last night by the river.
I was angry and…” She bit her lip. “I came back night after night to apologize, and then I heard about the way you were kicked out of school and I realized I had ruined everything. I was still mad at you, but I didn’t realize that that would just be…
the end.” She swallowed back the pain this memory brought. “I’m sorry.”
Gustav slowed to a stop and let go of her hand.
Then he turned to her. Slowly, he caressed her cheek, and she could feel the meaning behind this simple gesture echoing through her body.
I am sorry, too. And when he brushed his lips over hers, she could feel the meaning that spread through the ever-present heat. You are forgiven.
And in that moment, she found a different kind of freedom.
“All of it led us to this moment, right here,” he whispered.
They continued down the path, down stone steps carved into the rock, to the shoreline. There was a dock with two boats, their masks rising up high, one catamaran and one larger sailboat in the deep blue waters of the dock.
“This is how I spent my summers when I came back from school.” He gestured out at the shore and the boats and the sea, dotted with islands.
“It looks like paradise,” she said. “Did your mother teach you to sail?’