Noah #2
“Would you like some morning tea, Your Majesty?” She wiped her hands on her apron, and then gestured inside. “I could put on a quick pot, and I made some fresh scones this morning.”
Nicholas smiled, and my stomach fluttered. He was so handsome there in the sunlight smiling at my mother, and the fact that he’d gone out of his way to bring me home to visit with her made our horrid evening the night before vanish in the wake of her joy.
“I’d be delighted.”
She grinned like a schoolgirl as Nicholas approached. When we both stepped aside to let him enter, he stopped and gestured for us to go first.
“I insist,” he said.
His tone brooked no argument as we turned and headed inside. The cottage was made up of three rooms: the bedroom, the kitchen, and the sunroom. It was functional and small, and when the door closed behind Nicholas, it felt as though it shrank even more.
My mother twisted her hands over the skirts of her apron before spreading them out before her. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”
Nicholas looked around the tight space—a table pushed up against the window, a sink and basic one-burner stove sat side by side in the far corner, and, on the other side of the wall, the fireplace where Mum would’ve just finished baking her scones.
“It’s lovely,” Nicholas said, and I had to give him credit for sounding genuine when the room he was currently standing in was smaller than his royal chambers. “Can I help in any way?”
“Oh heavens, no.” Mum looked at me and gestured with her head toward the sunroom. “Noah, dear, why don’t you take His Majesty—”
“Nicholas,” he gently interrupted. But even with the smile he aimed her way, there was no way on God’s green earth that she was ever going to call him that.
“Um, yes. Noah, take him to visit with your father. He’s going to be so pleased to see you both.”
I leaned in to kiss my mother’s cheek, then looked over to see Nicholas’s attention on the two of us. The expression on his face was one full of longing, and my heart broke for him as I remembered the fond way he spoke of his own mother.
It might have been years since I’d last seen my parents, but at least they were still here with me. Nicholas would never get another moment like this.
“It’s just through here,” I told him, stepping away from Mum.
Nicholas blinked me back into focus, then schooled his features as he followed me toward the small archway between the rooms. We had to duck slightly as to not hit our heads.
The sunroom doubled as a sitting room and greenhouse for my parents, giving them both a place to relax and also to putter about in. There were windows on all three sides of the space from roof to mid-wall, where my father had built a garden shelf around the perimeter.
They’d filled nearly every inch of the shelf with everything from trays of cooking herbs to bright, vibrant flowers and lush greenery.
Plants hung from hooks in the roof with vines trailing down in two of the four corners.
When we came to a stop just inside the transformed room, Nicholas leaned down and whispered by my ear, “They have their very own Winter Garden.”
Yes, I supposed they did.
Sitting over by one of the windows in his favorite rocking chair, with his hand-carved cane by his side, was my father, the gray in his hair and mustache much more pronounced now.
He looked up from the book he was reading.
When he spotted me, a tired smile spread across his weathered features, and it wasn’t lost on me the toll that the years and his disability had taken on him.
“Noah, my boy. What are you doing here?” It wasn’t until his eyes lifted past my shoulder to Nicholas that his relaxed posture stiffened. “Your Majesty.” My father’s deep voice sounded exactly as I remembered, but, like his smile, it sounded tired. He tried to get to his feet.
“Please,” Nicholas said, stepping around me and striding over to where my dad was struggling to stand.
“Don’t get up on my account.” He placed a hand over my father’s where it was white-knuckling the arm of the wooden chair.
“I was just thinking what a lovely spot you had here, and was wondering if we could join you.”
I could’ve kissed him in that moment for what he’d just done for my father, allowing him to both keep his dignity and also praising his humble surroundings.
“I would like that very much, sir.”
Nicholas glanced over his shoulder at me and then gestured for one of the three seats that surrounded a dainty morning table Mum had moved into the room for tea, crochet, and games. Like the ones stacked over on the small bookshelf in the corner.
“Ah, there’s the mahjong board,” Nicholas said, and chuckled, looking at my father. “Noah told me you’re the reason he was able to beat me so spectacularly when we played, and now I see why.”
“He did, did he?” Unlike Mum, Dad immediately picked up on Nicholas’s casual use of my first name. After years in service to noblemen, it wasn’t something that one missed.
But if the king noticed his misstep, he didn’t react.
“He did.” Nicholas looked at me, his eyes twinkling at the memory. “Showed no mercy. He cleaned the board with me.”
Dad turned curious eyes to me, searching for an explanation to this “friendly” repartee I seemed to have with my new employer.
“Noah has always been a quick study. An inquisitive boy from a young age, he always had questions about everything, including every move made on a mahjong or chess board.”
“So what you’re saying”—Nicholas leaned closer to my father and lowered his voice—“is don’t play chess with him either?”
Despite my father’s clear curiosity at the relationship between me and the king, he smiled. “Not if you want to keep your dignity.”
Nicholas sat back in his seat and looked my way. “See, I’m learning important things right now.”
I shook my head and thought, So am I. I was learning that no matter how hard I tried, I would never be able to close my heart off to this man. Not when he was constantly showing me new reasons to fall for him.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Dad, turning my attention to something other than how much harder Nicholas was making it for me to imagine a future without him.
“Some days are better than others.” Dad’s tight smile told me the good days were few and far between now, and I hated that for him.
But something about the way he wouldn’t look at me made something niggle at the back of my mind.
What wasn’t he telling me? “But you didn’t come all this way to talk about my ailments. ”
“Dad,” I said, getting up and moving over to him. I crouched down until we were at eye level. “Tell me.”
He glanced at Nicholas, then back to me. “It’s nothing.”
“Dad…”
“Your Mum’s been having a difficult time trying to locate a wheelchair that we can afford.”
My heart clenched at the defeated sound in his voice.
I’d known he was reliant on his cane for every step he took these days, but I hadn’t realized how close he was to being fully chair-bound.
I’d sent as much of my money as I could for his medicine and what little they needed for food and living, but still I was failing them.
“I’ll look for something, I’ll—”
“I can help,” Nicholas softly interrupted.
My dad started to shake his head, and I did the same. But Nicholas was already on his feet and placing a hand on my shoulder.
“I can’t let you do that,” Dad said, and while I knew I would say the same if I were in his position, it frustrated me to be unable to give him what he needed.
“It would be my pleasure—the kingdom’s pleasure—to donate a much-needed item to one of its loyal citizens. You worked for many households of Valoria, did you not?”
If there was one thing my dad was proud of, it was his employment record. Nicholas was smart to speak to it.
“I did. First the Duke of Marrington and then the Earl of Sonnenberg, both of whom I have great respect for. It was one of my biggest regrets I had to leave the earl before my time.”
“I believe you, and for that reason alone, Valoria would like to repay you.”
“Thank you, sir, but—”
“Dad…” It wasn’t often that I would contradict my father, but in this instance I had to speak up. This was his health we were discussing. His quality of life. Mum’s too. “I think this is a very generous offer from the king. One you should accept.”
My dad took a deep breath and reached for my hand. “It will ease your mind?”
“Yes, it will.”
He nodded, then looked up to Nicholas and inclined his head. “I would be honored to be the recipient of such a gift, Your Majesty.”
“Of course. I’m happy to help.”
I reached for Nicholas’s hand where it rested on my shoulder and gently squeezed it, thanking him.
Dad’s eyes shifted to the move and narrowed, and I knew right then that our secret was out. He’d opened his mouth, about to say something, when my mum walked into the sunroom with a tray in hand.
The three of us looked in her direction and she held it up, unaware she’d just possibly saved my hide—and Nicholas’s.
“Tea, anyone?”
IT WAS AMAZING what a couple of hours at home could do for one’s perspective.
All the time I’d spent away, in the presence of noblemen and -women, had made me forget how nice it was to exist outside of the madness that was royalty. The simple life, far, far away from castles, crowns, and chaos.
We might not have a lot, but one thing we did have was peace and quiet. No one demanding a minute of our time whenever we found ourselves standing still for longer than a second.
I stared across the table to where Nicholas conversed with my mother. They’d just finished off a second pot of tea and were discussing the best weather to plant their orange trees.
My father had fallen asleep around fifteen minutes ago, but not before challenging Nicholas to a game of mahjong in which he’d shown the king no mercy.
Nicholas had then declared he would never play another mahjong game with a Bennett male as long as he was alive.
My father had laughed and challenged him to a game of chess, at which he also beat him.