Nicholas
WE HAD RETURNED from the tour the evening before, and though the household had greeted me with the same flawless precision it always did, it felt…different.
So much had happened in the two weeks we’d been gone.
Noah had ridden beside me more often than any footman had a reason to on the trip.
There was Solterra. Alejandro. The dinner disaster.
My own jealousy that I had done a piss-poor job of leashing.
The rest of the motorcade going on ahead of us on the last day, my private car taking us to Whitefall Cliffs.
And then there was the thing no one knew.
When I closed my eyes, I could still see him standing there with the sea breaking against the rocks below as he told me he loved me. Those words lived in my chest now, and they made me foolish. Reckless. But so damn happy.
It was a dangerous combination for a king, but I wasn’t thinking logically at the moment.
Noah had come to me late last night, after the palace had gone to sleep, and I knew I shouldn’t have invited him. We both knew, and yet he’d slipped into my bed with the same ease he’d slipped into my heart, and there was no way I could deny him.
“I have to go.” Noah chuckled softly as I pulled him back onto the bed and into my arms.
The sun would be coming up soon, and we were already risking things, but I couldn’t let him go without one more kiss. I speared my hands through his hair and captured his lips again, loving the way he moaned as he melted under my touch.
With him, in these stolen moments, I felt complete, and the void he left made the rest of the day a lonely place, had me counting down the hours until I could see him again.
Alejandro’s words had been shoved so far down that it was becoming easier to lie to the world, even though I knew I’d have to face things eventually.
Just…not yet.
“I really”—Noah pulled back to plant a kiss on my cheek—“really”—a kiss to the other cheek—“have to go.”
I groaned, but didn’t tug him back when he rolled out of bed, settling back against the pillows to watch him and his beautiful body as he grabbed at his clothes scattered around the room.
“Have I mentioned you have the most perfect ass?” I said, my eyes dropping to his rounded cheeks before they disappeared behind his slacks.
“In all of Valoria?” he teased. “Just how many have you seen, Your Majesty?”
I threw a pillow in his direction, and he ducked, laughing as he buttoned his shirt. He was so practiced at getting back into his uniform that it only took him a minute to pull himself together, and then he crossed back over to the bed and leaned down to kiss me again.
“Thank you for the compliment,” he murmured against my lips. His eyes were bright when he pulled back, his joy clear on his face. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Soon.” Before he straightened, I reached for his hand and kissed the back of it. “I love you.”
He leaned down and pressed a kiss to our joined hands. “And I love you…my Nicholas.”
I would never get tired of hearing those words. Never. Could hardly believe they were true, even though I could feel them every time he looked at me.
He no longer slipped out the door and down the corridor, but left through the secret passage in my chambers. As the panel closed behind him without a sound, I forced myself to get up. The sooner I got the day started, the sooner I’d be back with Noah.
Was it pathetic? Maybe so.
I’d thrown on a pair of athletic pants and a shirt, intending on going down to the gym to do a quick workout, when there was a knock on the door.
“Come in.”
Violet entered, carrying a stack of fresh towels, her eyes lowered. She curtsied and said, “Your Majesty,” before moving to my en suite to put them away.
It wasn’t long before she was back, and as she went to leave, for some reason I found myself saying, “How’s your morning? Violet, right?”
She went absolutely still, her hand freezing on the door handle, and then she slowly turned around to face me. “Sir?”
“It is Violet, isn’t it?”
“Uh…yes, sir.”
“How long have you been in my service?” Her eyes widened in alarm, and I shook my head. “You’re not in trouble.”
“Oh. Um. I’ve been at Montclair for seven years, sir.”
Seven years and I’d only recently learned her name. Someone who looked after me and my family in the shadows, and I hadn’t bothered to wish her good morning or thank her.
“I appreciate what you do for us, Violet. Thank you.”
Her cheeks went bright red, and she dropped her gaze back to the floor. “It’s my honor to serve, Your Majesty.”
She didn’t move, and I realized she was waiting for me to dismiss her.
“Have a good morning. I won’t keep you,” I said.
She curtsied again and lifted her eyes—then did a double take at something by the bed.
I glanced over at what had caught her attention and saw one of Noah’s white gloves on the bed. It must’ve fallen out of his pocket in his rush to leave, but there wasn’t a good reason for any part of a footman’s livery to be on the mattress in my personal bedchambers.
Too thrown off guard to reach for it first, I merely watched as she picked up the glove and looked down at it. Then at me. Nothing in her expression changed, but when she said, “I believe Mr. Bennett may be missing this,” my world tilted.
For a moment, I said nothing. A thousand possible commands went through my head. Dismiss her. Take the glove. Deny it. Explain it away as nothing.
I held out my hand. “I’ll see that it’s returned.”
But Violet closed her hand around the glove and shook her head. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, I think perhaps I should.”
Heat licked up the back of my neck, sharp and unwelcome. It wasn’t shame I felt then, but fear.
Violet’s sharp gaze gave nothing away, but I knew. I knew that she knew.
“I…trust that you can be discreet,” I said, not admitting anything, but hoping she could be trusted with anything she did know.
“I can be discreet, sir.”
“Good.”
“I have been discreet.”
Her words were a slap in the face, and any relief I’d felt at her keeping this under wraps disappeared.
I forced myself to keep my expression neutral. “About?”
She glanced once toward the door, then lowered her voice. “I’ve heard things since you returned.”
“I’m sure you hear many things.”
“I do. Most of them are nonsense, of course, but…” She looked down at the glove in her hand. “This is not nonsense. Sir.”
I moved toward the window, needing distance from the piece of Noah he’d left behind and the rude awakening happening now.
Outside, the sun was rising, the gardeners already up and spraying the brilliant blooms, the palace coming to life for another day, while I was having to face a truth I didn’t want to hear.
“What have you heard?” I said, trying to steady my breathing as I kept my eyes on the flowers.
“Enough to know people are watching him.”
“Him?”
“Yes, sir. Him.”
My fingers curled at my sides. “I would never allow harm to come to Mr. Bennett.”
“No, sir. I…believe you mean that.”
I turned. “You believe I mean it?”
“I do.”
“But?”
Violet swallowed, and for the first time, I saw fear flicker in her face. Not of what she was saying, but whom she was saying it to.
Still, she didn’t cower when she said, “But I don’t think you can promise it.”
The silence that fell then was heavy and absolute. My stomach twisted with the sick thought that she was right. It brought up Alejandro’s demand that Noah be sent away, and what could I do to stop all of this?
Then another thought occurred to me—that maybe what was being talked about was something nonconsensual. That I was a king who demanded more than loyalty to my house. That I demanded it in my bed also.
“I’m not forcing him,” I said. The words came out rougher than I intended. It was laughable that I even felt the need to explain myself at all, but Violet was a friend of Noah’s, from what he’d said, and I needed her to know that much.
“I know that, Your Majesty.”
“Did he tell you?”
“He didn’t have to. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, sir. And—” She cut herself off and looked down at the floor again.
I needed to know the rest.
“Please speak freely,” I said. “I won’t hold anything you say against you.”
She lifted her head again, and I noticed just how young she was, though her eyes were wise beyond her years.
“When you returned yesterday,” she said, “everyone was talking downstairs. The staff that traveled with you noticed things, and they weren’t quiet about letting the rest of us know. That’s how it works here.”
“I know how the palace works.”
“Respectfully, sir, I’m not sure you do. Not downstairs.”
That should’ve angered me, but she wasn’t lying, was she? I knew the palace from above, but I had no idea how things truly worked downstairs, not the way Violet and Noah did.
“Tell me,” I said, even though I didn’t want to hear it, not really. More like I needed to, to keep Noah safe.
“There isn’t proof, of course, but there is a pattern, and it has people talking.
His Majesty requests the same footman often.
Mr. Bennett also rode in your private car, according to several of the staff that traveled with you, and they spoke of an incident in Solterra that seemed more than a little suspicious. ”
I took that in, forcing breath through my nose and into my lungs, even as my heart was pounding triple time.
“There have been many times lately where it seems he hasn’t slept…in his room,” she continued, “and not that it’s affected his work, but…we can tell. And now this.” She glanced at the glove in her hand.
It was such a small thing, but enough to ruin Noah, if it were in the wrong hands.
“Do you intend to tell someone?”
She recoiled. “No, sir. But…”
“Yes?”
“But someone else might. And they may not like him enough to warn you.”
Her honesty ripped me apart, stole the air out of the room. I dropped to sit on the edge of the bed.
I’d done this. I’d put Noah in this position, and now our secret was no longer contained to just the two of us. I thought of the way he looked at me when I told him I loved him, like it was something he wanted, but something he also feared in equal measure.
I dropped my head into my hands, my words coming out before I could stop them. “What should I do?”
It was ludicrous, a king asking a housemaid for counsel in his own bedroom. My father would’ve been appalled.
“I…I don’t know, sir.”
Her words sounded sad, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. Not with the intense shame rolling through me.
“I wish I did, sir,” she continued. “I like Noah. I like having him here. He makes everything…lighter.”
Despite my current state, I felt the corner of my lips twitch, and I finally looked up at her.
“He’s so good at his job, and he’s worked hard to be here. I know his family depends on him. I hope I’m not overstepping by saying this, but I fear that whatever you feel for him, it’s only going to harm Noah in the end.”
Of course it would. The word “scandal” flashed through my mind, and I could only imagine what people were saying—that it was inappropriate, that I’d demanded it, or that Noah was being ambitious by sleeping with the king. They wouldn’t see what it truly was: love.
My mouth went dry, and I tried to swallow. “I don’t want him hurt.”
“I know, sir.” Violet’s expression was still cautious, but a little softer now. “I see the way you look at him too, Your Majesty.”
God, there was no defense against that. None.
The room blurred slightly at the edges, not quite from tears, but from just holding so much inside.
I’d spent my life being taught that emotion was something to master, something you kept private and never showed.
But Noah had arrived and chipped away at all that discipline.
He’d made me quicker to smile, to laugh, to correct myself.
I looked for him in every room and let my gaze linger a second too long.
And since that moment on the cliffs, it felt like I would burst with the sheer amount of love I felt, like it was trapped under my skin, lighting me up.
No wonder they had noticed.
“I’ll return this to him at once,” Violet said, tucking Noah’s glove into her dress. “Quietly.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure, Your Majesty.” She curtsied and left, the door’s clicking shut behind her sounding a lot like a loaded gun.
I sat alone, staring at the hidden panel in the wall that Noah had disappeared through not long ago and understood with perfect, devastating clarity what I had allowed to happen here.
I had falsely believed Noah and I could keep this secret for ourselves. That by the time I needed to make a decision, I’d know what to do.
But I was no closer to figuring out how to navigate this than I was before. How could I be a king and unable to make this decision? I knew what I needed to do, at least according to royal protocol, and yet I couldn’t imagine telling Noah we could no longer be together.
I loved him. He loved me. It should’ve been that simple. If we were anyone else, it would’ve been.
The life I’d been born into, however, was anything but simple.
I was the king. Noah was my footman.
Our two worlds should never have collided.
There was only one way this could go now—and I knew what I needed to do.