Chapter Twenty-Two
Lady Rochford suggested that I sleep in her room tonight. She could feel my anxiety surging and thought I could do with the company. She wasn’t wrong.
Sitting on her bed now as she walks Theo, I find myself in a constant state of waiting.
Waiting to see if Henry comes to find me.
Waiting to hear the sound of armed men coming to drag me away.
Waiting to hear news that Simon is dead or imprisoned or that he fled the country after I told him who I really was.
The waiting game is a strange sport. I’m in control of my own mind but not my fate, and it’s such a hard truth to reconcile. I try to concentrate on my breathing instead. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight, over and over and over.
My knees are hunched to my chest as I sit in the middle of the bed when the bedchamber door creaks open. I turn my head to look, expecting to see Lady Rochford, but Simon walks in instead.
But it can’t really be him, can it? My imagination is playing tricks on me.
“Simon?” I whisper.
He locks the door behind him and slowly begins to cross the room. I get up from the bed in an instant, walking barefoot across the floor to meet him halfway. I can see him and smell him and feel him, placing my hand on his chest.
“What are you doing here? No one knew where you were.”
“Lady Rochford invited me in. Do you mind it?”
I nervously shake my head. “No. But why did you come back?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“But Henry—I think he knows about us. He looked at my bracelet like he knew. What if he comes looking for you?”
“No one knows that I came back. No one knows where I am, actually.”
He brings his hand up to cover mine, and I feel the thrumming of his heart beneath the pads of my fingers.
“I thought with what I told you before you left, and with Henry coming home, you’d want to be as far away from me as you could get. I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”
Simon smiles—a peaceful one. “Why would I ever want to leave where you are?”
His words wrap around me like the fuzziest sweater after being out in the cold. I wonder how much he knows about what’s going on now. If he has any idea of what might be waiting for us.
“How much did Lady Rochford tell you?” I ask him.
He holds my hand tighter against him. “She told me everything, including the king’s suspicions of me.”
“How can you be here if you know? Why don’t you hate me? Didn’t she tell you that I ruined your life?” I try to pull my hand away from him, but he won’t let go. “What if I was supposed to save Catherine? What if I was supposed to save everyone and I failed? What if I didn’t change anything?”
“You changed everything for me.”
I pull again, but to no avail. My hand stays pinned to his chest. I never should have let this happen.
I was too comfortable. Too confident. With our every conversation, every touch, every kiss, I endangered him.
I knew from the beginning that Catherine’s life could be cut short, and I took Simon along for the ride.
I should have stayed away from him. If I really cared about him, I would have. Now this is where we are.
“They’re going to question you,” I tell him.
He’s still so calm. My stark opposite. “I know.”
“They could arrest you.”
“I’ll lie my way out of it. I’m good at that, remember?” I wonder if he actually believes that, or he’s just saying it for my benefit.
I shake my head, wishing his words were true but knowing that they’re not. “Not out of this you won’t.”
He finally lets my hand go and cups my cheeks in both his palms, keeping my gaze locked with his. He’s purposefully giving me tunnel vision—trying to stop me from seeing anything but him. He doesn’t know it’s unnecessary. All I see is him regardless.
“I don’t want to think about that now,” he says. “I just want to think about you.”
I don’t understand why he’s doing this. He shouldn’t be thinking about me. He should be thinking of how he can escape. He should be on a horse right now, getting as far away from here as he possibly can.
“You can still leave,” I tell him. “You can go and hide and make a new life somewhere. You need to go while you still can.”
Simon drops his hands to my hips, casually holding me like we’re debating what movie to watch in bed rather than saving his life.
“I’m a creature of habit. I like it here. Plus, I want to hear what life is like in the future.”
“How are you so calm?” I demand, gripping his arms. “Don’t you understand what’s going to happen?”
“I understand. I also understand that no matter where I go, I’ll be hunted. And I would much rather stay with you in the meantime.”
His eyes are filled with resolve. He isn’t going anywhere, despite my wishing that he would. I try to wrap my brain around it, to accept it, but I keep finding myself at blame’s doorstep.
I move my hands up to stroke along the sides of his neck, needing to feel the warmth of his skin. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more careful. Now you’re trapped here.”
“I’m not trapped, Lily. I’m exactly where I want to be.”
I shake my head. “You wouldn’t think that if you knew what I knew. About the future. About what happens.”
“You know what happens to me, then? At the end of all this?”
I nod, even though I didn’t really know about him in the future. In the future, it was supposed to be Thomas. But I guess that’s the one thing I changed. I saved Thomas and condemned Simon. He wasn’t supposed to be here, but he is now. And it’s no one’s fault but mine.
“So, all this doesn’t end well?” he asks, not seeming overly bothered either way.
“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.”
Just saying it out loud—it feels like I’m being torn apart at the seams. Simon only smiles at me, and I don’t know how it’s possible. How can he smile through this?
“If that is true,” he says, “then I want what is left of my life to be right and good. And the only way to do that is to spend it with you.”
I let out a tearful, broken laugh. He can’t know what he’s saying.
He tilts my face up to look at him. “No matter the danger. No matter what happens. Be here with me.”
I move my hand up to his cheek, and he kisses my wrist. I drink in the feel of his mouth along my vein. I want that feeling everywhere.
He smiles at my audible intake of breath and begins walking me backward. “I can’t decide if you are more beautiful in the moonlight or in the sun.”
“I like you in the sun,” I tell him. I picture him back with me in California. He could have lived on the sea breeze. Golden and happy. We would drink together on the beach and tease each other in the waves. “I wish I could show you where I’m from.”
I feel myself hit the edge of the bed, and Simon brings his body flush against mine.
“Tell me,” he says.
I try to focus, but the sensation of his hard muscles against my chest doesn’t make it easy. “I’d take you straight to the beach. I know you have beaches in England, but California is different. It’s much warmer there; the water is, too. I think you would lay in the sun for hours.”
He traces his hands up my arms and down my back, and my nightgown bunches and spills everywhere he goes. “What else?” he asks me.
“I’d teach you how to surf. That’s where you stand on a board and ride the waves. You wouldn’t be good at it at first, but you’d learn quick. You’d want to go back every day. It’s addictive like that. Sort of like riding a horse.”
He pushes my hair behind my shoulders, baring my neck to him. My skin is tingling, and my blood is humming.
“I’d take you for tacos at my favorite spot. I’d buy you sunglasses and a T-shirt. Maybe a backward hat. You’d be classic California.”
I can’t stop touching him. His broad shoulders. The strong column of his throat. Having him in my grasp here but envisioning him in the future is a heady combination.
“Then what?” he asks, kissing the hollow dip of my collarbone.
Breathing is so much harder with him doing that. “Then we’d go back to my apartment—where I live. It’s small, but it’s cozy. I think you’d be happy there.”
He pulls back to look at me, a soft storm of emotions etched across his moonlit face. “I would be there with you?” The question comes out more like a declaration. Like there’s no other possibility other than the two of us being together.
“Of course,” I answer.
“Then I know that I would be happy.” His hands drift to my waist again, and he lifts me up to sit on the edge of the mattress, looking down at me and cradling the back of my neck. “Would you be happy there with me?” he asks.
I’m almost happy now, and here we’re standing on the brink of our world collapsing. If this is how I feel in his arms now, I can hardly imagine how I’d feel tucked away with him in my safe, quiet life.
“I’d be the happiest I’ve ever been.” I say it without a hint of doubt because I have none.
I picture what we could have again, and I’ve never wanted anything more. It isn’t fair. None of this is. Simon and I should have nothing but time in front of us. Instead, it’s slipping away faster than we can fathom.
“Stay.” He pulls me tighter against him, sensing or seeing my fear. “Stay with me.”
My mind is reeling, and Simon must know that there’s only one way to stop it.
He dips down and pulls me up with a frantic tug.
Our lips meet and everything goes quiet.
I can stay with him here. Not in the palace, but in this place that only exists when we’re together—a state of want and need. Acceptance and escape.
His mouth parts as he takes in a labored breath, but it’s like he’s stealing mine.
I tilt my chin up, giving him a slow kiss before easing away to slide back toward the center of the mattress.
I stay sitting up as I move, and he crawls over me, following my path.
My arms are straining as I lean my weight backward, and Simon keeps moving over me, enveloping my body in his until I drop down.
He pushes up on his arms as he hovers over me, holding my gaze like we’re the only two people on earth.