8. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
Over the next week, my social media was filled with quaint.
Shots of me doing all manner of homespun ?stermonian things with the good folk of our island nation.
I’d learned how to make noodles at a small factory on the eastern coast. The day after, I spent it on a fishing boat being tossed about like a penny in a dryer as we netted cod, sole, and some lovely flounder, which was fed to me that night in a small pub on the coast. Dance lessons with small children who were impressed that I knew the steps to many folk dances.
We worked with a goat herder to milk goats, split logs, and on a sunny Friday afternoon, we helped make apple cider.
We meaning myself, Houghton, Vetra, and Rani.
The lady Alva was not doing well of late.
We all suspected she might be in the family way, as her upsets were always at breakfast, but by dinner she was fine.
None said a word, though, as she and Ivar had lost one pregnancy a year ago, so we were all quiet as church mice but incredibly hopeful.
They’d make fine parents, and so badly wished for a little one.
Rani had managed to maintain a respectable distance and demeanor while out on these pre-festival outings.
It drove me mad. Sometimes he would seem to soften just a bit like when we were all dancing Bj?rntramp, a folk dance about stomping like a bear, with Swedish children from a pretty Church of Sweden hub on the outskirts of the capital.
We’d stomped and growled, kicked up our heels, and laughed wildly.
His dark eyes had been filled with mirth for a short time.
Even when he’d taken my hand for a spin or two, he’d grace me with a smile.
Then the dance ended, and so did his openness.
Still, I’d seen glimmers. Now I just needed to get the man alone for ten damn minutes to make a heartfelt apology and enquire if I had a chance to win him back.
That was proving to be nigh impossible, as he and Vetra were always hustling me along or pushing me in front of a camera or phone to be filmed or photographed.
Today was a crisp fall day. A Saturday that was to be spent on a farm—surprising not really—that bred and raised draught horses and pumpkins.
The horses would be coming to the festival to pull wagons out of town to make a long circular trip into the farmlands and then back.
The pumpkins were also coming to town, along with all the goods and animals we’d been meeting, to be judged at the weeklong fair that would wrap up the fall festival.
The excursion today was to pick pumpkins with the press and load them into a wagon pulled by a massive brown horse with flaxen tails and manes.
Belgian Draughts, to be precise, the breeder had informed us on our tour of his horse barn.
Massive beasts they were, easily eighteen hands high and weighing in at over a ton.
Far cries from the sleek and speedy Argentine Polo Ponies I rode when I played the game on occasion.
Thankfully, the Belgians were gentle giants.
They stood placidly in their harnesses while we trudged through a vast pumpkin patch and listened to a farmer explain what pumpkin varieties he raised and which made for the best carvers.
The Halloween traditions were relatively new to ?stermon but had caught on quickly, especially for the children and teenagers.
During the pumpkin talk, the farmer got a call from his wife, which pulled him back to the house.
“Okay, let’s take a break,” Vetra announced to the meager press that had come out for this meet and greet.
The number of media had dwindled over the week.
Probably because I’d not been drunk, naked, or crashing race cars into fountains.
It was fine with me. The less people the better, as the crush of being filmed doing the most mundane things was getting to me.
“I’m heading back to the SUV to change my shoes and see if I can pick up a better signal.
Rani, can you hang back and get a few shots of him admiring the biggest pumpkin out in the field?
Oh, and see if you can get something from him about what he plans to dress up as this Halloween?
Members of the press, come with me!” They followed along like lost ducks in search of a stronger signal to send their images and notes.
“He is standing right here,” I reminded her as she picked her way through a field of vines and bright orange squash. Was a pumpkin a squash? I’d have to look that up.
Houghton lingered at the front of the wagon, petting the horses as he admired anything that stood taller than he did. Not many things did. I glanced over to see Rani holding a little white pumpkin while wearing a look of complete loss.
“Are you taking that one home?” I asked to make conversation before hoisting myself up to sit on the back of the wagon holding about twenty huge pumpkins as well as a dozen smaller ghost pumpkins.
“Or are you trying to hide from me behind it? If so, you need a bigger pumpkin.” The confusion left his face, only to be replaced with irritation.
Just for a moment, then it melted into that blasé expression I’d seen all week.
The one that irked me terribly. I heaved a sigh.
“You are allowed to be mad at me, Rani. You fully deserve to be. I treated you miserably when we were together.”
“I have to see a man about a horse,” Houghton said, even though he stood next to two horses. “Just over there by the fence.”
He moved off about a hundred feet, leaned on a stout wooden post, and crossed his arms as I began to swing my feet back and forth.
Close but far enough away to give us some privacy.
Rani stamped over with his tiny pumpkin to get into my face, something I welcomed as it showed some emotion. The automaton man act was beyond old.
“Why did you say that so loudly in front of Houghton?! No one was supposed to know we were in a relationship. I could be fired for sleeping with you!”
He looked like he wanted to bean me with his pumpkin.
“No one is going to get fired because we were lovers before you were even on the staff. And let’s be honest, I’m sure there are royals sleeping with members of their staff every day on this planet.
The only one who would raise an eyebrow would be my father. ”
“The king! Your father is the king.”
“I’m aware of his title.” His nostrils flared. It was very sexy. “Rani, we’re not living in the fourteenth century. You’re not going to be pilloried for sucking my dick. Nor would you be fired if anyone found out we were involved then or if we decided to rekindle.”
“Rekindle?! Are you daft?!”
“I do love how you’re picking up so much of Great Britain. It’s very appealing.”
“If you weren’t a prince—” He gave his pumpkin a squeeze.
“No, see, that is what I don’t want you to do.
Stop acting like I’m a prince and start acting like I’m a man who tucked his tail and ran when you told him you loved him.
Be angry, be furious. Rage, yell, chuck a pumpkin, tell me what you feel about me and my behavior.
We’ll never get past that shitty mistake if we don’t discuss it. ”
He rolled his lips over his teeth and exhaled loudly. “Who wants to get past it?”
“Me. I want to get past it. I want to apologize. I want to tell you that I was an immature asshole who balked at the idea of love and raced off like the spoiled brat that I was, that I probably still am.”
“No probably. Are. Still are.” He lobbed the pumpkin across the field. I watched it arc overhead and then fall in front of the horses. One picked it up and began chewing on it. “Fuck!”
“That’s why you never made the ?stermonian cricket team.”
“Fuck you,” he snarled like a rabid dog.
“It takes some huge balls to ask me to forgive that kind of heartbreak, Harold.” I waggled a brow.
“No, do not be bragging about your fucking balls to me right now. I don’t care if they’re huge.
I’m not even speaking about your actual balls.
I’m talking about the metaphorical ones required to say something so audacious. ”
I wiped the stupid look off my face. He was right. This wasn’t the time to be the royal tosser of bon mots. To him, I was just a tosser.
“You’re right. I’m being a moron yet again. Acting like everything is a joke or tying things to sex is my default defense mechanism, I’ve discovered,” I confessed, making sure I did not look away. His dark eyes narrowed slightly. “I see that you don’t believe me.”
“No, no, I believe that you use sexual innuendo or witticisms to deflect any deeper emotions.” He stood there between two massive pumpkins, eyeing me as if I were a landmine amid the giant squashes. Squashes? Gourds?
I really needed to do some squash/gourd/pumpkin research before the pumpkin judging contest I was hosting.
“You would know that better than anyone else,” I admitted, wishing against wish that he would soften just a little, an inch or so to let me wiggle my foot in the mental door he was eager to slam closed. Again, totally justified. “I know this probably comes as a shock.”
“You could say that, yes,” he snapped back as a crow cawed off in the distance. “Since when do you want any kind of emotional relationship?”
I blew out a breath as I finally allowed my sight to lift. Above us flew a pair of crows—no, three—circling a scarecrow who was not doing his job well.
“It’s been a slow-growth sort of thing,” I said as my attention left the crows sitting on the slightly lopsided scarecrow’s shoulders to return to Rani.
Still just as wary. “You may sit beside me if you wish?” I patted the bed of the wagon.
He shook his head, curls bouncing back and forth.
God above, he was so damn handsome. “I think most of it started when Anders came home for the holidays.” My fingers found the signet ring on my hand.
I began twisting it as my gaze met and held his.
“The baby of the family was the one to stand tall and fight the loudest for his rights to be who he was, love who he loved, and to hell with my father and this oppressive, outdated fucking island we call home.”
Much of the ire left Rani’s face. “Prince Anders is very brave.”
“He is, and I admired that. Still do. I got to see how happy Anders was in his relationship, and I came to realize I’ve only ever been that happy once, and that was when we were together.
I also got to see how he was with Mitchell.
How he refused to let my father treat their love as something to be ashamed of. I’ve done that in the past.”
“I’m aware.” His shoulders slid downward slightly, exposing that lovely neck of his.
“Yes, you would be. I hid us from the world because I knew it would cause a flail, and I was too damn cowardly to go toe-to-toe with Papa over us. Too much of a frightened boy to stand up and demand to be accepted as I was. Pity I wasted so many years allowing my father and the bloody church to repress me and my actions. I see now that I’ve been quite a dunce. ”
“True. That pumpkin beside you has more sense, and it’s filled with seeds and pumpkin meat. Guts? Whatever, it’s a vegetable, and it’s got more in its head than you.”
That made me smile. “I think pumpkins are considered fruit as they develop from a flower and contain seeds.” His eye roll was epic.
I longed to drag him into my arms and hold him, kiss the furrows on his brow away, and rub my cheek in those springy curls.
I did none of those things. I was being a good little princeling.
“Still, the point was made. I agree. I’m dumber than a pumpkin.
No matter what my reasons, I hurt you badly.
And I would like to apologize profusely for doing so, if you’ll accept my atonement? ”
“I need to think on that,” he softly replied.
“That’s fair. If you do decide to forgive me, could we possibly consider a new beginning for us? One where I don’t hide us from the world. One where I treat you like the treasure you are?”
“That is also something I need to think over.”
I nodded. “Thank you for hearing me out, Rani. I hope we can start over in some way. If you cannot see yourself ever loving me again, I’ll accept that graciously. We can just be friends. Even that would be better than this wall of bitter cold whenever we see each other.”
He inhaled through his nose, then let it out in a rush through pursed lips.
“To be honest, I may have held onto my anger a bit too long. It seemed to be the only way to ensure that you never got close enough to hurt me again, so I kept adding onto that wall, ice block by ice block, until the only ones who could see over the top were myself and Jon Snow.”
I snorted in amusement and waved a hand about at the blazing fall colors all around us. “Well, winter is coming.”
“That it is. Thank you, Harold, for the apology and the explanation. I’ll take some time to think about everything you said. I won’t leave you hanging either way.”
“You’re a better man than I can ever hope to be, Rani Adhikari.”
His gaze mellowed slightly just as Houghton called out to me that we were to meet the press at the house for some pumpkin tarts and warm cider.
A young man, big and pale as curd, ran into the field.
Houghton was on him like ugly on an ape.
Poor fellow was patted down and given a stern warning about racing up to the prince.
Once the young man was over his shock, he meekly climbed into the wagon and sat on the seat with the reins in his hand, scared to say boo by the look on his face.
“Warm cider sounds nice,” Rani commented as he climbed in the back, taking care not to let his thigh touch mine in any way. Bummer but expected. Houghton climbed up to sit with the farmhand.
“Two cinnamon sticks for you,” I said as the wagon lurched forward.
Rani stared at me. “You remembered.”
I tapped my temple. “Amid the seeds, there lie some beloved memories. Most centered around you and our time together. You were the best I ever had.”
He bit down on his lower lip but said nothing, which was fine. Riding back to the farmhouse with him beside me was enough for one day. Now I would have to wait for him to decide where things went from here. Patience would be required.
Good thing I was a very patient man.