Chapter 191: You Are Useless
Stephen allowed himself to bask in it.
Henry turned on him. "You are useless."
"I am doing my best, Sire."
"Have you never wooed a woman?"
"Sire," Stephen said at last, "I barely have time to woo myself."
Henry stopped pacing. Stephen, not yet understanding the full tragedy of what had left his mouth, looked at him with confusion. Henry raised a brow. "Woo yourself?"
Stephen frowned. "Yes, Sire."
"Stephen," Henry said slowly, "please tell me you are not saying what I think you are saying."
"I do not understand, Sire."
"I will give you a moment."
"A moment for what?"
"To think about it."
Stephen stared at him. Then, unwillingly, his mind returned to his own words. He heard them again, this time not as weary complaint. His face changed at once. His ears reddened first, then his throat, then every inch of visible skin above his collar.
Henry’s mouth twitched. Stephen’s eyes widened in shame. "There it is," Henry said, watching the realisation dawn across Stephen’s face.
Stephen looked as though he would rather be dragged before Parliament in his linen than remain in that chamber another second. "Surely, Your Majesty," he began stiffly, "you do not truly think that I meant—"
"That you woo yourself?" Henry supplied.
Stephen’s face burned scarlet. "Your Majesty."
Henry’s smile widened, amusement softened the hard lines of his face. It did not erase the the violent ache Livia had left behind when she walked out of his chamber, but it made him look almost young again. "It is your right, Stephen...No shame in it."
"Your Majesty," Stephen repeated, mortified.
"All men do it."
"I would rather not discuss what all men do."
"I am only saying I shall not judge you."
"I beg you to judge me in silence."
Henry laughed then. "Are you asking me to shut up, Stephen?"
Stephen’s eyes bulged even more as he dropped to his knees. "God forbid, your majesty."
There had been a time when laughter came easily to Henry. Now even a poor joke felt like mercy. Henry chuckled again even as Livia returned to his thoughts.
He planned to be the man she had once trusted. He yearned for her laughter, her softness. God help him, he wanted the heat she radiated when she beneath him—the woman who burned for him if only the world stopped standing between them.
Desire would not save him now. He needed counsel and apparently, not Stephen’s.
"Find me someone with a brain who knows how to woo a woman," Henry said.
Stephen got to his feet, bowed quickly, grateful for dismissal and desperate to recover what dignity he had left. "Of course, Your Majesty."
*****
Livia and Bella walked through Whitehall’s privy garden, laughing beneath the cool evening air. What else could they do? If they did not laugh, they might break.
For both of them, it felt strangely freeing. They spoke of court ladies, dull sermons. They talked about everything and anything.
They took shelter beneath a small garden pavilion. The canopy was old, its carved posts half-veiled in climbing greenery, its stone bench cool beneath their skirts. From there, the palace seemed softer at a distance. Whitehall’s windows glowed with candlelight, and the gardens stretched around them in shadowed paths, trimmed hedges, and the faint perfume of damp roses.
Bella sat beside Livia, hands folded in her lap, though her fingers would not stay still. She seemed to wrestle with a question for several minutes, glancing at Livia, looking away, then glancing again.
Livia noticed and smiled faintly. "Ask it before it kills you."
Bella flushed. "I do not wish to offend you." She bit her lip, then leaned a little closer, lowering her voice. "Did living in a brothel give you more experience with... you know... pleasuring a man? I am sorry," Bella said quickly. "That sounded terrible."
"Why do you ask?"
Bella exhaled. "Because I genuinely want to understand. I do not mean to insult you. Truly, I do not. How did you get both a king and a duke to lose their senses over you?"
Despite herself, Livia laughed softly. "Is that what you think keeps men? Skill between the sheets?"
"Does it not?"
"Oh, Bella..."
"Do not look at me like that as if I am an innocent fool."
Livia laughed.
Bella nudged her with her shoulder, the embarrassment giving way to playful indignation. "I am not ignorant." She lifted her chin, though her cheeks were still pink. "I have been pregnant. I know what happens in a bedchamber."
"Knowing what happens and understanding why a man stays are not the same thing."
"You may have lived in a brothel but I can assure you, I am better at it."
"Oh," Livia said, turning to her with exaggerated solemnity, "look at us. Are we comparing vagina skills now?"
Bella burst into laughter. She quickly clapped a hand over her mouth, though it did little good. She bent forward, one arm wrapped around her stomach, her shoulders shaking beneath the shawl. "You are mad," Bella gasped. "Completely mad."
"Me? You are the one who began inquiring after the talents of my vagina."
"Stop," Bella whispered, laughing harder. "Someone will hear you."
"Then they will finally have something interesting to report from Whitehall."
That only made Bella laugh again, and Livia joined her. It felt good to be obscene.
Livia leaned back against the pavilion post and looked into the darkened garden. "Everything I know was taught to me by someone I thought was a friend."
Bella sobered. "At the brothel?"
"Yes. She worked there as Beaumont’s girl." Livia’s voice thinned slightly around the name. "Her name was Jane."
Bella’s eyes widened. "You had lessons?"
"It was going to be my first time," Livia said. "I had no idea what I was supposed to do. No one teaches girls like me how to be desired without being used."
Bella’s laughter disappeared entirely.
Livia looked down at her hands. "I wanted to impress His Majesty. That sounds foolish now, does it not? But at the time, I thought if I was skilled enough, perhaps he would save me."
(Brought to you by Missy Dionne 1/2)
