His Secret Slave to Scandalous Queen

Chapter 234: I Was Happy

"Because the night he died, I was with you on Wood Street." His voice roughened. "I was happy. I had not been happy in a long time. Not truly. Not without guilt sitting beside me. Then there was you, my little corner of peace, and for a few hours I forgot what I was supposed to carry. I thought God punished me for it...For daring to want something for myself."

Livia moved beside the desk, near enough to see the tremor in his hand. "Thomas did not die because you were happy."

"Richard helped me after Thomas died," he said. "He dragged me out of the dark when I had no wish to leave it. He believed I deserved happiness. All of it. He was such a fool. What did he know? But he was good at finding me in my worst hours. Which is why once again, I am warring with myself on the right thing to do."

"Is it something I can help with?" Livia asked.

Henry looked down at the unfinished sketch, then at the chalk dust on his fingers. He seemed not to hear her.

"I already know what you will think," he said.

"What if I promise to see it only from your side?"

His gaze lifted. "Promise me."

"I do, Your Majesty."

Henry rose from the desk. The candles threw his shadow across the floor, making him look larger than the exhausted man she had found moments earlier. "I am going to have Princess Madeleine detained...When Lionel completes his inquiry, if there is proof that she ordered my son’s death and the attack on Lady Bella, I shall place her before a royal commission. If she is found guilty, I will see her condemned and executed."

"Henry...She is a princess of France."

"I know exactly what she is."

"If you execute her—"

Henry looked back at the sketch. "Thomas was not heir to England. He was not legitimate. The court may decide his blood mattered less because no priest blessed the bed that made him. But he was mine...My son. My flesh. A child who never harmed her, never stood in her way, never lived long enough to learn the world could be so cruel."

"If Madeleine is guilty, she dies."

"And if France answers with war?"

"Then England will meet it. That means every Englishman presently in France will be in danger," Henry continued.

Livia went cold. "Richard."

"Yes. That is where my dilemma begins."

"You must send for him."

Henry gave a sad smile. "You have not heard the rest." He moved to the hearth. "Despite everything, I still care for Richard. That is the humiliating truth. He betrayed me. He betrayed our friendship. He defied me as his king and wounded me as a man. And yet I remember him as a boy. Getting me into trouble at every chance he could get. I had the most fun of my youth with him. I remember him lifting me up when I wished to rot after Thomas died. He knew my darkness and entered it to save me."

"Part of me wants to order him home at once," Henry said. "Another part, the one I am ashamed to name, wants to leave him there and wait for France to do what I will not."

Her face drained of colour. "You cannot mean that."

"I mean it enough to fear myself. If I summon him home, what chance have I?" he asked. "Will guilt bind you to him more tightly? Will gratitude become another vow? Will every kindness he showed you stand between us?"

"Sire..."

"Answer me. If he returns, do I lose you again before I have even earned the right to hope?"

Livia swallowed. "I am not a prize between you."

Henry dragged a hand over his face. "So I ask myself whether to embrace the darkest part of me. Whether to protect my claim upon you by doing nothing."

She stepped nearer, trembling now. "I am only a woman, Henry. A woman you have not known a full year. Richard has been your friend since childhood. Whatever happened between us, whatever I feel or do not feel, you must not let me become the reason you abandon the better part of yourself."

"If you leave Richard to die, how will you live with yourself?"

Henry wanted to say he had watched his own brothers’ death plotted without even batting an eyelid but what use was it for her to hate him even more. "You seem to forget that I did not start this fight, Livia."

"Your Majesty, he saved my life. I would not be standing here now, speaking to you, if not for Richard. Surely that deserves some gratitude."

"I would have given him everything, Livia. If he had told me from the beginning—if the moment he realised you were the woman I had been searching for, he had come to me and said, ’Your Livia is my Diana’—I would have owed him more than gratitude. I would have owed him my blood."

"He hid you from me," he said. "He kept you close while I was losing my mind looking for you. And worse, he made you hate me."

"He is not the reason I hated you." Livia swallowed. "Hate. Hated. Whatever word you want to use, Richard did not plant that in me. You did. He was not responsible for how you handled things...He did not force you to take my choices from me, or bring me here against my will."

"How else should I have handled it?" Henry demanded. "Tell me, Livia. How? When I found you, you were promised to him. You were ready to marry him, leave England, and disappear from my life. He put me in an impossible position." Henry rubbed one hand over his face, then gave a short, bitter smile. "I asked my mother for help. Do you understand how desperate a man must be to ask the wicked witch of Whitehall for mercy?"

Despite the weight of the moment, a laugh escaped her. It was completely inappropriate. Henry looked offended.

"I am sorry," she said, pressing her fingers to her mouth. "I should not. Truly. It is only the phrase. The wicked witch of Whitehall. It is very... you. A fine piece of alliteration. Excellent wording."

His mouth twitched for a bit before he grew serious once more. "She is my mother. I know what she is capable of. I know the price of inviting her into any matter."

"Then why did you?"

"Because I had run out of doors." Henry stepped closer. "You were going to marry Richard without hesitation. Tell me from my side, since you promised to see it. Should I bring him back?"

Livia did not answer at once. The easy answer was yes. The moral answer was yes. But Henry was not asking only about Richard’s safety. He was asking whether she would return to him. "What would ease your mind if Richard came back?" she asked instead. "What would make you unafraid?"

"Your loyalty. I want to know that you love me. Me. I want to know that even when you cannot forgive me, when distance lies between us, even when Richard stands before you with everything I failed to give you, it is me you want."

She gave him a sad smile. "You are your mother’s son, and you do not even know it."

"Oh, I do," he said. "I do know it. I try to refuse it. I try to deny it. I tell myself I am not made of her need to hold what she loves until it cannot breathe. But it seems love is turning out to be my greatest weakness."

"You are blackmailing me," Livia said.

His face changed at once. "No."

"Yes." She held his gaze. "You are doing exactly what she did. Either I give you what you want, or something terrible will happen. Either I choose you, or Richard may die in France. Either I prove my loyalty, or you will let the darker part of yourself make the decision."

"That is not what this is."

"Is it not?"

"No. I am not trying to force you into loving me."

"But you want certainty from me before you do what is right."

"I want—" He stopped, dragging a hand through his hair. The King of England looked dangerously close to having no command over himself at all. "I want us back. I want to return to who we were before he destroyed it." His eyes burned into hers. "I do not want your obedience. I do not want some frightened vow given because I hold a throne above your head. I want your free will. I want your choice to be me because mine, God help me, has always been you."

"It would have been different if life had allowed it. But every time I reach for happiness, fate throws another snare beneath my feet. And now, just when I think I can finally breathe, I must decide whether to save the friend who betrayed me or leave him where he may be swallowed by the consequences of my vengeance."