Royally Remembered by Emma Chase
(13 years before Royally Screwed)
“And that, love, is why we’re all so royally fucked up.”
~Prince Henry, Royally Matched
Lenora
THE WORLD STOPPED TURNING WHENthey told me my son was dead. My heart went cold the moment they uttered the words. It was a blessing, really. To be mostly dead inside, to hardly feel, not really mourn. It allowed me to go through the motions and focus my mind on trivial, meaningless matters. So many details.
It was an accident, they said. An airplane is a machine and even the best machines fail at the most inopportune times. No one’s fault. Bad luck. Bitter happenstance.
After we lay Thomas and Calista in the ground, and the sky is starless and as black as our clothes, and Nicholas and Henry are safe in their beds, and Edward and I are ensconced behind the closed door of our bedroom—the world goes back to turning.
My heart begins to beat again.
The memories invade.
And it is unbearable.
I think about Thomas as a baby, his round eyes and chubby fists. I remember him as a boy, the smell of his hair, the sound of his voice, his smile, his laugh—and there’s nothing to be done but allow the abyss to suck me down. Everything hurts—my body, my soul—it is all just pain.
Pain so acute, I can only form three words over and over and over again.
“Let me die, let me die, let me die, let me die . . .”
Edward’s arms come around me from behind as my knees give way and we sink down to the floor together.
“Lenora—”
I twist around, clawing his shirt, desperate for him to understand.
“I would’ve died when we lost Evangeline, but Thomas was there. He needed me. Now it’s only you. You’re the only one keeping me here.”
“Lenora . . .”
“If you let me go, I’ll fade away. I’ll fade away and die and I won’t have to feel this anymore. I can’t, Edward.” The sobs tear out of me. “Please let me go, let me die.”
He rocks me slowly, but even his strong arms can’t hold me together.
Not this time.
Edward’s words are raw with the same agony I feel.
“I can’t let you go. I won’t. I need you. Nicholas and Henry need you.”
“No.” I wrench away from him, shaking my head. “They have you. You can teach them to be men.”
He wipes at my tears and presses me to his chest, caressing my hair again and again.
“They need to be more than men. Nicholas needs to be a king. And I can’t teach him how to do that. Only you . . . it must be you.”
I dissolve into my tears.
“He was our boy, Edward. Our good, sweet boy.”
“I know, my love. I know . . .”
We don’t move from the floor for a very long time. We sit there, wrapped around each other. When my cries eventually quiet, because inevitably they always do, I confess, “We should’ve had more children. You should’ve had more. Handsome sons and doting daughters. I should’ve given you that. But I was a coward.”
Edward draws in a deep breath and traces my hairline tenderly.
“You have never been a coward a day in your life. I didn’t want more. You and Thomas were always enough.”
He presses his lips to my temple.
“And now we have Nicholas and Henry . . . and they are enough.”
Edward
In the days following Thomas and Calista’s funeral, Lenora throws herself into her work. She rises early, even for her, and joins me in bed long after the sun has gone down. I allow the long hours because her work is a comfort—it gives her a renewed reason to carry on living.
Nicholas spends time with his grandmother, adjusting to his new circumstances. And I give particular attention to Henry, because he seems most at risk for feeling forgotten . . . for getting lost in this world. We ride together in the mornings and go fishing at dusk. Being outdoors and busy is soothing for my youngest grandson—at least, it seems to be.
On the fourth afternoon after the funeral, I visit Lenora in her office. As I approach, I hear the unforgiving, lashing sound of the Queen’s voice. And I pity the politician or bureaucrat she’s speaking to.
Until I walk into the office.
And see Nicholas sitting in the chair across from her desk. His head is down, curving in on himself, as if she’s carving out his insides with every word.
“Our future rests on your shoulders now. I expect you to behave accordingly.”
“Yes, Grandmother.”
“Any weakness you show will harm us irrevocably. Myself, your grandfather, your brother. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“That’s enough, Lenora,” I say softly.
But she carries on as if I haven’t spoken—her tone as harsh and cold as her words. Cruel.
“When you return to school, all eyes will be on you, now more than ever. You will not act out or grieve—even in front of your closest confidants. The people will look to you to lead them through their mourning—that is your priority. Your own feelings are irrelevant now.”
I’ve never shouted at my wife once in our lives. But I do now, slamming my hand on the desk so hard the leg cracks.
“Enough!”
She turns to me with the gaze of a cornered animal. Wounded and angry—and dangerous.
“Nicholas, leave us, please,” I tell him.
He hesitates, looking to the Queen. And that infuriates me more—that she has drilled this obedience into him so deeply.
With her eyes still trained on me, Lenora nods and Nicholas rises, bows, and walks from the room.
Once the door closes, I move toward her cautiously and speak carefully. As if I don’t know her at all. Because at this moment . . . I’m not sure I do.
“What are you doing, Lenora?”
“I’m doing what we discussed. I’m teaching him to be a king.” Her tone is devoid of emotion. Frighteningly flat. “This is how it’s done.”
“You spoke to him as if he is nothing to you. You looked at him like he is no one. He’s Nicholas. He’s our grandson. He’s Thomas’sboy.”
“He is heir to the throne. The Crown Prince of Wessco.”
“But that is not all he is.”
She scoffs disdainfully.
“You don’t understand.”
I step closer and my voice goes hard.
“Explain it, then.”
The silver eyes that I adore narrow, sharpening like a blade against stone.
“I had Thomas’s whole life to prepare him; there was time to educate him with care. But I am sixty-six years old now, Edward. My father was dead at seventy, Mother at forty-three. Your parents were both gone before your twenty-eighth birthday, your brother dead at twenty. How long do you think I have with Nicholas? A year? Five years? A decade if I’m lucky? When I am gone they will come for him.”
“Who?”
“Everyone. They will cut off pieces of him, bit by bit, until there is nothing left of his true self. And then they will twist him into what they want him to be, to serve their purposes.” She shakes her head, her delicate jaw rigid. “No. No—I will not allow that to happen.” She lifts her chin, tilting her face into mine, her voice rising with each sentence. “Not to Nicholas. Not to our grandson. Not to Thomas’s boy!”
For a moment, Lenora glares at me like I’m an enemy.
Then she glances away, breathing hard, reining in her rage, composing herself.
“From this moment on, I will raise him as my father raised me.”
“Because that was pleasant for you?” I bite out. “Going your whole life without a scrap of affection? Not knowing if the man gave a damn about you until he was on his fucking deathbed?”
“He made me a queen! Can’t you see that? None of us would be here if he hadn’t. I never would’ve been bold enough to befriend Thomas—I never would’ve met you. I would have let them marry me off to the first man they chose! But he made me a queen . . . before they ever put that crown on my head. And I will do the same for Nicholas, I swear it. If I have to rip my heart in half to do it, I will make him a king.”
She swallows harshly.
“And no one will dare move against him. Because he will be strong, like steel.” Her voice thins and tightens, until it cracks. “And nothing . . . nothing on earth will ever hurt him.”
The fight and fury drain out of me, leaving me defeated. For the first time in my life.
I lift my empty, useless hands.
“No, Lenora, nothing on earth . . . except you.”
And I turn on my heel and walk out the door.
Late that night, after several drinks too many, I retire to our rooms. Lenora is there, in her nightclothes but awake, waiting in the chair beside the fireplace. She watches me in the low lamplight as I open the crystal decanter on the corner table, pour another scotch I shouldn’t have, and loosen my necktie as I sit down in the chair opposite her.
And she’s not cold or harsh anymore, I can feel it. She’s wary and worried, and so very, very sad.
“Do you hate me?”
The bark of my laugh echoes in the glass as I take a sip.
“Never. Silly girl.”
“Are you angry with me?”
“No. I’m angry at everything else. Mostly I’m angry with myself. At how I have failed you all.”
Her head jerks, finding my eyes in the dimness.
“Failed us? Is that what you think?”
My chest is heavy with remorse and so thick with guilt I can barely breathe past it.
“I was his father. I was supposed to protect him. But now they’re both gone. And you, Nicholas, and Henry are racked with the agony of it. If that is not failure, I don’t know what is.”
She wets her lips and rises slowly, taking the drink from my hand and setting it on the table before standing in front of me.
“You listen to me, Edward Rourke. You have never failed us. Not any of us.” Her gaze glistens and a silent tear slips from the corner of her eye and down her cheek.
“The only reason I know how to love, the only reason there is joy in my life . . . the only reason I was able to give love and joy to their lives . . . is because of you. And that could never be a failure. Do you hear me?”
She slides onto my lap and takes me in her arms, holding me close and threading her fingers through my hair. And I let myself sink against her, absorbing the absolution I desperately need.
“It’s so hard, Lenora,” I whisper into her neck, my face wet with grief.
Because it’s still able to shock me. The brutality of living. The heartless cruelty of it.
“It’s so very hard.”
“I know,” she says. “But we have each other.”
I breathe in deeply. Inhaling the warm scent of her skin, the strength and sense of purpose she has always given me.
“We do.”
“And we’ll see it through,” she swears. “You and I, together. As we always have.”
I look up into her face—my beautiful little wife, my queen, the love of my entire existence.
“Yes, together.” I bring her hands to my lips, kissing the delicate knuckles of one and then the other. “Forever and always.”
She gives me a small smile. It’s broken and sad, just as we are . . . but it’s still there.
“Forever and always.”