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She sniffed. ‘Don’t be so dramatic. It’s hard for you, I know. But none of how you connect with people is an act. You might feel that way, but it isn’t, Augustine. Neither is the way you care about people.’
This was an impossible conversation. He could see that now. She saw him through rose-coloured glasses. She didn’t see him how heactuallywas.
‘No, you’re—’
‘You’re very committed to this idea that you’re terrible somehow,’ she interrupted, steamrolling over him as if he wasn’t the King of the entire country. ‘That you’re mediocre and do a bad job. But you’re wrong.’ She stepped up to him suddenly, the lights in her dark eyes burning hotter now, the signs of her own anger flickering. ‘You’re just wrong. And I don’t know why you want to believe that so badly about yourself. I can only assume it’s because you’re afraid. You don’t actually think you’re mediocre and a bad king. You’re just afraid that you might be.’
She’s not wrong.
No, she wasn’t. Except he wasn’t afraid. He’d accepted the truth of his own failure long ago. Failure to measure up to being the King his father wanted him to be. Failure to make good his mother’s sacrifice in having him.
Failure to bear the burden of love placed on him by so many people, including that of his own country.
‘I don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘And I’m not afraid, because it’s true and I’ve accepted what I am. And the quicker you accept it too, the better it will be for all of us.’
He couldn’t stand being in the same room with her all of a sudden. With her liquid dark eyes, and her compassion. Her sympathy. Her insistence on him being better than he was. Her love.
He didn’t want it. He couldn’t bear it. Already the weight of everything he had to carry was too heavy. He couldn’t carry anything more.
So, before she could say anything else, he turned and walked out.
He walked blindly, without direction. Several people approached him, no doubt with things they wanted him to do, but he gave them a look and they soon kept their distance. Of course they did. No one wanted to deal with him when he was in this mood.
After a time he found himself in the familiarity of the stables, the smell of horse and hay easing something inside him. He went to Honey’s stall, and there she was, a glossy chestnut with a white blaze on her forehead.
She put her nose over the gate and he stroked it, all warmth and silky hair. Then she began to nose for a treat.
That was the thing with horses, they were undemanding. All they wanted was an apple or a stroke or a comb. They didn’t require anything else. It was soothing.
You shouldn’t have treated Freddie that way.
He picked up the curry comb and began to stroke it over the horse’s glossy coat, getting rid of the splashes of dirt on her legs and sides. She waited placidly beneath the comb.
He shouldn’t have treated Freddie that way at all. But love? What could he do about that? She’d been in love with him for years, she’d said...
How are you going to face this marriage?
He’d face it the way he faced everything else. He’d grit his teeth and do the best that he could. He couldn’t love her—at least he’d made that clear—but he could be a husband to her in all other ways. The only alternative was not marrying her, and he couldn’t—wouldn’t—do that. His child needed a father and while his best wasn’t what it should be, it was better than nothing.
She deserves better than that, and so does your child.
Augustine gritted his teeth. She did. They both did. But unfortunately for all concerned, they only had him, and he wasn’t a man who shirked his responsibilities. That wasn’t the way he’d been brought up. Yes, his father had high standards, but the standard that kings held themselves tohadto be high, and higher than that of other men, because the fate of a nation was involved.
As to husbands, his father had been an exemplary husband too. Which gave him an example to follow, even if he’d never measure up to that either.
Augustine ran his hand over the mare’s glossy haunch, examining his work critically. This was something he could do well too. He could groom a horse so she shone.
He would do the same with Freddie.
He had a special evening planned tomorrow, a picnic in her favourite place in the palace, the little apple orchard that had been there for centuries, full of gnarled old apple trees that produced the sweetest apples.
He wanted to formally propose and give her his mother’s engagement ring. The forms had to be observed. He’d thought about an engagement ball, but he wanted to marry her before their child was born and he wanted a formal occasion, which would take a bit of time to organise.
So no engagement ball. But that didn’t matter, they’d have a wonderful wedding in the ancient cathedral in the middle of Isavere’s capital, and then there would be a formal celebration. The invitations to the various heads of state had already gone out.
Satisfied and more settled, Augustine stepped back, put down the curry comb, put a blanket over the mare and then let himself back out of the stall.
Tomorrow night he’d make it up to Freddie. He’d give her a wonderful picnic and a beautiful ring, and then he’d take her back to his bedroom and he’d make them both feel good.
