He’d always loved the chapel garden. It was not like being truly out of doors, where the fields rolled wide and the trees were majestic, but it was bucolic and relatively unpatterned for an ecclesiastical space. There were hedges, of course, but years ago someone had planted wildflowers in the open areas. George often escaped there when he needed a spot of privacy.
Plus, no one seemed to look for him there. It was a boon.
But Doctor Monro had been standing in the corridor, presumably put there by George’s mother, who was taking no chances, and he had not accepted George’s excuses or explanations. He had not bowed; he had not kissed George’s ring. Instead, when George said that he was not ready, and he was not right, Doctor Monro had looked his king in the eye and said, “I have examined you thoroughly, and you are perfectly right.”
“Do I look perfectly right to you?” George demanded, holding out his twitching hands.
He’d thought that would be the end of it, because any fool could see he was not well, but the doctor roared, “You are perfectly right,” and then he’d slapped him across the face.
And that . . . had . . . done it.
The twitching stopped. His mind slowed and centered. George had blinked, put up a hand to stop the guards from hauling Doctor Monro off to whichever dungeon was nearest, and he’d thanked the doctor.
It had been revelatory.
A miracle.
There was something about Monro’s voice. And maybe the slap, too, but mostly the voice. It was smooth and deep. Commanding. When Monro spoke, it brought George back to himself. His thoughts had stopped racing, and his hands had stopped twitching, and he’d felt ready.
He had stepped outside to breathe in the cool air, and there she was, attempting to climb a woody wisteria vine. Charlotte. His princess, soon to be his queen. He wasn’t positive it was her before they spoke, but he’d had a good suspicion. Her skin was dark, like his mother had told him, and she was wearing a very simply cut ivory gown that had fit his mother’s description. She was the right age, and she held herself like a royal.
He’d thought she was pretty.
That was all he’d thought, really, when he saw her standing by the wall. But then she spoke.
And he was lost forever.
When Charlotte spoke, the world came alive. She was fierce and stubborn and shockingly forthright. Her intelligence transformed her pretty face into something incandescent. Truly, he did not know a woman could be so beautiful.
She was a star. She was a comet. She was everything that sparkled in the night sky, brought down to earth by magic the church swore did not exist.
How did you explain that some people were special? That they were somehow more than everyone else? Were they born under the wing of an angel? Did their blood flow at a different speed?
All his life, people had told him that he was such a person, but he knew the truth. It was an accident of birth. He was born to be King, and thus he was coddled and praised. When he spoke, people listened.
But they were listening to their King. Not to George.
Charlotte was different. She could have been born in a sewer and people would have leapt over barricades to hear her words. Hers was a charisma that could not be faked.
Or taught.
She was, quite simply, magnificent. Far more so than he could ever hope to be.
It was not just her beauty. She was terrifyingly clever. That was the problem. If she were ugly, if she were dull, he might feel himself up to the task of being her husband.
George had known that he had to allow her to decide for herself if she wanted this marriage. He had somehow recognized that her spirit could not be commanded. Yes, he supposed he could order her to take her place in the chapel, and yes, he was quite certain that her brother had ordered her to take her place in the chapel, but George knew that a marriage under duress could never be a true union. Not with her.
She could not be tamed. It would be a crime to even try.
So he took a chance. He gave her the opportunity to abandon the marriage. And he gave himself thirty minutes of heinous anxiety.
He had been fairly certain she would decide to go through with the marriage. He certainly hoped she would. Their conversation had gone well. Maybe she had not been struck so cleanly by Cupid’s bow as he, but she seemed to like him well enough, which was often the best one could hope for in a royal marriage.
But until he saw her enter the chapel, glittering in an ivory caped gown shot with silver and gold, he had not been positive that she would show up.
She walked up the aisle, and with each step his joy grew. He watched her, and he was so sure, so certain that this woman was perfect and this marriage was right.
This union would be the making of him.
Charlotte’s brother took her hand and placed it in his, and George had smiled and said, “You changed your dress.”
“I required something more befitting a queen,” she replied.
His queen.
He would have sworn his heart sang.
But now, after the long, solemn ceremony and so many hours of making polite conversation with people whose names he would never recall, he felt something dark and ugly scraping at the edges of his happiness.
He was not worthy of this magnificent creature. And with time, she would know it.
Much of the time he was fine. Normal, or at least as normal as a king ever was. But then something would set him off. He could not explain it—something sparked in his mind, and he could not put out the strange, ungodly flame that burned and snapped inside of him.
He filled with words—that was the only way to describe it. His body filled with words, usually about the heavens and the stars but sometimes about the sea, and the gods, and ordinary men. The syllables twisted and jumbled inside him, burning his mouth, and pressing at his skin. Until finally it was all too much, and he had to say it.
And the worst—the absolute worst of it was that he knew when his mind was not working properly. At least at the beginning of an episode. He could tell that something was sick and rotten, and he did not know how to fix it.
But not right now.
He took a breath. He was perfectly well. He was perfectly right.
This was his wedding day, and he was perfectly well and right.
Charlotte was just a few yards away, speaking with her brother and the new Lady Danbury. She looked lovely and regal, her hair a perfect cloud topped with the most whimsical and fairylike tiara George had ever seen. It occurred to him that it was past time he led his bride in a dance.
He crossed the distance and bowed. “May I have this dance, Your Majesty?”
She smiled as if lit from within. “I would be delighted, Your Majesty.”
George led her to the center of the floor. Other couples would join them soon, but it was understood that this dance would be for the King and Queen alone. And though they had shared words all evening, this was the first conversation since the ceremony that was theirs alone.
He waited for the music to begin, led her through the first steps, and then asked, “How does it feel to be Queen?”
She gave a little start of surprise. “I do not know,” she said. “How does it feel to be King?”
“I hardly know anything else.”
“That cannot be true. It has not been even a year since you ascended to the throne.”
“True,” he allowed, “but I have always known it was my destiny. I am the eldest son of the eldest son of a king. I was but twelve when my father died, and I became the Prince of Wales. I have never been treated as an ordinary human being.”
Did she hear the note of wistfulness in his voice? He did not wish not to be King, but there were times when he’d gladly skip affairs of state to work in his garden.