Prince?
Prince?
He made a choked sound and pulled his hand back instinctively out of the prince’s—the prince’s!—grasp.
Mother wondered what he was supposed to say or do. Was he supposed to pretend this didn’t matter? Ofcourseit mattered.
How could it not?
Vasily being a prince changedeverything. He was part of a world that was far more impressive than anything Mother had to offer, and that meant that whatever was between them could never be more than it was. How could Mother even think he might mean something to Vasily—PrinceVasily, he silently corrected—when he was nothing but a stablemaster?
His throat ached with the need to beg for an explanation, to ask why Vasily had lied, but he couldn’t get the words out.
“Bryn?” Vasily said, his voice small. The prince was staring at him, his bottom lip quivering as he waited for a response. But Mother had none to give him, because when he looked at Vasily now, he didn’t just see the man he was falling—hadfallen—for.
Vasily was aprince, and try as he might, Mother couldn’t simply wave a hand and accept the fact that the man who had sucked his cock in the stables this morning might also one day rule an entire kingdom. And since Mother wasn’t sure which of them he was addressing, his sweet groom or the prince of Koroslova, he found himself unable to speak at all.
He needed to get away, to think. If he stayed here, if Vasily tried to talk about this while he was still reeling, Mother was sure he’d say something they’d both regret.
In desperation, he fell back on a lifetime of practiced formality. He ducked his head. “Begging your pardon, sire, but I think it’s best I go.”
And then, ignoring the flash of hurt in Vasily’s eyes and pushing aside his own desire to comfort him, Mother walked out the door.
“Wait!”
At the sound of Vasily’s voice, Mother stilled despite himself, but when he heard boots crunching on the gravel, he whirled on his heel and held up a palm. Vasily stopped, and Mother forced himself to swallow around the ache of impending loss. He gritted out, “Don’t. I need to go. I can’t—” He broke off, unsure of what he was trying to say.
Vasily’s shoulders slumped and he nodded. His whispered apology was almost too quiet to hear, but Mother heard it anyway.
“I’m…I’m sorry.”
Well, that made two of them.
ChapterFourteen
When Mother halted on the path, Vasily hoped just for a moment that he was coming back. Vasily wanted a chance to explain himself, to reassure Mother that nothing had changed. Then the two of them could come up with some way to stay together, now and in the future.
But Mother made it clear that he didn’t want to talk to him, and while Vasily was desperate to follow him, to make him listen, he didn’t know what Mother was feeling right now. And maybe it made him a coward, but it was easier to let him walk away, even as his heart ached and his vision blurred with tears.
He watched the path long after Mother had disappeared, at a loss as to what to do with himself. Did he go back to the stables, act like nothing had happened, and bury himself in his work? Or did he hide in his cottage and nurse his heartbreak until something happened to make it better?
Couldanything make it better?
He went inside, locked the door, and slumped on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The blankets were still rumpled from last night, and when he buried his face in the pillow, he could smell traces of the scent he associated with Mother—hay and sweat and sex all rolled into one. He inhaled deeply, and a sob caught in his throat.
He hadn’t asked to be born a prince, and it wasn’t fair that Mother was rejecting him for it. But blaming Mother made his gut churn with wrongness. It wasn’thisfault that Vasily was a prince either.
And Vasily had hardly delivered the news delicately, had he? Spouting all his names like a schoolboy reciting his lessons or a soldier rattling off his rank as if he was trying to prove he was somehow better than Mother—when the truth of it was, Mother was ten times the man he’d ever be.
Vasily missed him already.
He was blaming Felix, he decided, with all histell the truthand you can have a happy ending.Just because Felix and Leo had been lucky enough to overcome their obstacles, that didn’t mean Vasily could. He was just a fourth son from a kingdom where loving another man was unthinkable.
Still, if there was one thing that had been drummed into him over the years, it was that nothing was ever solved by crying about it. He needed to pull himself together before he fell apart completely. He forced himself to sit up, using the heel of his hand to dash away his unshed tears, then stood and splashed his face with the cold water from his washstand.
His stomach clenched, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten today.
He ran a hand through his messy hair, twisting it up into a loose bun, and after taking a deep breath, he opened the door and stepped outside. His gaze automatically went to Mother’s cottage, but of course the door was firmly closed. With a sigh, Vasily walked up to the castle alone.
