AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He moved his castle forward with a quivering, gnarled finger.
‘We pushed through the changes in law that would allow you and your heirs to select your own spouses in the hope that your parents’ marriage would never be repeated.’ His voice weakening with each word he said, the King turned his gaze to Helios again. ‘However important duty is, marriage to someone you feel no affection for can only bring misery. And for ever is a long time to be miserable.’
The nurse, attuned to his weakening, placed the oxygen mask back over his face.
Helios waited for him to inhale as much as he needed, all the time his mind was reeling over what it was, exactly, that his grandfather was trying to tell him. Was it a reproach that he wasn’t spending enough time with Catalina and that his indifference to her was showing?
But how could he feel anything but indifference when his head was still consumed with thoughts of Amy? She’d left the palace a week ago but she was still everywhere.
He moved his knight, then opened his mouth to pose the question, only to find his grandfather’s head had lolled to one side and he’d dozed off mid-game and mid-conversation.
He looked at the nurse, who raised her shoulders sympathetically. Helios exhaled and gazed at his sleeping grandfather, a huge wave of love washing through him.
Whatever his grandfather had tried to tell him, it could wait.
‘I’ll put him to bed tonight,’ he told the nurse, whose eyes immediately widened in fright.
‘It’s okay,’ he assured her with a wry smile. ‘I know what I’m doing. You can supervise if you want.’
Half an hour later the King was in his bed, his medication having been given and the oxygen mask attached to his face. His gentle snores were strangely calming.
Helios placed a kiss to his grandfather’s forehead. ‘I love you,’ he said, before leaving him to sleep.
* * *
Movement beside her woke Amy from the light doze she’d fallen into. Since returning to England a week ago she’d slept a lot. She liked sleeping. It was the perfect route to forgetting. It was waking that was the problem.
Her mum handed her a cup of tea and sat in the deckchair next to her.
When she’d returned to England she’d given the taxi driver directions to her childhood home rather than the flat she shared in central London. Sometimes a girl just needed her mum. Her real mum. The woman who’d loved and raised her since she’d barely been able to open her eyes.
And her mum had been overjoyed to see her.
Amy’s last lingering doubts had been well and truly banished.
A late-night confession between them had culminated with the admission that her mum had been terrified that Amy would forge a relationship with Neysa.
‘Never,’ Amy had said with a firm shake of her head. ‘You’re my mum. Not her.’
‘Good.’ Ferocity had suddenly flashed in her mum’s usually calm eyes. ‘Because you’re my daughter. Not hers.’
‘Then why did you encourage me to learn about my roots?’ she’d asked, bewildered.
‘We all need to know where we come from. And I was scared that if I discouraged it you would do it in secret and one day you’d be gone and I would lose you.’
‘You will never lose me.’
The tears had flowed easily that night.
Now they sat in companionable silence in the English sun, the only sound the chirruping of fledgling birds in the garden’s thick hedges. It was a quintessentially British beautiful late-spring day.
‘Are you ready to talk now?’ her mum asked.
A lump forming in her throat, Amy shook her head. For all their late-night talks, she hadn’t been able to bring up the subject of Helios.
To even think of him was too painful.
She’d had only one piece of correspondence from him since she’d left—a text message that said: I do.
He forgave her for running away.
Judging by his silence since, he’d accepted it too. She had no right to feel hurt that he’d made no further attempt to contact her.
‘What’s that you keep fingering around your neck?’
Wordlessly, Amy leaned forward to show her the garnet necklace.
Her mum took it between her fingers and smiled. ‘It’s lovely.’
Amy couldn’t find the words to answer. When her mum let the necklace go Amy clasped it in her own hand and held it close.
‘Broken hearts do mend,’ her mum said softly.
Amy gave a ragged nod and swallowed, terrified of crying again. ‘It hurts,’ she choked out.
Her mum took her hand and squeezed it. ‘Do you know what to do when life gives you lemons?’
‘Make lemonade?’
‘No. You throw them back and get yourself an orange.’
