Page 22 of Complete Me

A week. I’d rarely spent this long outside Clara’s good graces save for the dark periods when we were apart—after we’d first met and in the aftermath of my father’s assassination. My wife had been angry with me since, and often. This time she was avoiding me. No doubt owing to the number of arranged and political marriages the monarchy had seen in the past, we both had our own bed chambers. It was a technicality since we took residence. I slept with my wife, and I would have it no other way. Since our fight, Clara had locked the door, forcing me to sleep in my own room. Her bedroom—our bedroom—connected with the nursery, so it was fair. But the dismissal meant that I found myself missing both the comfort of her body pressed against mine and waking to care for Elizabeth in the night. Without the nearness of both of my beloveds, I couldn’t sleep. As such I’d found myself taking up temporary residence in my office. Throughout the day, I’d catch myself dozing off in my chair, my naps interrupted by staff members delivering paperwork or afternoon tea.

The more time I spent in the office, the more it felt like it belonged to me rather than my father. It was an unwelcome sensation. I didn’t want to belong here. I’d accepted my role as King because it meant I could protect Clara and our children. Without her presence, I’d begun to question if I had become what I’d once hated. Was I my father? A man more obsessed with his own power than his own family?

A fire had been lit in the hearth and its heat warmed the air like a sedative. Abandoning my desk, I took the leather wingback next to it. I was a man who lived for his work. I was a man who bound himself to duty. What further proof did I need but the desire to take a nap in my private study? I clutched the worn, but recently oiled armrests and willed my eyes to open. I stared at the cream, brocade wall-coverings until my irises burned from the effort.

She’d gone shopping this afternoon without telling me. It was a perfectly normal thing for an average wife to do, but Clara was not your average wife. Norris had gone with her, and he had told me. I’d been informed, but it didn’t change the fact that Clara was living life as she saw fit. Despite the fact that my information came from others, I was receiving her message loud and clear. She would not be ordered about. It would be a wonder if she didn’t bring the whole monarchy to a crashing halt on her own. But her going out wasn’t what bothered me, it was that she believed she shouldn’t tell me. Not only was I concerned that I was becoming my father, now it seemed my wife was, too.

“You can choose the sort of man you become,” I said to no one in particular. Even alone, I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. It was something Clara might say to me. Would I believe it if she had spoken those words? I closed my eyes and tried to hear them coming from her voice.

A soft knock startled me and I snapped. “Enter.”

Norris stepped inside and I relaxed. I couldn’t handle the appearance of a timid staffer sent to delivery sandwiches on a silver tray. Not right now. My longtime bodyguard, and if I was being honest the man I considered a true father, didn't look at all ruffled by my tone. He eyed me appraisingly, and although his face betrayed nothing, I knew what he saw. I also knew he disapproved of it.

He looked nothing like what one might imagine a personal security officer looked like. Instead, he looked average with a medium build and a forgettable, if kind, face. In actuality, that made him a formidable presence. It would be unwise to go against him. The last man that had gotten around the security perimeters in place had met his end at Norris’s hands. While my old friend considered it a failing that Daniel, Clara’s ex-boyfriend, had tricked his way into our wedding, I knew that my wife was alive because Norris had been there that day.

“Might I have a moment?” he asked.

I waved him inside, bracing myself for a lecture. Norris was one of the few men who could get away with chastising a king. Mostly due to the fact that he’d been gently correcting my behavior since I was a child. But also, because I owed Clara’s life to him. It was a debt I could never repay given that I held her life in far more regard than my own.

He shut the door behind him before he came to take the seat across from mine. He didn’t wait for further permission.

“Please sit,” I said dryly. Regardless of his standing within my life, I was in no mood today.

His eyes narrowed at my petulant comment. He took a moment to adjust his cuff links. He would reward my sullen attitude with making me wait even longer for his rebuke.

“Her Majesty plans to depart early for Scotland. She wishes me to pass along the information,” he informed me.

“For fuck’s sake!” I smashed my fist against the armrest. “Can she tell me nothing herself?”

Norris remained silent, but it was obvious he felt that was answer enough.

I forced myself to regain my composure. “Am I expected to come?”

“I assume that you’ll want to discuss that with her, Sir.” I didn’t miss the insinuation in his words. He was calling me to action. If Clara wouldn’t come to speak with me, he would send me to speak with her.

“I doubt it,” I grumbled.

“You’re not sleeping,” he pointed out. There was a time when he would have noticed this much earlier on, but his orders had changed since my marriage. Norris’s primary concern was Clara’s safety. As Clara refused to be near me, I hadn’t seen much of him over the last week.

“I’ve had a lot on my mind.” I folded my hands in my lap. “Why aren’t you with Clara?”

“She’s in the nursery with your daughter,” he said as he settled into his seat. Stroking a hand along his jaw, he studied me for a moment. “In truth, she needs very little by means of protection at the moment. She hasn’t left her private chambers for days. She refuses company. And if you will pardon the intrusion of your privacy, she sleeps alone.”

“My wife’s sleeping arrangements aren’t your concern,” I bit out. I didn’t need a reminder that she was sleeping alone. Not when I was well aware that I was sleeping alone, too.

“Alexander,” he said my name firmly. “Do not presume to speak to me like one of the hired help.”

“Aren’t you?” I asked. But even as I said it, I looked toward the fire.

“I am not.” His voice shifted into a softer tone. “I don’t need to tell you that. I consider Clara and your child as more than a duty. They are my family, because I think of you as my son.”

My eyes flickered to the oil portrait that still hung over the fireplace. Sooner or later I would be forced to replace it with my own. For now, my father looked down at me with disapproval. “Am I as big of a disappointment to you as I was to him?”

“Only when you act like a proper brat,” he said. “And you only act that way when you are unhappy in love. Thankfully, that is not very often.”

“I regret to inform you then that there is no end in sight to this particular bout of petulance.”

“I suspected as much given Clara’s behavior.”