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‘Is that how you justify your actions to yourself?’ Cressida asked quietly. ‘I have often wondered if you were entirely oblivious or if you simply never cared about your children or the consequences that your selfishness had on them.’
‘Selfishness?’ Her mother’s eyes widened, her hand abandoning the brandy glass entirely as she swung around to face her two daughters across the grand salon. ‘I gave up everything for my children. Don’t you dare speak of things when you have no idea of the truth.’
‘What have you ever given up?’ Cressida shook her head, amazed at the vitriol and the energy in her mother’s voice all of a sudden. The woman had been a living ghost for as long as she could remember, now all of a sudden she seemed full of life as she defended her own poor choices.
Queen Aurelia shook her head, emotion seeming to overtake her momentarily as she turned her back to them and walked towards the window. Her pale blonde hair caught the rays of sunlight as she stood silently for a moment and looked out at the sea in the distance.
‘Did you know that he had died?’ Queen Aurelia finally asked, turning slightly to meet Cressida’s eyes for the first time.
Cressida did not need to ask who she was speaking of; the emotion in her mother’s eyes spoke clearly enough. By her side she could see Eleanor begin twisting her hands together, a rare show of discomfort from the Crown Princess.
‘I think perhaps I will go and sit in on the meeting,’ Eleanor said quickly. ‘Perhaps you would both like a moment alone.’
Before Cressida had a moment to respond, Eleanor swept from the room. Her mother turned fully to look at her, still waiting for her answer.
‘No, I did not know. The newspaper article was the first I had heard of it.’
Silence fell once again in the room, the only sound a gentle sniff as her mother took out a handkerchief and gently dabbed her eyes. ‘I did not have lovers, despite whatever poison Fabian may have put in your mind. I had one true love and I never had the chance to say goodbye to him.’
Tears streamed down her mother’s face in earnest now, though she tried to turn away.
Cressida took a handkerchief from her purse, walking to her mother’s side and offering it.
‘You hated me for it. I saw it on your face the day that he dragged you into my room with my letters in his hand.’ Pain was evident in her mother’s tight features as she reached out to take Cressida’s hand in her own. ‘I have never been good at communicating with my children. I have never been good at communicating at all. I have wasted so much time.’
Cressida could hardly believe what she was hearing. This was all she had ever wanted as a child . For her mother to sit her down and explain it to her. To show her that she wasn’t the awful mistake that her father saw her as. Even if one of her parents truly loved and accepted her, it would have been enough. It would have made her feel less alone. But seeing her mother now, so broken and lonely, she did not say any of that. Instead she simply embraced her and held her while racking sobs filled the air around them.
‘I loved Vincent with all of my heart, you see. He was the only one who listened to me, who made me feel protected. I never told him that he was going to become a father. I think, had he known, he never would have allowed me to stay here. I thought that I was doing what was best for you and your sisters... I thought that I could fix things with Fabian. But he never forgave me, despite me knowing that he’d been taking mistresses for years. He had left me feeling unwanted and abandoned in our marriage long before I strayed. But my mistake carried a lasting consequence, one that he could use against me and hold me to ransom with, and so I drank to avoid the misery. I slowly retreated from my life.
‘When you found out the truth, I tried to contact Vincent, fearing what your father might do. I found out that he had married. He was happy, so I stayed away. I dreamed of him coming back for me, fool in love th
at I was. But I had broken his heart when I refused to go with him before, and so he took the money your father offered and we never heard from him again.’
Cressida fought the lump of emotion in her chest at the pain that spilled from her mother after decades of withheld emotion.
‘You could have talked to me,’ she said quietly. ‘If anyone in this family would understand feeling alone and unwanted it is me.’
‘Cressida... I stayed in Monteverre to give you a better life and it seems as though I achieved the exact opposite. I was selfish. I let my own pain distract me from being there as a mother. You look so much like your father... Every time I looked at you for the first few years I cried. The weight of it was too much for me so I ran from it. I was a coward. I still am, really.’
‘You don’t have to be,’ Cressida said simply. ‘Your children are adults now.’
Queen Aurelia shook her head slowly. ‘I have nowhere else to be. Not any longer.’ She stared out of the window for a moment before turning back. ‘I just needed you to understand... I could never regret the choice that resulted in the happiest time in my life, despite the fact that I knew it was wrong in so many ways. That love resulted in you, Cressida.’
They were interrupted by staff coming to ask the Queen for instructions for that evening’s dinner. Cressida took the opportunity to slip away under the guise of retrieving her older sister so that she might have a moment to breathe and gather her own thoughts in the aftermath of such a tumultuous conversation.
As she wandered through the halls of her childhood home in search of Eleanor, she found her mind lingering on the first words her mother had spoken to her. ‘So you found love after all,’ she had said. Knowing now what her mother had been through in her own pursuit of love, the statement stuck in her mind. She desperately wanted to go back and ask what she had meant. Had she seen something in Khal’s face? A gesture perhaps, or the way his eyes lingered on her? Did she know how to tell if a man was falling in love, even if he had sworn against it?
There really was no point in pretending any longer that she was any different to her mother when it came to seeking acceptance and love. And it seemed she had just the same knack for getting herself into trouble.
She had fallen madly, deeply, irrevocably in love with a man who would never feel the same.
* * *
‘I see no further point in avoiding the reason why we are here. You invited us here to discuss strategy, did you not?’ Khal spoke coolly from where he sat in King Fabian’s large study. The man had been blathering on in detail about the extremely positive financial reports that had just been published in the Monteverrian parliament. Khal did not have time to soothe the King’s fragile ego at present and found his patience had worn utterly thin since entering into his presence.
‘We are still awaiting members of your team, I believe,’ one of King Fabian’s chief aides said in his monotone voice.
‘My team will jump in when they arrive.’ Khal opened the large black file that his personal secretary handed him. ‘I will begin with a report on what Zayyar has done since we received first notification of this breach. Since this story broke my team and I have received minor retractions from three of the major global news sources. We have released intimate photographs of our wedding in order to redirect media attention and we have also initiated investigations into the nature of Queen Cressida’s rights with regard to the legal agreements that were signed twelve years ago.’
