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‘No!’ He shook his head. ‘We wouldn’t be sitting by the lake if that were the case. But your contract is due to expire soon.’
‘Two weeks today,’ Beatrice said.
She was counting the days. Dreading that final day. But also relieved that soon this slow torment would end.
Her desire had become a perpetual thing. It woke her in the night and it morphed into her dreams, and then it was intensified by day until she could not escape it.
Not even by the lake.
No, for today he’d come and sat beside her.
They saw the mother swan hiding behind the rushes as the lazy cygnet peeped loudly. They both watched as his mother tried to ignore him.
‘What if he isn’t strong enough?’ Julius asked.
Beatrice shrugged. ‘Survival of the fittest.’
‘Remind me never to watch a nature documentary with you.’
She half laughed, but it faded when he asked another question—or possibly it was the serious edge to his voice that alerted her.
‘What if he can’t make it in the deep water?’
Beatrice turned and looked into his dark eyes and she felt as if he was asking her something. Or telling her something. Quite what, she didn’t know, but it felt like an extension of their previous exchange.
Be subtle, he’d told her.
No, she corrected herself. He’d told her not to push. To tread gently if there was something awkward or difficult to discuss.
Was this related to the mysterious promise he had made?
Before, she would have frowned and asked exactly that. Now, she sat by his side and tried a different approach.
‘Then he stays in the shallows, maybe?’ she suggested.
‘Or she still carries him,’ Julius said, and they turned and watched as the mother swan relented and the little cygnet jumped onto her back.
It felt like a very important conversation.
The leaves were shimmering and the lake was rippling in the breeze, while underneath it all she was trying to understand what was actually being communicated.
‘Well, for as long as she can,’ Beatrice said. They sat in silence. Then, ‘Perhaps I should stop giving him extra corn.’
‘Beatrice, when I get back from this trip...’
He didn’t actually say it, but she knew where this was leading. It was the point of her being here, after all.
She prepared her smile—a big one—and told it to wait in the wings and be ready to dash on as soon as it was required. She had been working diligently towards this moment, attempting to get this leopard to change his spots, albeit temporarily. And she’d done a good job—an excellent job, in fact.
But the smile she’d prepared must have stage fright, because it refused to leave the wings as he spoke on.
‘Things are going to get rather busy...’
‘You’re not doing that dancing show?’
‘No, although believe it or not the King is considering it—to show how progressive and modern the monarchy is.’
She gave him a look that said she begged to differ.
