AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His phone buzzes again and this time he looks at it. “Everyone’s going to a club.Notorious.An after-party.”
I inhale and tilt my chin, striving to make my face as impassive as I possibly can, to keep what I feel for him out of my eyes. But still, I say nothing. I can’t tell him to go, to throw himself at the Vices, and I can’t tell him to stay and bind him tighter to me. I don’t know what to do or what to say that will save us both from this fucking mess I got us into. The danger I put him in.
My silence punches him right in the heart. He presses his lips in a thin line and nods.
“That’s it?” he asks. “We had all those moments together and spent all those nights and we…we felt what we felt, but it was all bullshit. Is that what you’re telling me? Ornottelling me?”
I’m in love with you, Cole.
It’s the only thing I want to say and the only thing I can’t.
“Okay, so I’m going to go because I can’t be in this room with you right now,” he says, his voice breaking. “Have a good night.”
The door shuts behind him, and the silence in the hotel room is deafening. The envelope is still in my hand, the portrait still in front of me. I pull out the documentation. There are photocopies of old records from a midwife. Civil archives of a male birth at Hever. And there is my name in black and white: Ambrosius Edward Meade-Finch, born to Timothy and Katherine on the morning of June 3, 1762.
Pain grips my heart, and slowly, I force myself to stand in front of the portrait. With shaking fingers, I remove the tarp. I behold Cole’s artistry for all of three seconds and then burst into tears.
“Ah, gods…”
The portrait is everything I wanted and more than I ever dreamt possible.
Cole has rendered me in the style of Elizabeth Le Brun, the master portraitist who was famed for her paintings of Marie Antoinette. The style is replicated so exactly, it could have been from Le Brun’s own hand.
There is my bookshelf of old, rare books on one side and a window on the other, with light slanting over me. Cole’s embellished my red suit so that it has gold embroidery and gold buttons. My pants are black satin with a high sheen, and I wear a white wig befitting the era. There’s a mischievous glint in my eye. The barest hint of a Mona Lisa smile.
And there is no shame in my expression. No hint of disgrace. Or exile. Or abandonment.
I look dignified.
I fall to my knees, and for long moments, I’m unable to do anything but weep. I weep for Cole. For me. For what was done to me. For what I did to myself. I sob until I’m turned inside out and there’s nothing left.
Mein Schatz, you know what you must do.
My head snaps up, anger burning through my tears.
“Mein Schatz, mein Schatz,”I snap, mocking. “What does that mean? Who’s there?”
But there’s nothing except the truth that I don’t deserve Cole. And in the same instant that I admit my love for him, there comes the certainty that I have to let him go.
The clubNotoriousis packed with writhing bodies who bounce to a DJ’s thrumming music. Lights crisscross here and there in different colors. Armand and the other Vices are here; I see them at the bar, laughing in triumph because Cole is with them. He does a shot of some liquor, then pushes past them to join the dancers. The pain and anguish on his face is as clear as if he’d painted it on.
I hide in the crowd, keeping low as I approach Cole, making sure the Vices don’t see me. I’ll try to bury my confession under the noise of the music and the people, though I know failure is certain.
I grip Cole’s arm and drag him to the back of the club before he registers it’s me.
“Ambri,” he says as I press him against the wall.
My heart cracks because he’s so happy to see me. Because he’s drunk and thinks I’m here to be with him and tell him that I love him as much as he loves me.
Because I do, more than I’ve ever loved anything.
“You are the most beautiful man here,” he says, shouting over the noise of the club. “I’m so glad you came.”
His arms go around me; he wants to kiss me, but I turn my head and press my lips to his ear.
“Run, Cole,” I whisper tremulously. “Run far away from here. Go to New York. Go to Lucy and Cas.”
“What? I can hardly hear you.”
