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“Bring Eve to my birthday party.” Madeline levels him with a no-arguments furrow to her brows. “It’s a small soiree. Friends and family.”
“Oh yes, you’d look fetching in matching costumes,” Prince Arthur laughs. “Maybe you could go as the Phantom and what’s her name?”
“Christine,” Julian chuckles.
“What the fuck are you—”
“I’m not much of a singer,” I cut Henry off before the undertone of their joke dawns on him. He clearly has issues with age, and the last thing I want is for their joke to cost me more precious moments with him.
“I’m sure with the right conductor, you could hit the high notes,” Arthur retorts with a leering laugh.
“Ignore him.” Madeline gives me an unexpected hug. I’m frozen to the spot as she pulls away and goes on to give Henry one too.
She’s not what I expected at all when Henry introduced us at the beginning of the evening. Madeline has the same austere demeanour as her brother and cousin, but once she warms up to you, she’s really normal. Maybe more normal than me and so personable that you can’t help but like her.
“You don’t have to dress up,” she tells Henry before we leave, and as we’re walking out, she catches my eye with another beaming smile. “Make sure he brings you.”
Somehow, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Madeline may be nice, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to meet any more family or friends. Henry walks me out the same way Andrew walked me in earlier, via the private VIP entrance. A car is already waiting for us when we reach outside. The weather is just about to turn. I can feel the rain in the air and smell the sweetness of its impending arrival.
“So, how was that?” Henry asks when we’re in the car.
“Not all that bad,” I reply, resting my head on his shoulder as he grasps my thigh—where his hand has been most of the evening. “I didn’t shit myself, so that’s a plus.”
A low guffaw rumbles through his chest. “Madeline likes you.”
“She’s nice.”
“She’s one of my favourite people in the world,” he says with a chaste kiss to the top of my head and a sigh that’s too wistful not to be sad. When I peer up at him, a frown furrows his brow with a deep V creasing his forehead. The grave expression makes him appear older. His dark, hooded eyes look haunted. “If I had a sister, I’d want her to be like Maddie.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
We fall into a temporary silence where we bundle together. His arm wraps around my shoulder, holding me tightly into his side while I trace the hard muscle on the outside of his thigh with my fingertips. It’s rock hard and so strong. He could be as impenetrable as he is unshakeable. Like a fortress in a storm, we might just withstand anything.
“Henry,” I whisper into the streetlight-strobed air.
“Eve.”
“I’m not a jealous person.”
“I know.”
“But for a minute, I was jealous of her.”
Sitting straight, he peers down at me down the length of his straight nose, directly into my eyes. “Her? Who?”
Perhaps this was a stupid thing to bring up. It certainly feels like a ridiculous admission to make. However, I’m already in for a penny…
“Your cousin.”
“Madeline? Why?”
“You told me that you don’t know how to do gentle, but when you look at her, it’s all you are. And I—” I pause as I look up to find him watching me intently.
“How do you think I look at you?” he asks, his voice quiet, soft. When I shrug, he answers his own question for me. “When I look at you, you’re the only thing I see. In that moment, you are the only thing that exists for me. A reprieve from this world.”
Emotion swells in my throat, rendering me speechless to the ardour of his words and the vehemence in his unwavering stare. My poor heart doesn’t know what to do with itself. It aches as it threatens to burst with all the affection pulsing in my chest.
“And God help anyone that stands in my way, darling. I’ll burn them to the fucking ground. I’d create chaos to find your peace.”
