Page 51 of Gwen and Art Are Not in Love

‘Heir to the throne?’ Arthur supplied. ‘No. But that’s not what I’m talking about.’

‘It’s not?’

‘No. I mean – yes, there is the slight issue of things like marriage and succession, if ladies don’t take your fancy—’

Gabriel huffed incredulously. ‘Theslight issue?’

‘Listen,’ Arthur said impatiently, ‘I’m not trying to pretend there aren’t … pitfalls. But what I’m saying is, you can’t decide how you feel about who you might spend your evenings kissing –’ Gabriel winced at this and looked away again – ‘because of what it means forEngland. You have to decide based on how it feels … to you. Surely? I mean, I don’t know, I’m just improvising here.’

‘There’s no separating the two,’ Gabriel said quietly. ‘IamEngland.’

‘And I’m your sister’s fiancé,’ Arthur said meaningfully, raising an eyebrow. ‘We’ve all got our crosses to bear—’

‘She’s not yourcross,’ Gabriel said sharply.

‘Well. All right. But you know, you can be king and still have whatyouwant. There are plenty of ways to—’

‘I am not having this conversation,’ Gabriel said, crossing to the doors and wrenching them open, having none of the trouble Arthur had experienced in closing them. ‘Just forget about it, Arthur. It doesn’t matter. It was … Let’s just pretend it didn’t happen.’

‘Okay,’ Arthur said, left alone with the gold-flecked dust motes that were spiralling all around him, already knowing he would do no such thing.

When he got back to the training yard, Gwen and Bridget were gone. Sidney actually seemed to have fallenasleep against the wall; the borrowed sword lay forgotten at his feet.

Arthur leaned in as close as he could to Sidney’s face without touching him and then unleashed a wordless yell; Sidney awoke instantly, cracked his head against the wall with a muffled ‘Christ!’, and then slid down until he was sitting.

‘Didn’t go well?’ he said peevishly, rubbing the back of his head and wincing.

Arthur sat down next to him. ‘No.’

‘Thank God you don’t really like him then.’

‘No,’ Arthur said, sounding unconvincing even to himself. ‘I don’t. But he intrigues me. And he feels like one of my own, you know? I ought to help. Tell him he doesn’t have to be a lost lamb, stealing kisses in secret and then agonising over them afterwards.’

‘Ah,’ Sidney said wisely. ‘You just want him to hold you like a baby crow.’

‘Oh, go to hell. It’s notlikethat.’

‘I mean, for one thing, I don’t really believe you,’ said Sidney. ‘And for another – don’t you think you should meet people where they are?’

‘I like to meet people whereIam,’ said Arthur, as they got to their feet. ‘I’m already there. Saves on the commute.’

‘Good morning!’ the king said to Gwen the moment she sat down at breakfast a few days later. He looked exhausted but was smiling through it, his usually all-consuming stack of correspondence resolutely untouched. ‘Glorious day for a hunt.’

She knew that her father was trying to reframe the day’s hunt as an opportunity for family bonding because they’d seen so little of each other of late; in reality, it was a political exercise, a way to entertain an influential duke, who was visiting with his household. Nevertheless, she tried to smile back at him, even though her heart felt leaden in her chest every second she sat opposite Gabriel, with the chasm between them enormous and impassable.

She missed the easy rituals of past breakfasts, before her parents had become so busy and her life had started to crumble. The fact that her father knew how much she liked sour fruits, and would push the bowls of gooseberries and cranberries down to her end of the table. The way he would glare down at some list or ledger until she plucked it out of his hand and handed it to Gabriel, who would make sense of it at once. She even slightly missed the way hermother would tut over Agnes’s handiwork and insist on replaiting Gwen’s hair herself.

‘We’re hunting?’ Gabriel said, looking up from what he’d been reading.

‘The Duke of Lancaster is coming,’ said the queen. ‘He’s bringing his son, a young Lancelot, I believe – and his three daughters.’

She looked meaningfully at Gabriel; under usual circumstances, Gwen would have met her brother’s eye, united with him against their mother’s attempts at matchmaking.

‘Right,’ said Gabriel, looking back down at his book. ‘Very well.’

‘You’ll come too, of course, Gwendoline,’ said the king, and Gwen pulled a face.

‘To entertain his parade of daughters? You know I’m absolutely no good at that, Father.’