Page 75 of North Queen
“Norah,” he breathed. “I—”
A tap on the doorframe by the captain broke the moment. She had forgotten he was there, and a flush came to her cheeks. But she didn’t have time to mull over it. Someone was coming.
Alexander’s jaw tightened as he pushed out a long breath. They couldn’t be found like this. He pulled his hand from hers and stepped back, but their eyes stayed on each other’s.
Catherine reached the room, drawing Norah’s gaze as she entered. The woman stopped when she saw them. “Norah,” she said. Her tone was stiff, a warning.
Norah glanced back up at Alexander. The words that she desperately needed to hear from him, they wouldn’t come now. Perhaps it was better they were left unsaid. They would either further break her or make it that much harder to do what she must. Either way, no good would come of them. She swallowed back her need and moved around him to leave. She couldn’t look at her grandmother as she stepped past her and out into the hall.
“Norah,” Catherine said, but she didn’t stop.
Caspian stood, waiting. He’d been the one to alert them. Had he seen them? She averted her eyes, heat creeping back to her cheeks, and quickened her pace toward her chamber as he fell in step behind her.
“Norah,” Catherine called from behind.
She didn’t want to hear whatever her grandmother had to say. She didn’t want the judgment, the chastisement. She couldn’t bear it on top of everything else.
“Norah,” Catherine called again.
She paused.
Catherine caught up to her. Her eyes were shadowed in a cloud of sorrow that tempered her icy fire. “Norah, you mustn’t make it harder than it already is. You’re so close, child. Don’t let yourself be distracted.”
Norah let out a breath of disbelief. “Distracted?” The bitterness lay thick on her tongue. She couldn’t hold herself back any longer. “No! I have agreed to everything that’s been asked of me, everything thrust upon me. I wear a crown I don’t want, I’ll marry a man I don’t know, and I’ll go to war with an enemy for a cause I don’t fully understand. And now you tell me to feel nothing?” She shook her head. “I won’t pretend I don’t. I can’t.”
“Norah! You’ll watch your words in these halls!” Catherine shushed her as she glanced around them.
“Or what?” she snapped. With a glance of finality, Norah turned and strode back to her chamber.
Alexander looked out from the window of his chamber at the torchlit square down below. The alcohol stung his throat as he took another drink from his chalice. He could still feel the warmth of her hand in his, the way their wrists had touched, the brush of their arms as he had stepped closer. The nearness of her lingered on his skin, and her breath on his lips. She was so close, and yet beyond his reach, as she had always been.
She had asked him if he had lied. He’d hoped himself wiser and stronger now, solid in his decision that what he’d done was best for Mercia, best for Norah. The truth was, if faced with that decision now, he wasn’t sure he was strong enough to make the same choice. The heartbreak in her eyes when he had left her at the tree—it had haunted him the last three years. Now to see it all over again, and to lose her again, he didn’t think he could bear it. The pain twisted inside him—not the dull ache of wanting, but the kind of pain that makes a man fade to nothing.
A knock from the hall interrupted him. He set his glass on the small table by the side chair. When he pulled open the door, he wasn’t surprised.Catherine. He opened the door wider, and she swept inside.
Alexander stood, waiting for the admonishment he knew he deserved.
But it didn’t come.
Raising his eyes, he didn’t find the anger he had expected, or the disappointment. There was no offense or rebuke. Only sadness hung between them, and it further opened his wound. He wanted her wrath, something that would take his mind from the pain. He needed it. Her sympathy would be the breaking point.
Catherine closed the gap between them, and her worry-worn eyes found his. “You’ve always known this would come.”
His throat seized. He couldn’t speak.
“You knew you couldn’t love her,” she said.
He knew. He’d always known. Yet he couldn’t not. He drew in a breath and pushed it out, choking back the loss that threatened to break him.
Catherine sighed as she reached up and brought her hand to his cheek. “My dear boy,” she said softly, “I feared this for you. For both of you. I’ve done everything in my power, but”—she ran her hand down to his chest and gave him a gentle pat—“you both have such stubborn hearts.” She smiled sadly.
He feared his words wouldn’t come without emotion, so he said nothing.
“I haven’t come to chastise you,” she said, smoothing the center trim of his doublet. “But I want to be sure you haven’t forgotten yourself. You are the lord justice of Mercia.”
Lord justice.A position he had aspired to his entire life, now a position that meant nothing when compared to losing Norah. However, his conditioned courtesies answered for him, and he felt himself nod.
Catherine gave him another pat and then stepped toward the door. As she opened it, she paused, turning back. “Alexander, when she leaves for Aleon, you won’t go with her.”
