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There had been Gideon at first.
A consolation, a mere company. A way to keep her raw desire at bay. She had known that from the start. Just like she had known he’d been falling just a bit more in love with her every time they lay together. At first she had felt bad. To say she had never toyed with a man’s feelings would be a lie, but that did not mean it was a good feeling.
Plus he had never complained, never asked for more. For what she wasn’t able — nor willing — to give him. But he was a good man and a decent lover.
Good God, she didn’t recognize herself anymore. Who was this heartless Queen who spoke in such ways of a man she had welcomed in her bed countless times?
That she did not know.
As she brushed her hair slowly, her mind wandered and images of Sebastian and Louis came to her. She briefly wondered where her former lover was now, after escaping from his prison. She did not care anymore. She knew he was safe and that was enough to erase her guilt. Not the one from the betrayal, that one burned still in her heart. An open scar put there to remind her how awful she had been to her husband, her one true love. And how selfish she had been.
She didn’t dare to think of him. Of his name. Of his face. She couldn’t. She could already feel her eyes water up and the last thing she wanted to do was cry.
The other guilt, however, the one that came from the acknowledgement of having put Louis in danger was now long gone. Just like her so-called love for him.
She felt her grip tighten around the golden hairbrush and unconsciously sank her teeth deep into her lower lip. Deep enough to bruise, but not to cut. So she felt the pain but she did not taste blood.
Then she thought of Bash. Her dear, dear brother-in-law. How she missed him. How she loved him.
Ironically enough he was probably the one who had always loved her no matter what. Except him, but he was not there to love her anymore.
No matter how she’d refused Bash. More than once, even. He had always been faithful. She’d always known she could trust him.
Yet when he’d told her he would’ve followed her in Scotland she had struggled to believe him. She wanted him to stay, even if a part of her — a selfish part — wanted him to follow her so she could at least keep a part of her French life with her forever.
And she suspected he knew that too, because there had been no doubt in his eyes when he’d told her he wanted to come no matter what.
And she had been so thankful for Bash.
And now he was gone, too.
She wanted to curse him, to be mad at him.
But Bash had his own ghosts to chase and she couldn’t blame him for it.
So she had returned to Gideon, because her body craved warmth and her heart was getting too cold to bear. And he had been happy to keep her warm. Perhaps he liked to pretend she was his sometimes, but he was delusional. She had only belonged to one man in her entire life and she would always only belong to him. Everyone else was just a second choice, one she never thought she’d have to make.
Still, he was gone and she was not. And she would only love him in private and grieve him in private, because that was what she could do.
Because no matter how much she needed time, she just could not afford it. She was a queen, yet a stranger in her own home. And she needed to prove herself, to show the Scots she wasn’t there to bring the way of the French in Scotland. She just wanted what was best for them.
So she would only keep France into her heart, where it belonged.
Where he belonged.
Engraved deep inside her, where no one else would ever reach.
The point is, it wasn’t true that she had kept herself from looking for someone else. For love, even.
She had tried to love Henry, to consider him her husband.
But she just couldn’t. She couldn’t pretend. And she knew he didn’t believe her. Nor care. His heart probably belonged to some other woman. A wench, from what she’d heard.
It was not like she cared, anyway.
What irked her the most were Bothwell’s words.
“They call you the Ice Queen.” he had said. She remembered the arrogance in his deep voice and the way her hands had itched for the want to slap him. She knew what he was trying to do and she was letting him. He wanted her. It was clear like the sun. It was in the way he looked at her, in how his hues would darken just the slightest bit whenever she was around. It was in the way he obeyed her so utterly and completely and in how he followed each of her commands without a single word. Pining after her like a starving dog.
She would lie, however, if she said she didn’t like it. It made her feel safer to have someone so willing to serve her— politically, of course. She had long abandoned the belief that she needed a man to protect her —, even if the man’s intentions were scandalously obvious.
She was almost used to having a man to control. And the thought made her cringe. Bash, Louis, Gideon. And now Bothwell.
She had given in to his advances, eventually. With Gideon gone and Darnley no more useful than a dummy, she felt alone again. Her demons found her again and she was tired of pushing them away.
So when Bothwell had visited her in secret to tell he had brilliantly completed yet another task, she had asked him to stay. And he did so happily.
But his hands, much like Gideon’s, did not feel right on her body. And his kisses did not taste like home. And his skin smelled like leather and sweat and it was scarred and rough under her fingertips. And it did not feel good. And their joined bodies never felt, not once, like they fit together.
And oh, when he’d whispered those ‘i love you’s’ in her ear, with that harsh voice of his, it did not fill her belly with butterflies, it just made her insides churn. So she had not replied. She had just kissed him, hating herself just a bit more.
Only then she realized that no matter what, no easy love could ever make her feel the same.
Now he was sleeping in her bed, sprawled on the mattress as if he belonged there. She could hear him snoring lightly. Her heart felt heavy, but not with guilt. Not anymore. She was trying to move on and no one could blame her for it. Not even herself.
So she sighed, trying to get rid of that awful feeling that had taken her over, and looked up into the mirror, almost expecting to see a pair of blue eyes staring into hers. Sometimes she could feel him so close his smell filled her nostrils and her skin tingled like it used to do under his fingers. And his lips, oh his lips. She could still taste them at times.
And she held onto those feelings as tight as she could, because she knew the day where she forgot how his kisses felt on her and how his laugh sounded so pure and the way his heart skipped a beat whenever she told him how much she loved him, will feel like losing him all over again. And she could not think about something more painful.
Her heart was broken inside her chest, each beat hurt like a stab. Yet she did not die. She did not follow him. God had taken him away, but she was the one condemned to stay behind. And the only thing that made her carry on was the promise of meeting him again.
For she knew that wherever he was he was waiting for her.
And somehow that was enough.
So as she put the hairbrush down and sat up, ready to face another day, a smile was on her lips.
He might have been just a memory now, a ghost in every room she entered, but she was his and he was hers. And that, too, was enough.