Page 29 of Vanish

He stared at me a long moment, as if gauging my sincerity, before releasing a weary sigh. “No wonder you’ve been so shy around me. It was never my intention to be unapproachable; I’ve simply borne the mantle as the future king for so long I’m not sure how to be anyone else.”

I bore a similar weight, but rather than being expected to become a proper princess for the sake of title that my illegitimate background made it impossible to ever live up to, it was solely to not embarrass my father. His expectations had long since become too heavy a burden; being invisible was the far easier course than risking drawing his negative notice.

Yet our experiences were similar enough that I wondered why we’d never shared them with one another before now. Regret for all the lost time twinged my heart. “I wish we’d had this conversation sooner…or have we?”

He shook his head. “We never have.” He sounded apologetic, as if he believed he alone bore responsibility for this oversight when I was certain my own fear of rejection had kept my vulnerabilities carefully hidden.

“I’ve always felt as if I was frantically trying to keep everything together,” I shyly admitted. “The fact you share in this struggle makes me feel closer to you.”

The corner of his lips lifted slightly. “Which means that my efforts to impress you through acting confident were nothing more than a waste of time.”

“While my own reservations served as a protection in hopes it would help you like me.”

His expression softened into one that was quite tender. “There was no need to go to such lengths; the woman I want to come to know is not the princess you’re expected to be, but my dear fiancée Lisette.”

Warmth seeped over me at the sentiment. Something passed between us, a feeling I had no name for and couldn’t explain…understanding. Yet even with this moment, many of the reservations that had held both of us captive for so long remained.

“Are you sure you want to enter a courtship with someone as inexperienced as me? My first attempt was clearly memorable enough for you to forget it at the first opportunity.” His effort to smile was marred by his lingering vulnerability, even as the familiar emotion wove another thread between our hearts.

I glanced towards the partially open drawer containing the letters I’d spent much of the night snooping through, evidence of thememorablecourtship he spoke of. His gaze followed to stare at the drawer, where the corner of the stack of letters poked out from my too hasty attempt to replace them when he awoke. He cast me a questioning glance.

“Did you—”

I guiltily averted my eyes. “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have rummaged through your private things. I just wanted to find something to help me remember.”

The explanation felt entirely inadequate for my breach of trust, another mistake to add to my spending the night in his room unchaperoned and stumbling upon him half-dressed. A fine beginning for our courtship, as if sabotaged by the subconscious part of me that was afraid for it to succeed due to how vulnerable it’d leave me.

I braced myself for his harsh reaction that would confirm my curiosity had broken everything we’d just painstakingly built. I tensed, waiting for him to strike me with an onslaught of criticism, as I’d come to expect from my father for even the slightest shortcoming…but it never came.

Instead he curled his hand around the faint outline of my chin, beckoning me to meet his soft gaze. “There should be no secrets between us, especially as you’re the one who wrote those letters.” At my skeptical look, he withdrew the remaining stack I had yet to peruse and started to hand them to me in a sign of trust…only to pause. “Wait, how did you move them?” He drew close, eyes wide with wonder.

“I don’t know; I was simply able to handle them, although not the ribbon binding them.” I accepted the letters without any difficulty, as if my previous exertion in figuring out how to hold them had permanently broached this particular barrier between my intangible form and the tangible world. Even when I had them back in my possession, I couldn’t return to reading the tedium I’d painstakingly written him, suddenly embarrassed by how little effort I’d exerted in our correspondence.

He gaped at the letters I firmly held, eyes wide in surprise. “I wonder if you’re able to touch them because these are something you once held before your disappearance.”

The theory seemed plausible, but if it was true, did that meant Lucien and I had never touched one another in our prior courtship? That would only confirmed Aira’s insistences there had been no affection between us…as did the letters that solely spoke of matters of the court rather than of the heart.

“Why did you save these?” I asked.

He smiled softly. “Because you wrote them.”

The reason seemed far too simple, even as his tender tone testified of his sincerity, as if he spoke of a treasure rather than something I couldn’t see worth cherishing. And yet… “I saved yours too,” I confessed, my memory clearing to reveal the small, ornate chest where I carefully tucked each missive away.

“You remember?” His smile widened, reaching upwards to fill his eyes. “I’m honored you would when I never wrote anything worth keeping. Each time we corresponded I tried to write something more interesting than the day-to-day affairs of the court, especially as I don’t have any interesting hobbies and didn’t want to bore you. Despite all the words I wish to express to you that I constantly keep bottled up, in the end I never knew what to say.” His smile faded as his miserable gaze flickered towards all the unfinished letters that had been crumpled and tossed in the wastebasket beneath his desk.

One of my dormant memories stirred to life. “I too often spent hours trying to figure out which words to pen to you in return.”

His tense posture eased in relief. “Really?” At my nod he managed a small smile. “I suppose it’s often easier to express the superficial rather than reveal what’s inside our heart. But no matter our letters’ contents, I always looked forward to hearing from you.”

It was a wonder Lucien could fall in love with someone through such proper yet dull correspondence; perhaps he alone had been able to see beyond the ink to whatever message my heart had been trying to impart.

As if he sensed this hidden hurt in a way that only he could, his airy touch suddenly caressed the furrow marring my brow—one I could almost feel—beckoning my gaze away from the letters back to him. In the flickers of my forgotten memories I could faintly recall many instances when shyness had made it impossible to hold his gaze, but this time rather than look away I wanted nothing more than to lose myself in the sweet emotion filling his eyes, one I still couldn’t believe was directed towards me.

My grip slackened and the letters fell through my fingers to scatter around my feet, but I made no motion to pick them up. I no longer needed to sort through the remnants of my past to discover what our relationship had once been—the only thing I wanted was to stoke the flame that he’d ignited within my heart in order to explore the tender feeling growing steadily between us, one I wanted to keep forever.

CHAPTER14

Lucien