Page 34 of The Rest is History
If I thought pre-kiss Charlie was frosty at school, post-kiss Charlie is positively Arctic.
By silent mutual agreement, we spent the remainder of Saturday afternoon in deliberate engagement with the other queens. Charlie barely looked my way. He bantered with the visitors, of course. He posed and boomed and corrected anyone who dared bring up a historical fact that was the slightest bit inaccurate. In fact, he was more extrovert, more bubbly, than I’d ever seen him, even in character as Henry.
He even succumbed, willingly, to the teasing and needling and face-squishing of the other queens, both at the palace and in The Mitre afterwards when they dragged us for drinks.
He stayed for one bottle of beer, wedging himself firmly between Shelby and Tess, before running for the hills.
That’show desperate he was to avoid being left alone with me.
I, of course, spent the rest of the afternoon dissecting and analysing our kiss.
Who am I kidding? I’ve spentevery daysince then dissecting and analysing our kiss.
I break it into a million delicious fragments, and obsess over each one, and put them back together before letting the entire experience wash over me anew.
I conjure up the fear, the heat in his eyes when he didn’t know what was wrong.
I revel in the soft, plush weight of his lips on mine. The way our mouths fit together so perfectly, even if just for the briefest few seconds.
I relive the pressure of his thumb dragging against my skin.
The unexpected confidence of his touch as his hand closed around the back of my neck.
As if he’d done it before.
As if he was sayingyou are mine.
And it’s at that point in my wretched replaying of the situation that I start to spiral.
Because Charlie Vaughan has never looked at me like that. Not at school. Not inreal life, when I’m Elodie, the substitute teacher in his department, whose very presence seems to irritate the hell out of him.
He only looks at me like that when he’s Henry and I’m Anne.
We all know he’s obsessed with her. I’ve seen his bookshelves. They’re full of the best revisionist history and character rehabilitations Anne has inspired in the world of academia. And it’s clear he’s far more animated, more engaged, when we’re at the palace together.
At school he can’t put enough distance between us.
At Hampton Court, he appears toenjoybeing with me.
Maybe I’m just a convenient channel.
An inadequate facsimile of his long-dead crush.
I’m driving myself crazy. When I’m not spiralling into myhe has an Anne Boleyn kinkdoldrums, I spiral in other directions.
Dangerousdirections.
Directions where our kiss doesn’t take place at the edge of a bustling courtyard, but in a quiet room.
Where he doesn’t pull away from me, but instead kisses me more deeply.
Where his tongue plunges insistently into my mouth, consuming me.
Learning me.
Teachingme.
Where his hands are a ravenous blur of need as they rip at my jewels, my bodice, sending velvet ripping and pearls scattering across the floor.
