Page 16 of The King's Man
The affair lasted months.
At first, when he offered critique on my fighting style—which Jhonas had helped me adjust from the standard form to complement my greater speed and flexibility but lesser strength than men—I thought he was trying to help me, and I only loved him more.
Then one day, after his grip on my heart was complete, he caught me sparring with one of Jhonas’s friends who’d been helping us for years.
Walt flew into a rage, convinced that I trained with the man in order to seduce him.
I was horrified, terrified of losing him, and immediately told Jhonas I wouldn’t spar with his friend anymore.
That soothed Walt’s anger for a time, and things returned to the thrilling, heart-swelling passion we’d had. But now with a tiny tension. A niggle of fear.
I caught myself watching him, looking for that tic in his cheek that meant he was stifling anger. I questioned my decisions—should I train when Walt wasn’t there? Would he hear, and think something was wrong?
Should I train at all, if it wasn’t with him?
Jhonas reprimanded me, claiming I’d become unreliable, and distracted when I was present. I grew defensive. There were pressures in my life—pressures to be something I wasn’t—that Jhonas would never understand. I tore into my brother.
“Youare celebrated for being strong and a fighter.Youare applauded and promoted and encouraged. Whereas, almost everyone considers this my vice!Ihave to fight for the chance to fucking fight, Jhonas. Don’t talk to me about being distracted!”
My brother gaped, then his eyes narrowed. “You can be angry at our society, Dee, but don’t throw that at me. I’ve been nothing but supportive since you started playing with my training blades.”
Then he stalked out, the heels of his officer’s boots clipping on the floor, and he looked so strong and dignified and… God, everything I wanted to be. And everything I knew I wasn’t. Yet.
Why were men able to do that? How did they carry themselves in such a way that even if you disagreed, you understood why people believed them?
Why couldn’t I do that? Was it really just their physical strength? Did that control over their surroundings offer them something deeper? Something I could never achieve?
I went weeping to Walt that afternoon, and he soothed me. Reassured me. Made me love him even more. Until I was so encouraged and thrilled that he believed in me—that was all I needed!—that I told him I wanted to make a career out of being a soldier.
And then he laughed.
I stood there in the empty hayloft where we often met because our love was forbidden, feeling my heart shrivel in my chest as he spluttered and chuckled.
I stopped breathing. “Why are you laughing?”
He swallowed his amusement immediately, but as the mirth passed, his gaze grew calculating.
“Hold… You’re serious?”
I gaped. “Of course I’m serious. I’ve been training my entire life. It’salwaysfelt right for me. Always. How can you be shocked? You’ve told me how good I am at this—far better than any of the feminine pursuits I’ve tried. Why wouldn’t you want me to—”
“Darling… Diadre… There is such a difference between playing at fighting, andsoldiering. You can’t possibly believeyou would survive even a day in formal training? The men would beat you into the dirt.”
I took a step back from him as something inside my chest cracked. “You said… you said that I was better than most of your rank and file. That I was faster and—”
“Quick, yes. An assassin? Maybe. You have a better mindset than the young bucks your age, it’s true. There’s a humility in you that most fighting men lack. You are very teachable. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Dee. Iloveteaching you,” he purred, then prowled towards me with that heated look that always melted me at my core and shut my mouth and turned my body on and—
“No,” I breathed, stepping back as he reached for me. “No, don’t… don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what? Appreciate you?”
“No, don’t ignore me.”
His expression tightened. “I am here, listening to you, speaking with you, offering my body—offering to please yours. I’m not ignoring you, Dee.”
“You’re… you’re doing what they all do. You’re dismissing me. Like this is some kind of child’s fancy.”
“Because it is,” he said sharply. “I believe women should train. You need to if you’re to have any chance of defending yourself against some bastard who decides he can take what he wants. I am not ignorant to the failures of men. Look at me, here, attending you when I am a married father of two…” He shook his head and his nose wrinkled. “Make no mistake, Diadre, I will train my daughters, and celebrate their skills. Cheer when they put a blade into the ribs of an unsuspecting man who would hurt them. But to put a woman on thebattlefield?It’s laughable.”
