Page 58 of King of Lies
There’s no way she’d be coming on to him … not so soon after her husband passed. That would be trashy. Then again, I’ve never been made a queen by marriage and stood on the cusp of losing it all.
Rhys has said he’ll see to her care, but maybe she thinks that means in his bedroom as well. Well, the joke’s on her, because he’s been sleeping in mine.
• • •
Rhys is gone when I wake up. Like I have for the last two weeks, I reach across the bed, looking for him, but the sheets are cold and he’s already gone. To be honest, he’s always gone.
Rhys’s new duties take him from me before the sun rises and keep him until just before dinner, when he dresses somewhere else and joins us all in the dining room. He disappears again as soon as we’re done, and then comes to bed sometime late in the evening while I’m still reading. He makes love to me every night and then we go to sleep.
If I’m being honest with myself, in my darkest moments, I wonder if he’s done with me. But then he’s never asked me to go back to America. And I do know that his duties are important. There’s a reason that he is gone so often, and I can’t begrudge him that. I don’t want to either. I want to support him in what he needs. But late in the night, the whispers tell me that, without him, I have no one.
Sure, Dahlia and I have formed a sort of friendship, but I think that’s more about irritating her mother than it is about her actually liking me.
But the real defection, the one that stings the most, is that of my uncles. They have not phoned, texted, or emailed once in the entire time I’ve been here, and when I call them, they decline the calls.
The truth is that I am utterly alone.
I shower and blow-dry my hair, styling it again in the same low hairstyle that Maeve showed me. It’s become my tried and true. I make my face up in soft colors and then pull the outfit that Maeve pulled from the closet and readied for me yesterday.
“You’re going to want to kiss me when you feel these tights,” she laughed as she showed me the black tights that look sheer but are really lined with a thick nude toned material. She explained that the old church gets very cold and these would go a long way to keeping me warm.
I pull them up over my panties and don a black long-sleeved dress with an artistic bow collar.
Maeve had also brought me a heavy necklace made of three thick strands of good-sized pearls, linked in the middle with a diamond encrusted piece that coordinates with the earrings I’ve been wearing all week. Another memento left behind by the previous queen.
I carefully pull it from the box and link it around my neck before donning the small hat with a swatch of black netting.
A knock sounds at the door just as I pick up a pair of black leather gloves and slide my feet into the leather Louboutins.
“Hello,” Maeve calls as she pokes her head in the main door.
“I’m in here,” I call back.
“Are you ready?”
“Just about.”
“Good, the car should be here soon and you’re early in the lineup,” she says, reminding me of what I already know. Most of the invited mourners, friends and distant family, dignitaries from around the world are to arrive on a tight schedule. I am the first of the family to arrive and be seated, after me is Dahlia and then the queen. Rhys and Taylor are walking with the men of the family in place of honor behind the caisson carrying the king’s casket.
We walk down the hall and pass the queen. Dahlia looks startled when her mother screeches, “How dare you hold us up today, you ungrateful cunt!”
“Mother—” Dahlia starts to defend me. The cars aren’t even here yet, but the queen cuts her off by slapping her face, thus ending any tenuous friendship we might have had.
“I told you before,” she snarls, waving a finger in my face. “There is no place for you here. We all know it, and it’s time you did too. Even poor Rhys is staying in his office well into the evening to avoid you. Do us all a favor and go home, back to America, because we all know you have no home here.”
“The car is here, miss,” Maeve says quietly, and I turn on wooden legs toward the door. Leo, with his watchful eyes, takes in the moment but says nothing. He makes no move to protect me or Dahlia, and he does not defend me in any way. It gives me pause that maybe what the queen says is correct. No one wants me here, not even Rhys.
Leo opens the door for me, and I slide in. He doesn’t close the door right away, instead he opens his mouth to say something but looks as if he hasn’t decided on the right words and I can’t bear to hear more about the topsy turn my life has taken. Not today. Today isn’t about me. Today is to lay to rest a man who was loved dearly.
“It’s fine,” I interrupt whatever he was going to say. “We better get a move on. We don’t want to disrupt the schedule any more than we already have. Dahlia has paid enough for my crimes, don’t you think?”
His face warms and I wonder again if Leo is sweet on the young princess. I know that she has a screaming crush on him, but he shuts her down every time. Probably because she’s much too young for him, not to mention that he’s employed by the royal family, and such things just aren’t done.
Leo nods and closes the door before jumping into the front passenger seat, and then we’re off. I look back and see Dahlia being led to another car. She looks up at me and there’s hatred in her eyes. I sit forward in my seat and brace for the photographers.
It’s not every day that the monarch of a small but powerful European nation dies. The world is watching, not just to see his state funeral and all the fanfare, but also to see how Rhys, his oldest son, will react to the new role as king.
We wind our way through the street to the church. It’s not far from the castle and sits on the cliffs just like the castle itself. I’m led to my seat at the front of the church. I know from Maeve that the whole thing will be televised, and I’m to sit stoically with my hands folded in my lap while the proceedings take place. I quietly wait for Rhys to be led in to take his place beside me. My head bowed until the dead king passes, just as I was instructed to do.
