Page 19 of American King (New Camelot Trilogy 3)
Her mouth drops. “Is that what this is about?”
I don’t answer.
“Ash—”
I shake my head. “It’s Embry’s story to tell. I’m not going to interfere between the two of you. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Fuck fair,” she protests, her voice rising. “What about what’s fair to you? What about what’s fair to me? Do I really lose the right to talk about Embry with you because you want to be fair? We promised, even back before the wedding, that we would talk about him with each other, that we wouldn’t hold back or hide, that everything had to be completely honest.”
“Princess,” I say, looping her hair around my finger and tugging gently. “That was about missing him, not about anger. Not about pain. It’s a world of difference.”
“But you still miss him,” she points out. “Even if you resent him at the same time. And I know he’s going to miss you. I know he still loves you.”
I sigh, releasing her hair. “That’s what Morgan said last night.”
“You talked to Morgan last night? She knew about this before I did?” There’s a hint of insecurity in her voice, and with some shame, I realize I’d forgotten about her disastrous interaction with Morgan last year…and with even more shame, I realize I still need to tell Greer the worst part of it all.
“She knew even before I did, Greer. She’ll be Embry’s running mate.” I pull my wife up into my lap, gathering her to me until she’s nestled against my chest and enclosed by my arms, her legs tucked up in the chair and her head resting on my shoulder. I stroke her hair as I say as kindly as I can, “There is one more thing, though.”
“About Morgan?” I can hear the wariness in her voice, and I wish I could spare her this part, so soon after finding out about Abilene and Embry’s baby, so soon after finding out that she isn’t carrying a child of our own. But Greer is strong; she doesn’t need to be protected from the truth.
“It is about Morgan,” I agree, holding her a little tighter. “There was a baby—a son. Her aunt raised him, and no one knew the boy was hers, not even Embry. Not even me."
Greer's gone completely still, her body braced for it, and I wish to God I could say anything other than what I say next. "He was mine, Greer. He is mine."
I expect her to stay frozen or maybe even to rage at me, to call me all the words I've already called myself—sinner, pervert, a twisted, incestuous bastard—but she doesn’t. She looks up at me with eyes the color of the sea under moonlight, and then she presses a cool hand against my face. I turn and kiss her palm and taste salt—she’s caught tears I didn’t even know I was crying on her skin.
“Oh Ash,” she murmurs. “Is this why you knelt when I came in?”
I close my eyes. “I knelt because nothing feels real anymore. Only you.”
“You didn’t know, Ash. You can’t be angry with yourself for something you didn’t know about.”
“I should have known,” I say, my eyes still closed. “Before Glein, she wanted to speak to me so badly, she wouldn’t leave until we’d talked, and I mistook it for…I don’t even know. An infatuation I didn’t have time for, maybe. Something I couldn’t even entertain because I’d fallen so hard for her brother by then and the war was really starting and…” I open my eyes. “All along, she was trying to tell me that we had a child. And I couldn’t be bothered to give her five fucking minutes of my time.”
“You were fighting a war,” Greer reminds me. “And she could have written, she could have called, she could have served you with a paternity test—anything other than melting into silence after Glein.”
“I think there was no hope of anything else after Glein. I failed her a
nd our baby too badly for her to trust me again.”
“God!” Greer practically explodes. “Of all the things to hold against you! That wasn’t even your fault!”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say heavily. “At the end of the day, a person is held to account for their choices, by history or by God or by something else, and what happened at Glein amounted to the results of my choices. I was green, I was young, I was doing my best, but I still chose what I chose. I can’t blame Morgan for hating me.”
I can tell by her huff that Greer disagrees, and it makes me smile. “My loyal young bride,” I say, pressing my forehead against hers. But then I pull away and search her face. “I will understand if this changes how you feel about me. It is one thing to have fucked a sister in ignorance, but now that there’s a son…it’s a much heavier sin. You would be well within reason to divorce me over this.”
She sits up in my arms, her cheeks going red with anger. “I can’t believe you’d even say something like that.”
I run a hand along the curve of her thigh, soothing my restless filly. “There’s more to contend with than just Lyr’s existence, Greer. Aren’t you curious how Embry found out when Morgan hid it from him for so long?”
There’s a stubborn set to her jaw. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does, unfortunately. Your cousin was the one who told Embry. In fact, she was using Lyr as blackmail to manipulate Embry into dating her. He was hurting you in order to protect me and my image from the truth. You are allowed to resent me for that at least.”
“Dammit Ash, I can’t resent you. Not now, not ever.” She flings her arms around my neck, twists until she’s straddling my lap with her forehead touching mine. “I hate her and I’m furious with him, but this is not your fault. None of it is.”
“You’ll find that Embry disagrees. And Morgan. And certainly the public will have a different opinion.”
