Chapter 8 - The Bishop's Library
The walk from the bridal suite to the Bishop's Library was conducted in absolute, suffocating silence.
Two royal guards escorted Rachel, holding the heavy train of her wedding dress so it wouldn't drag across the damp stone tiles of the cloisters.
She walked like a woman marching toward her own execution, her fingers digging into the fabric of her skirt until the pearls snapped loose and bounced across the floor.
When we reached the double doors of the library, Captain Thorne knocked twice.
“Enter,” a deep, commanding voice called from inside.
The doors swung open, and I stepped across the threshold, removing my combination cover and tucking it securely beneath my left arm.
The library was a long, narrow room lined from floor to ceiling with leather-bound theological texts and ancient church charters.
Standing by the high leaded-glass window was Prince Alexander.
He was dressed in the scarlet uniform of the Irish Guards, his gold sash draped across his chest, but his face looked shattered.
He was leaning against the windowsill, his hands clenched into fists, staring at a stack of manila folders spread across the long oak table.
And seated at the head of the table, wearing the dark blue Service Dress uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet, was King Henry.
His hair was silver, his face weathered by decades at sea, but his piercing gray eyes were just as sharp as the night he had stood on the bridge of my destroyer in the Aegean Sea.
The moment I entered the room, the King rose from his chair.
He didn't look at Rachel.
He didn't look at the Prince.
He looked directly into my eyes, brought his heels together, and raised his hand to his brow in a slow, deliberate military salute.
I snapped to attention and returned the salute without hesitation.
“Commander Emily Carter, United States Navy, reporting as requested, Your Majesty.”
The King lowered his hand, a ghost of a smile touching his thin lips.
“It is good to see you alive and well, Commander.”
“The reports of your demise appear to have been greatly exaggerated.”
Beside me, Rachel made a choking sound in her throat.
Prince Alexander turned around at the sound of my voice, his eyes darting between me and Rachel.
“Father... who is this?” the Prince asked, his voice cracking with emotion.
King Henry walked slowly around the table, his polished boots clicking rhythmically against the parquet floor.
“This, Alexander, is the sister your bride claimed perished at sea.”
“This is the officer who held the HMS Iron Duke off the rocks at Cape Sidero while forty-two of our sailors were trapped in the engine room.”
“And this is the woman your future wife erased from existence because she believed a military uniform was beneath the dignity of our house.”
Alexander’s face turned an ashen grey.
He took two slow steps toward Rachel, his eyes pleading for an explanation that could save his reality.
“Rachel... is this true?”
Rachel dropped to her knees, her white gown spreading across the floor like a puddle of milk.
“Alexander, please! Listen to me!” she sobbed, clutching at the hem of his scarlet trousers.
“I did it for us!”
“The palace officials were so intimidating!”
“They kept digging into my past, asking about my family’s wealth, our background, our pedigree!”
“I panicked!”
“I thought if they saw how normal we were, how ordinary my sister’s life was, they would convince you to leave me!”
“Ordinary?” King Henry’s voice did not rise in volume, but the authority behind it made the windowpanes vibrate.
The room plunged into an icy stillness.
The King walked over and stood directly above Rachel, looking down at her crumpled form with utter disdain.
“You believed service to one’s country was ordinary?”
“You thought a woman who risks her life on the ocean to protect others was something to be ashamed of?”
“My family has worn the uniform of this realm for eight hundred years, Miss Carter.”
“We do not measure honor by the price of a gown or the guest list at a Manhattan cocktail party.”
“We measure it by duty.”
“And you have displayed neither duty, nor honor, nor basic human decency.”
Rachel buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with violent, ugly sobs.
Alexander stood frozen above her, his hands falling limp at his sides.
The illusion had broken.
The tragic, elegant orphan he had fallen in love with had evaporated, leaving behind a terrified, shallow pretender who had bartered her own sister’s soul for a tiara.
“Alexander,” King Henry said quietly.
“The altar is prepared.”
“Two hundred foreign dignitaries are seated in the nave.”
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“The decision of what happens next belongs to you.”
“Do you wish to marry this woman?”
