Page 22 of Enamored
I went back in time, replaying a school day like all the others. “I can recall nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Do you remember telling the queen or king that I offered to marry you?”
“You offered to marry me?” As the memory of his sincere words came back to me, I smiled. “I had forgotten. But yes, I started crying over the prospect of enduring the courtship week, and you gallantly proposed to marry me so I wouldn’t have to go through with it.”
“That’s right.” His tone and expression were devoid of humor. “You told the king of my proposal—”
“I did no such thing.”
“Then you told the queen.”
“I spoke of it to no one.”
Maxim pushed up to his elbow. “How did the king learn of our exchange?”
I could hardly remember the instance myself, much less who else had been present. “Perhaps one of the servants or the tutor?”
His eyes narrowed upon me, almost as if he didn’t believe me.
I pushed up to my elbow too. “Why would it matter if I spoke of your kind offer to anyone?”
“Because neither of us understood the reality of our different stations.”
He was right. I hadn’t comprehended at such a young age that Maxim wasn’t royalty like I was. In fact, he wasn’t even nobility. His kin had come from common stock. And as a commoner, he wasn’t considered my equal in any way. “Someone heard your statement and assumed you were aspiring above your station?”
“Apparently so.”
“And the king learned of it and decided you needed to be sent away?”
Maxim hesitated but then nodded.
My heart sank with the revelation that the king had been the one to separate me from Maxim. Although the queen had handled losing Maxim with more grace and poise than I had, she’d always lamented his parting. Seeing her joy today in being with Maxim again brought back the painfulness of those first weeks and months after he’d gone. We’d both grieved.
“He was wrong to send you away like he did, without an explanation, warning, or farewell.” A tide of hurt and frustration threatened to erupt, but before I could vent any further, Maxim reached up and silenced me with a finger to my lips.
The touch was soft but firm, and I reveled in his nearness. For an achingly sweet moment, he held his finger there, as though he, too, liked the contact.
Finally, he dropped his hand. “’Twill do no good to dredge up old regrets and make them new again.” He was quoting an ancient philosopher, one we’d memorized together. “The time had come for me to go away and begin my Sagacite training. If not that day, Rasmus would have sent me another day not long after.”
“At least then I might have been able to say farewell.” My voice caught, mortifying me. I didn’t want to get emotional in front of Maxim, and I rushed to cover my sadness. “With some closure, perhaps I would have resigned myself to your leaving instead of wondering why you were angry and cut me out of your life so completely.”
“I wasn’t angry.”
“Yes, you were. You believed I was the cause of your leaving. As a result, you chose not to respond to my letters.”
“Letters?”
Had he not received them? Had someone intercepted them before they could be sent? Indignation swirled again, this time faster. “How could the king deny us letter writing? What purpose could be served by prohibiting communication betwixt friends?”
Maxim was silent for a beat, resting his head on his arm again. “Friendships between children are much easier to control than those between adults.”
Another ancient philosophy quote? I didn’t recognize it. But Maxim had a memory like an endless wellspring.
“Perhaps the king acted out of compassion more than spite.” Maxim glanced unseeingly at the wall behind me, the sign that his mind was spinning faster than a tundra whirlwind. “’Tis possible the king sensed the bond between us was strong and thought to separate us before the severing became even more painful.”
As usual, Maxim’s conclusion made perfect sense. If our childhood friendship had continued, would it have shifted into something more?
I let my gaze linger over his strong brow and the strand of dark hair that had come loose from his leather band and flopped across his forehead. My fingers twitched with the need to comb it back, to feel his hair, to brush his skin.
