Page 79 of His Unforgettable Bride
“I’m fine, but…you’ve been missing for weeks. Where have you been?”
“I shall explain it all. But first, I would like to don something dry.” Rain had accompanied him from the dock to the hotel. Gray glanced over his shoulder before turning back around. “Are my belongings still in the same room?”
“Everything is as it was. I never stopped believing you’d come back.” Dobbin heaved a shaky sigh. “I was just on my way to distribute more missing-person papers.”
Gray smiled. “I saved you a trip.”
Dobbin fetched the room key before opening the door across the hall for Gray, who exchanged his wet garments for a dry set. Then, Dobbin started a fire in the hearth as Gray provided an abbreviated summary of what had transpired since they last saw each other.
All the while, Juliet’s last words before he departed from Everly eight hours earlier still echoed in his soul.Don’t come back, Henry. Ever.
Their conversation left him with one monumental regret—not telling her that Faith had been Sutton’s love, never his. Initially, he blurted out his betrothal without rehearsing how to explain the complex situation gently. He had tried to fix his blunder, but she refused to open the door and listen to his clarification. If Juliet knew the truth, could she be persuaded to change her mind about traveling to Bascandy with him?
He was unsure. From the moment he had started speaking with her through the crack in the door, she’d seemed to have made the decision to separate from him. What was he to do?
Mid-afternoon rain pelted the windowpane of his room, and a fire now sizzled in the hearth. “You stare at me as if I am a figment of your imagination. It is unnerving.”
Standing near the window, deep worry lines etched Dobbin’s forehead, his jaw tight. His fair hair had grown longer since the last time they had seen one another, and his blue eyes carried a wariness. “Apologies, sir. You’ve been absent for weeks, and I’m still absorbing that you were kidnapped and suffered amnesia. It’s much to comprehend.”
“Were you badly hurt the night of our attack?”
“A headache for a few days. I never saw anyone sneak up on me. When I came to, you had disappeared. Please forgive me.”
“No need to apologize. I was also completely caught off guard, and the waves were thunderous if I remember correctly.”
“Still, it was my job to protect you, Henry.”
Henry. He should probably start thinking of himself by his proper name. “Let us talk no more of it. What is done is done.”
He had caught the first steamer out of Everly to Victoria. Between a barrage of memories and thoughts of Juliet, he had pondered on a bench for the seven-hour ride, except when he paced for long stretches. He also contemplated his relationship with his father, realizing that amnesia and Sutton’s death had taught him a valuable lesson—among many—about not taking others for granted.
How could they resolve their differences? A wholehearted conversation? More time? Whatever the answer, Henry intended to put in the work to make changes. Surely, the King desired the same outcome.
Dobbin hung Henry’s coat in the wardrobe, turned around, and drew a deep breath. “An official correspondence arrived a week or so after you vanished. When you didn’t promptly return, I read the missive in your absence, sir.”
Henry moved to a plush chair beside the fireplace and gestured toward a matching gold chair for Dobbin to sit. “Go on, but first, stop calling me sir. It drives me a little mad. Today, I only need a friend.”
After Dobbin angled the furniture so they could view one another, he sank into the seat and rubbed his palms down the front of his trousers. “The King has died, Henry.”
“No!” The jolt hit him with bullet speed, directly punishing his heart. Everything inside him squeezed as memories marched through his mind—Father on his beloved steed, then at the head of the table, and finally next to Mother in their private sitting room.
First Sutton, now Father. Undoubtedly, the double heartaches must have shattered his mother and sisters. Bascandy, as well. A hollowness burrowed inside him, a raw space he knew not how to fill. He drew a deep breath to gather himself “Had my father taken ill?”
“Chest pains one evening, then never awoke in the morn.” The same ailment had shortened Henry’s grandfather’s life, though he had lived much longer.
Unsteady, he gripped the chair’s arms as the magnitude of the King’s death slowly bled into his skin. He was no longer just a prince. He was the ruler of his country. He was the new King.
Merciful heavens. He had thought he would have more time to adjust to the prospect, to learn to accept the duties that would one day be his, duties he had never wanted and a role he had never coveted.
“You will do exceedingly well succeeding your father.”
Would he? It was too late for the King to offer even a whisper of wisdom regarding how to rule Bascandy. When Henry left home, he never expected his family to decrease by two so rapidly. “Time will tell, I suppose.”
“During our youth, do you recall how my mother bribed us with desserts so we would listen to her Bible stories?”
A bundle of gratitude multiplied inside him because, once again, he recalled big and little pieces of his past. “Yes, and I also remember her apple cake.” He was swept back to the warmth from the kitchen hearth, the never-ending cinnamon scent, and Mrs. Taylor’s spirited voice as she shared the Scriptures. Characters from Abraham to Zacchaeus had sprung to life.
“Then I suppose you also recall how she used to say a person’s true identity was in Christ, not in being a king, a pauper, or anyone else.”
