Page 50 of The Heir Apparent
“I don’t know,” he whispered.
My jacket was becoming wet in the sodden grass, but I still felt quite cheery to be with my brother on the blustery moors. A sunrise was blooming violet over the mountains.
“Do you think he’s with Annabelle?”
Louis frowned at me and then returned his gaze to the binoculars. We rarely mentioned Annabelle by name. She wasknown only as “her,” delivered with a certain breathless intonation that left the other in no doubt who you were talking about.
“Probably,” he said quietly. “But they’re single now. They’re going to see other people.”
“It’s always been her, though, hasn’t it? He’s not going to see anyone else, because he never stopped seeing her.”
We fell silent. Louis obscured his face with his binoculars, but I knew he was gathering his thoughts.
“I think…” he said slowly, “he loves her and probably always has. I don’t know how he felt about Mum. It’s probably easy to say now that it’s over that he never loved her, but I don’t think it’s that simple.”
“Why didn’t they just let him marry Annabelle?”
“You know why,” he said. “The Catholic thing and the whole divorce thing. She was kind of old. I don’t know, maybe he didn’t fight hard enough.”
I thought of Louis’s cheek resting on Kris’s shoulder, his eyes closed, his face soft. I didn’t want him to give that up.
“Do you think you’ll fight?” I whispered.
He looked at me quizzically. “For, like, a girlfriend or whatever? Yeah, I guess.”
“Will you fight for Kris?” I whispered into the heather, my heart lolloping in my chest. I had no idea what I was even doing, but I was suddenly terrified for him.
Louis stiffened so that the lines of his face were as fine as cut glass. He said nothing. Only the quivering muscles in his jaw gave away that he had heard me. After a minute of silence, he crawled over the rocks, slowly ascending the hill to join Richard on the peak. I lay there for a long time, buffeted by the stinging winds. Finally, a gunshot cracked overheard and echoed through the valley.
Louis avoided my eyes for the rest of the day, riding up front with Richard in the Range Rover, accepting the back slaps and praise of the ghillies for his exceptional shot—he had brought the stag down with a single shot through his heart.
After dinner, which was dedicated entirely to re-enacting every moment of the stag’s demise, Louis disappeared to his room and kept his door closed. The next morning, I woke at dawn and looked out the window and there he was, marching wearily towards Richard, who insisted they pivot to fly-fishing for the rest of the week. Bereft, I went back to spending my days wandering the castle with Demelza and Birdie in tow. Granny’s springer spaniel Pearl was pregnant, so we helped Granny prepare a whelping box for the birth, sitting on the floor shredding newspapers and taking stock of old towels. We discussed names for the litter, too, even though Granny had found homes for all the puppies but one, kept to ensure her spaniel’s line continued alongside her.
Silence was the weapon of choice for our family, but it was one Louis and I rarely used against each other. Three days later, I was in bed, listening to the crackle of the fire, when I heard a knock on my door. He came in, looking wearier than ever. He was dressed in his Astley hoodie, and he sat on the edge of my bed, leaning against the Scottish oak bedpost. We looked at each other for a long time. I wondered if perhaps we would say nothing, but I should take his presence at the foot of my bed as forgiveness.
“Did you see us in New Zealand?” he finally asked.
“No,” I said. “At school.”
He looked surprised. “Where?”
“The Mound, after the spring dance.”
I watched the shadows and warm light from the fire dance across his face. He didn’t look angry or frightened, only exhausted.
“Have you told anyone?” he asked quietly.
“No, but Amira was with me. She’d lost her coat and we went up to find it and we saw you dancing. But we haven’t told anyone.”
He nodded and then leaned his head back against the post and closed his eyes.
“Louis,” I said, “it’s not a big deal.”
His eyes snapped open. “Not a big deal?”
“I just mean… it’s not a big deal to me, you know, if you like boys. That’s cool—I don’t care.”
He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Don’t be naive, Lexi. It is a big deal, and you know it.”
