“Go and find Dylan,” he instructed. “You know where the man is located who sells candied pumpkin; he is probably still there. I am going to retrieve the horses and will meet you by the perfume merchant.”
Carys nodded. “Can I have a few more coins in case there is something more I want?”
Rhys growled and dug into the purse attached to his belt, pulling forth two more coins. “You’re going to get big and fat and no prince will want you.”
Carys just grinned. Plopping the coins into her open palm, he watched her dash off across the avenue. When he was sure his sister was out of earshot, he turned to Elizabeau.
She was standing a few feet away, gazing off into the crowded street. He walked up, standing so close to her that his body brushed against hers.
“She’s just a curious young girl,” he murmured. “She does not mean any harm.”
“I know.” Elizabeau continued to look off into the street. She suddenly closed her eyes and turned into him, throwing her arms around his waist and burying her face in his chest. “I do not think I can go through with this. God’s Bones, I become ill at the mere thought that what has come so easily to us can never be. ”
Against his better judgment, he put his arms around her. The action dangerously weakened the resolve he had been attempting so desperately to reinforce. The weaker his resolve became, the more tightly he gripped her.
“I know well how you feel,” he murmured into the top of her head. “But we have been through this. You are my mission. That is all you can ever be.”
She began to sob, gut-wrenching sighs that he felt clear through to his bones. “Not here, angel,” he whispered, giving her a squeeze and trying to force her to walk with him. “Stop your tears. You do not want Carys and Dylan to see you this way. They will think I’ve been cruel to you.”
“You have,” she sobbed.
His eyebrows furrowed gently. “What have I done?”
She was pitiful. “You have made me fall in love with you.” She suddenly yanked away from him and he glimpsed the spitfire he had first come to know back at Hyde House. “Do you not realize how rare this is? People do not fall in love every day. It is a gift, something precious to be grateful for. And we are throwing it away.”
He watched her rage, the charming little wrinkle of her nose when she spoke and the way her dark green eyes flashed. She was such an exquisite creature. When she finished spouting off and he was sure she wasn’t going to punch him, he pulled her back into his massive embrace again.
“We are not throwing it away,” he soothed her gently, one enormous hand on her head and the other on her back. “What we have been given is a beautiful, unexpected treasure that we simply cannot keep. It does not make it any less valuable or revered. It makes it something to be remembered always, a warm reflection that no one can ever take away from us.”
Her arms went tightly around him. “Rhys,” she murmured into his tunic. “Please… please let us go away from here. Let us go back to your father in France and live there. You can serve him and we can be together and raise a family. Why can we not do this?”
He put his hands on her face, pulling her up to look at him. His fingers dwarfed her skull. “Because too many people are depending on you,” he murmured, brushing his lips against her forehead. “Your uncle is swiftly directing this country and her barons to the brink of civil war. So many people hate him that his opposition grows by the day. Your brother Arthur was our only hope for salvation. Now that he is gone, we must pin our hopes on you. You know this, angel; this situation is bigger than the both of us.”
Tears streamed from the deep green eyes and onto his hands. “But I do not want this. I told you; I do not think I am strong enough for this. I only know that I would rather be with you than be the queen of England. You are more important to me.”
“And you are more important to me, as well. But England needs you more than I do. I am just a man; England is an entire country.”
“But I want to be with you.”
“And I want to be with you. But we cannot have what we want and to constantly rehash this will continue to destroy whatever resolve that remains.”
She just stared at him. He wiped away the thin trail of tears as he watched her face, waiting for his words to register and preparing himself for the appropriate response. But she simply swallowed. After a moment, he watched as she steeled herself and gently put her hands over his, removing them from her face.
“This is surely going to kill me,” she said, her voice strangely cold. “By the end of this next week, I will be dead inside. Once you take me to Ogmore, whatever remains will be useless.”