Arthur is standing at the window, gazing out over the grounds, when the butler clears his throat.
Arthur turns. My heart stops beating as we lock eyes.
“Your Majesty, Ms. Poppy Davies is here to see you,” he says.
“Very good, Lewis,” Arthur replies. “Poppy, please come in.”
“Thank you,” I say to the butler. He nods, and once I am in the room, he closes the doors behind me.
Now my blood is roaring in my ears as I dip into a curtsy. “Your Majesty,” I say. I rise and find Arthur smiling at me.
“Poppy, please have a seat,” he says, gesturing to one of the floral chairs.
I nod and sink into one. I press my knees together and point them at a slant, but I’m trembling now, and it’s hard to do.
Arthur takes the chair next to me. I bite my lip as I stare at him, as I can feel the tears building within me.
“As you know,” he says slowly, “I asked you here for a reason. But before I address that, I have to thank you. Thank you for saving my life.”
“Arthur,” I say, my voice shaking, “no thank you is needed. I’m just relieved you are okay. How are you feeling?”
Arthur shakes his head. “A thank you is needed. Your fast thinking and actions were critical in getting me the care I needed in record time. You proved to me in that moment exactly why my son loves you so much.”
Arthur blurs in my vision. I grip my fingernails into my palms, desperate to try and keep control of myself.
“I don’t know what Xander has told you,” I say, a knife going through my heart as I speak his name out loud, “but I love him very much. He is my world, Arthur. I’m adrift without him.”
I blink rapidly, but it’s no use. I feel a tear slip from my eye and splash onto my clutched hands in my lap.
Arthur’s face shows nothing but concern for me. “Xander is adrift without you, too, Poppy.”
Now, the tears fall freely as I give up trying to stop them. “But he won’t be with me if he can’t protect me, whether it’s physically or emotionally. Your heart attack triggered all of his doubts about himself, and even when I pushed him as hard as I could to let go of them, he dug in deep. I don’t know how to break through that wall. To get him to see the man that we all love. The man I am willing to compromise for and sacrifice for because I love him that much. Because he is my partner, and that is what you do when you love someone like that. I know that with all my heart and soul.”
Arthur is quiet for a moment. “Poppy, I’m going to ask you a question that might clarify why Xander is digging in like this. Did he tell you how my father died?”
I shake my head. I have a flashback to the dowager queen screaming out about Phillip on the floor of Buckingham Palace, and I meant to go back and Google that, but forgot about it in the aftermath of the breakup.
Arthur stares at me. “My father died of a heart attack. In front of Xander.”
My hands fly to my mouth. “Oh my God!”
“Xander refuses to talk about it,” Arthur says, his voice full of sadness. “He has not spoken of it since. But he was about to take a walk with my father at Balmoral. They had just entered the garden when he collapsed. Xander told me he stood there at first, stunned and confused. Then he ran off and stumbled upon our head gardener. By the time the gardener came back, my father had died. Xander blamed himself, no matter how much I reassured him that he did everything right and nobody could have saved him. I had Xander seeing a therapist to help him come to terms with it, but I know the past still has a huge scar on his heart.”
Oh my God. My heart shatters like glass inside my chest, and a sob escapes my throat.
“We kept that story away from everyone,” Arthur explains. “Nobody except for Xander, the main gardener, myself, and Her Majesty know the truth about that morning. Not even the courtiers know what happened.”
Fresh pain fills me. My God, what Xander went through as a child. I thought the relationship between Arthur and Queen Antonia was bad enough, but this? To