X: Command Me through Alexander's Eyes - Geneva Lee Page 0,4
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“Pretend,” I add for him.
“Pretend?” he repeats with practiced confusion.
I’ve been waiting for him to tell me, but it seems obvious he won’t. He’s spent a few weekends at home while he was finishing his final term. There’d been a trip to the country with friends. I’ve spent enough time with my little brother to know that he’s keeping a secret.
“I know,” I say with meaning.
“I’m not sure—” he starts.
“Look, I get it. If you don’t want to tell me, I understand. You…you barely know me, but I see you with him.” I don’t want Edward to think he has to hide who he is from me like he does our father.
“Him?” He’s still playing dumb, clinging to the lie as my mind clings to the dream.
“David.” I decide that he can avoid uncomfortable topics as is the family way, but I can’t. Secrets will bury us all alive if we let them.
“No one knows,” he says quietly. He sinks into his chair like he’s deflating.
“I assume David does.”
“He’s aware,” Edward says dryly.
“And he’s also in the closet?”
Edward’s eyes flash, and I realize I’ve misstepped. “Sorry. Is that not PC?”
“I guess it is. I just never really think about it,” he admits, “and I suppose he is, and he isn’t.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I think he’d be fine with being open about it if...”
“If you were.” There it is—the double-edged sword of loving a Royal. I’d seen glimpses of it as a child before my mother died. The woman I knew and loved transformed into someone else when the camera came out. She fell silent. She took his arm. She became a different woman—his wife. His queen.
But never his equal.
It isn’t done. Edward knows it. I know it.
Why the fuck would he drag someone into this life—even secretly?
“Do you love him?” I ask, wondering how far he’s let it go.
“Yes,” he murmurs.
“Shit.”
“I guess I have your blessing.” His tone remains flat, colored by hopelessness.
“Love complicates things.” Especially for us.
“I think being gay is complicated enough,” Edward says. “Why not add love into the mix?”
“Does he know? Father?”
Edward laughs. It’s completely joyless. It rings through him as hollow as a bell. “Of course. Why do you think I’m under his roof? Wonder where he’ll send me to fix me.”
“Don’t be afraid of him.”
“I’m not. I just…not all of us got to leave.”
I clench my jaw holding back an angry retort. He doesn’t know why I was sent away. He’s no idea how real that danger truly is, and if I tell him, he’ll never have the courage to be true to himself. Instead, I stick to the facts. “War isn’t a vacation.”
“I’m sorry. That was a terrible thing to say.” He hangs his head a little, but I wave it off.
“I don’t think either of us had a grand time for the last seven years. Although, you did graduate university, which makes you far grander than me,” I remind him.
“Come off it. You’re a war hero,” he says. “The party tonight is for both of us.”
It isn’t, but I don’t correct him. I’m being trotted out like a prize stallion for his graduation party, not as a guest of honor. My father’s only intention is to put me out to stud as soon as I’ve made a suitable match—a girl he will pick out for me, no doubt—and only after the wedding. Propriety must be considered. Then he’ll outlive me and hand the throne to my child. He’s stubborn enough to do it and witless enough to not realize that I don’t want the crown. I won’t marry. I won’t further the bloodline.
“You’ve had your own education,” Edward says kindly, mistaking my silence for something else.
“Yes, I suppose my degree is in blood and suffering. I learned how the world works on a battlefield. Fear drives us. It makes men seek power. It makes men do terrible things. It controls all of us.”
“They didn’t teach us that at St. Andrews.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep it out of my toast this evening,” I promise him.
“I don’t know,” he says thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t mind seeing his face if you let that slip.”
I can’t help but smirk. “Consider it a graduation present.”
“Whose graduation is this?” My father storms into the breakfast room and drops a stack of magazines. A tabloid nearly knocks over a teapot.
“Edward’s, I thought.” I don’t bother to look at the cover. He wants me to, which is enough of a reason not to do it.