by Lucy Lennox
The crowd chuckled softly, and I saw several people smiling in anticipation.
“I have spent extensive time researching the mysterious and exquisite glass found in the castle on the remote island of Gadleigh. As any scholar of stained glass can tell you, Gadleigh is like Disney World for glass enthusiasts. Or the Louvre for da Vinci enthusiasts.”
More chuckles.
“I was lucky enough to spend the holidays at Gadleigh Castle and studied under the current Gadleigh glass master, Calum Grier. Not only did I learn what their current program entails, but I also saw the historic glass of the unnamed artist from the 1500s.”
I took a moment to look around the room, wondering how many people knew much about stained glass.
“As many of you know, the extensive works of the unknown artist were originally credited to a glass artisan who was popular during that era, Gian Antonio da Lodi. But in the early 1970s, a scholar found evidence that da Lodi had never been to Gadleigh. That discovery prompted further testing, which determined the glass was made almost sixty years after da Lodi’s death.”
After a pause to give myself a mini pep talk, I continued.
“It is my theory that the reason the credit was given to da Lodi in the first place was to hide the identity of the real glass master of Gadleigh. Through my research, I’ve discovered that there was an unknown glass master in residence during the time all of the glass was created. It was the reign of Liorland’s King Gabriel IV, and the artisan was a man by the name of Etienne DesMarais.
“There is no official record of Etienne visiting Gadleigh despite his being one of King Gabriel’s inner circle. But I found evidence in the journal kept by another glassmaker in nearby Nice who specifically mentions a man named Etienne DesMarais escalating his glassmaking talents to the point of regional fame. Upon further research, I began to see implications that the king and DesMarais were in a secret relationship.”
I paused to test the audience’s reaction. It wasn’t every day an academic made accusations of homosexuality about a royal personage in front of a renowned group of art history buffs. When I’d mentioned my theory to Lio, I’d been terrified of offending him. But that had been stupid. Lio himself was gay, so learning one of his ancestors was gay hadn’t been a huge shock. He’d found it fascinating instead. And sad.
We’d discussed at length how awful it must have been for the king and DesMarais to have to hide their relationship, but after knowing the story, anyone with eyes could see the love that had been put into every glass installment around Gadleigh.
“When I visited the castle, I was struck by how extensive the glass installations were. There are details as major as the main rosette window in the royal chapel and as minor as the handle of a garden water pump that have been lovingly crafted from stained glass made with sand collected on Gadleigh’s own beaches.
“It is the work of a lifetime. The work of love and dedication to a place that meant everything to the artisan. While I was there, I attempted to count each individual work of handmade glass around Gadleigh Castle. I stopped counting after eight hundred. This wasn’t a visiting artist. It wasn’t a world-renowned maker or a neophyte attempting to learn the ropes. It was a focused, dedicated master, honing his art in the process of expressing a lifetime’s worth of love in the place of his heart.”
I stopped to take a sip of water to wash away the lump in my throat as I thought about Etienne and Gabriel hiding away at Gadleigh in order to find each other away from real life. The similarity to mine and Lio’s situation was excruciating. The fact that in five hundred years, nothing had fucking changed.
“So one of the greatest glass masters of all time was never named. He never came forward and claimed his due—never received recognition for his amazing life’s work at Gadleigh. Instead, he went down in history as a courtesan, a hanger-on to one of Monaco’s brightest kings during the time of the late renaissance and England’s King Henry VII.”
I looked around the room and decided to say one more thing before moving on to the technical part of the presentation.
“The intersection between art and recognition has always been fascinating to me. Is the art less valuable because we didn’t know who created it? Is it more interesting to us now that we may know who’s responsible for it? If DesMarais had been credited with the glass all along, would people have revered him, studied his work, had their own art influenced by his styles and techniques? Would he have had an impact on the future of glassmaking? We’ll never know. Had it been acceptable then to out himself as the king’s lover, he might have left an incredible legacy like da Vinci did. Instead, he left the glass at Gadleigh and a simple gravestone marker in an enclosed courtyard on the estate.”
I advanced the slide deck on my laptop to show the photograph I’d taken outside of the treasury room at Gadleigh when I’d discovered the tiny, almost hidden stone marker.
I had translated it from the French:
My Etienne - whose heart shined like colored glass in the sun.
The following day, I had to admit to myself I wasn’t ready to go home yet. I wanted to stay longer in Paris, maybe even visit the stained glass I’d studied in textbooks. I thought about the stained glass at nearby Chartres Cathedral, and I realized it was a shame to be so close to some of the most famous glass in the world and not get to see it. Paris was the city of art, after all, and art was what restored me.
After an overly vague call to Doc and Grandpa about taking some extra time in Paris, I extended my hotel reservation. But instead of getting out and seeing glass, I spent the next forty-eight hours drowning my sorrows in French wine and baguettes and watching stupid French-dubbed American movies in my hotel room.
Clearly I wanted to keep hiding—keep avoiding my real life. The one without Lio.
It only took two days of wallowing in self-pity before I opened the door of the hotel room one morning and saw Doc and Grandpa in the hallway.
They’d come to knock some sense into me.
Chapter 29
Lio
By the time the official announcement of my father’s retirement came, I’d begun to feel like maybe I could do this. I’d gotten a handle on the most pressing issues that would need my attention when I took my new position, and the idea of being the king was beginning to sink in. If this was what I was born to do, I would embrace it with my full focus, including allowing my parents to help me select a wife.
That attitude lasted a good four or five days until my date with Sabine.
Jon and I picked her up from her parents’ house and drove her to the Salle des Etoiles for the Save the Children Winter Gala. The event was one of my favorites because it raised significant money for youth aid programs around the world. I had spent two months during high school working on one of their volunteer projects in Indonesia to help register some of the thousands of children displaced by the tsunami there. Ever since, it had been a charity I volunteered for and donated to as often as I could.
Sabine was breathtaking in a royal blue ball gown that seemed to float in the night air. Sparkling jewelry winked from her ears and throat, and her dark hair was swept up, leaving only a few curled tendrils to fall along her slender neck. I was taken aback by how regal and elegant she looked. I’d always known she was beautiful and graceful, but there was something about her demeanor that night that instantly affirmed why my parents had given me such pressure to give her a chance.
She would make a lovely queen.
I kissed her on the cheeks and offered her my arm. “Thank you so much for agreeing to come with me tonight,” I said politely.
“It’s my pleasure. I’ve really been looking forward to it, Lior,” she said with a bright smile.
“Ah. It’s taking me some time to get used to the new name,” I admitted. Even though the news was out about my father stepping down, I couldn’t get used to the new deference in public just yet.
We made our way in the town car to the event venue and entered along a red carpet through
throngs of photographers. Luckily, the truth about the reason for my father’s retirement hadn’t come out yet. He had given the press a half-truth, saying only that he and my mother were divorcing and he’d decided that it would be a good time to transition the throne to me so that the focus could remain on Liorland’s strong future rather than the personal life of the king and queen.
No one believed it, but so far the speculation seemed to remain on concerns over his health. It was only a matter of time before the truth about Eleanor and her pregnancy came to light. In the meantime, she’d been tucked away in a country home owned by one of my father’s closest confidants and was told to stay out of the way until he was free to join her.
How in the world she put up with the bastard was beyond me.
But the news had caused intense media focus on me, of course, and the photographers went wild snapping pictures of me with Sabine on my arm. Questions were shouted about who she was and what our relationship was, and I took a moment to be grateful Sabine had been prepared ahead of time by my mother’s assistant.
Regardless of her prep, when we got inside the ballroom, Sabine’s eyes were wide and a little freaked-out.
“Are you okay?” I murmured, leaning in close so no one else could hear.
“Yes, I just… that’s… how do you get used to so many photographers and reporters in your face?”
I shrugged and gave her my most confident smile. “I don’t know any different, but I can tell you from personal experience that it gets a little easier after a glass of wine.”
Her face relaxed into a smile of gratitude as we made our way toward the closest drinks server. Once we had wine in hand, I began to introduce her around until it was time to take our seats for the formal dinner.
Sabine was charming and poised; she had a natural ability to set people at ease and seemed to connect easily with everyone she spoke to. I wanted to kick myself for having such a bad attitude about this date. She was proving to be smart, funny, sincere, and compassionate. She asked questions about the charity projects Save the Children was currently focused on and expressed genuine interest in getting involved herself. Even Hen leaned over to me at one point during dinner and remarked on it.
“She’s the total package, isn’t she?”
Despite her public smile, my sister’s sarcasm bit into me with a direct hit.
“Yes, she is. Mother chose well,” I said, trying my hardest to mean it.
Her face turned serious. “How are you holding up? I haven’t seen you much since you’ve been so busy.”
“Busy is good, Hen. Less time to wallow.” My tone was light, but she heard the truth of it.
“Have you talked to him?”
I looked around quickly and noticed Sabine had turned away from me to engage in a conversation with the person on her opposite side.
“No,” I said firmly before clearing my throat. “I dare not. At the sound of his hello, I’d fucking lose my shit, dear one.”
“Oh, Lio,” she said, and the pity in her voice was suffocating. I looked around the large ballroom, eager to find someone I could excuse myself to talk to. Unfortunately, every face I saw was someone who’d want to chat me up about my new role, and I was losing my ability to fake enthusiasm. I turned back to Hen when she spoke again.
“Have you thought about inviting him here as a friend?” Her suggestion sparked a tiny jolt of excitement in my heart until I remembered how much he despised the press.
“Believe me, I tried that, but I can’t beg him to come to paparazzi central, Hen. He hates the media, and that’s my life right now. Even if we were able to be just friends, he’d hate the scrutiny involved in being friends with the royal family.”
“Why not let him decide?”
I shook my head. “No. He’d agree. He’s sweet and selfless like that. If he thought I needed him, he’d drop everything and fly back over here.”
“He’s still in France,” she said quietly. “He decided to stay a little while after his presentation in Paris. Says he wanted to see some sights. You should reach out to him.”
The thought of Felix within a six-hour train ride from me made my throat constrict.
Why the hell does the thought of him get such a strong reaction out of me, dammit?
“I can’t,” I breathed before excusing myself and quickly striding toward the men’s room.
The rest of the night passed easily because something splintered inside of me on my way to the bathroom. It was like I became two different people. One was Lior, the smiling diplomat who was preparing to become the king and graciously responded to the well-wishes of his peers. The other was Lio, the gay man who pined for a shy Texan. That part of me hid away safely in my heart, reliving memories of touch and taste, laughter and lingering conversation by the fire. Lio was untouchable. He lived inside and stayed in a happy bubble meant only for him. Lior, on the other hand, was everything his parents had always dreamed of.
Over the coming days, Lior would surprise everyone with how adept he was at preparing to be king. He took Sabine out for lunch at a popular restaurant in town, held her hand as they window-shopped in front of the paparazzi, and laughed at her soft jokes. Lior made my father proud and my mother giddy.
Lio only surfaced late at night. When the lights were out and the doors were closed, and the feel of the cool, soft sheets slid across his legs as he imagined Felix’s tight warm channel clasped around his cock. As the scream of his climax went straight into the thick down pillows with someone else’s royal crest embroidered on the case. As the hot splash of his tears could evaporate before morning when Lior would rise again and take charge of the day.
Chapter 30
Felix
It didn’t take much for Grandpa and Doc to get the truth out of me. With the exception of Lio’s identity anyway. There was no way I was taking the chance of saying anything that could result in outing a damned king.
My cousin Otto had come with them, no doubt using the trip as an excuse to avoid settling back down in Hobie. I knew he had to be restless going from a career traveling the world in the military to coming home to our sleepy, tiny town. Regardless of the reason, I was glad he’d come with them to see me. Otto’s big muscular presence made me feel safe, and his strong but silent vibe made for good company when I wasn’t in the mood for idle chitchat. I didn’t feel pressured to fill the silence when I was around Otto.
The four of us were sitting around a dining table with a million-dollar view of the Eiffel Tower. We’d ventured out to an Italian restaurant for dinner, and Otto was currently stealing everyone’s remaining pasta to fill his bottomless gut.
“Jesus, man,” I teased. “Where the hell are you putting all of that?”
“Going sightseeing tomorrow,” he grunted. “Carbo loading.”
I made eye contact with Grandpa, who shook his head before muttering, “The kid hasn’t stopped moving since he got home.”
Otto swallowed his last bite and wiped his mouth with a napkin before speaking. “I’m not passing up an opportunity to see Versailles for fuck’s sake, old man. And you’re coming with me whether you like it or not. You can get a cup of coffee in the cafe and park yourself on a bench somewhere while I explore. We’re here and we’re going to have an experience.”
Doc laughed and squeezed Grandpa’s shoulder. “He’s right. I’d love to see the fountains even if we have to bundle up to do it. Let’s all go. Maybe Felix could stand a little exercise and fresh air.”
So the following day Otto dragged me around the extensive palace and grounds, exhausting me to the point my legs and feet were complaining, when my cousin suggested taking a break to grab a bite to eat in the restaurant where Doc and Grandpa were relaxing by a nice big fire.
Once seated, the claws came out.
“You should go to Monaco,” Doc began.
“Don’t start,” I mumbled into my cup of coffee.
“Hear him out,” Grandpa chastised. “The man knows what he’s talking about. He’
s somewhat intelligent if you didn’t know that already.”
I tried not to roll my eyes, but I noticed Otto snicker into his own coffee.
“I’m just saying that maybe you could let him know how you feel about him. Give him a chance to pick you over whatever the hell that job is that he thinks is more important than coming out.” Doc’s words were well-intentioned, but he couldn’t understand that sometimes there were jobs you could neither avoid nor come out for.
I sighed. “Doc, let’s just say… he’s taking over the family business. It’s a long-standing traditional company with superconservative employees and coworkers.”
Doc opened his mouth as if to say something, but Otto beat him to the punch.
“What about just being friends with the guy? You said the two of you could talk for hours, right? If he’s going through a stressful time taking over his dad’s business, he could probably use a friend.”
Otto was right about Lio needing a friend, but I wasn’t sure I was strong or selfless enough to be Lio’s friend without wanting, aching, for more.
“Friends, hm?” Doc and Grandpa exchanged a meaningful look before looking at Otto with accusation.
“Keep it to yourself. I know what you’re thinking,” my cousin growled.
“Hypocrisy,” Grandpa mused. “How interesting. Pot, this is kettle, you’re black.”
Otto sighed and excused himself to get some more coffee. I turned to my grandparents and quirked an eyebrow.
“What was that about?”
“Walker.”
Walker and Otto had been best friends practically from the womb. Growing up, where Walker was, Otto hadn’t been far behind. All of that changed when Otto followed his brother Saint into the Navy and Walker left to go into law enforcement. I hadn’t put two and two together that they were both back in Hobie now.
“What’s going on between Otto and Walker?” I dove onto the opportunity to shift the attention off me.