Disclaimer: I own nothing.
This is a short AU piece that I wrote based on a fan fiction I want to publish here. It's Edward Seymour and a character that I created and who I alone own.
He knew she never loved him.
He was not her knight in shining armour. Her King or even her prince. He was too cold. Too ambitious. Too hard. Too easily angered. Too demanding. Too harsh.
But he loved her.
It wasn't one of those loves written in a ballad or a poem, told across the centuries until the details marred and you were only left with legend and myth. Those loves were too fantastical. They were not real.
He loved her real.
It wasn't one of those loves that happened in a moment. A thousand loves and life's broken into seconds and a rush of stars collided. It was a love that made him watch her movements as she made them, made him tighten his fingers around her waist as they danced, trail his fingers down her neck as they danced.
But she never loved him.
She married him as it was her duty. An alliance between their two families cemented on a marriage between a woman who loved her husband too little and a man who loved his wife too much.
She never loved him.
She never said that she didn't but he knew. Felt it in the coldness of her lips when he kissed her, the hollowness of her eyes when he made love to her, the emptiness in her words when she whispered his name:
Husband.
And he would reply in more broken worth, more ached love that burned in his stomach like a fire that would never go out.
Wife.
He didn't force her to love him. How could he when her heart was so dead set against it. But he tried to encourage it. Bring it forth like the sun's rays coaxed in the morning to touch the coldness of the earth and set it alight.
He would leave a flower on her pillow when he woke before her, her hair swept over the cloth and her eyelashes fluttering as she slept. He would have her favourite delicacies shipped in from the Coast and France despite the extra cost and have them set before her when they dined. He would press his lips to her temple and run his fingers over her swollen stomach bearing his child and mummer how beautiful she was. And with each attempt he would wait, hovered for a moment to hear how she would reply, half hoping that she would speak in some sign of affection that he had somehow managed to ignite.
Thank you, husband.
No warmth. No affection. No love.
Thank you, husband.
She could love. He knew she was capable of it. She loved her servants, spoke to them kindly and never raised her voice when they made a mistake or a flaw. She loved her family, ran her fingers carefully over the letters she sent them and clung to them when her permitted that they visit. She loved their children, picked up her skirts and ran to them when he brought them to court and fell to her knees to clutch them in tears as she buried her face in their hair.
She just wasn't capable of loving him.
He feared she loved another. That the reason that she could not give her heart to him was that it was not hers to give. He heard the lightness in her voice when Charles Brandon dined in her chambers; the firelight carved and danced along her neck like lace had fluttered along the curve. Saw the warmed deepness to her eyes when she walked with Thomas Cromwell, her hand on his arm and a smile touched to her lips like the world were gone and only the two of them lived and breathed.
It was the first time he had ever really hated a man. Had worked to see his downfall.
It was his love for her, his jealousy and his hatred burned and twisted until he was no longer human. A burn and a thought of raw emotion that crumbled inside him until the axe repeatedly fell upon his neck and he fell into an ash of his own creation.
She didn't speak to him for months.
He didn't force her to. Didn't even visit her bed or try and press a kiss to her lips. Just a brush to her forehead and a murmur of "Good night wife."
She didn't even look at him.
He still left the flower on her pillow. Still ordered the delicacies. Still murmured that she was beautiful as she sat before her vanity with her hair fallen over her shoulders, his voice a whisper so not to break the spell that seemed to smoother him when he looked at her.
Thank you, husband.
She became to forgive him as the time passed. Never said so in words but in time her words became less broken in frozen silences, her eyes again briefly raised to meet his with the emptiness of affection still hardened, her fingers more carefully pressed to his waist as they danced.
It wasn't love. Wasn't even a glimpse. But he took it. Held it between his fingers like heated coal with their burn darkening and disfiguring his hands until they lay shrivelled and broken.
But he wouldn't let go.
He came to her bed one night, his dress shirt loose over one shoulder and the coldness of winter pressed along his skin. She sat before her vanity and swept the brush through her hair, their darkness spread across her shoulders like a waterfall burned rich across her skin. He froze for a moment, time suspended and all for a moment a lifetime of loves and legends crushed into his heart as she stood and turned to him, her eyes touched with bare concern.
I love you.
She stared at him for a moment, the emptiness of affection in her eyes for a moment softened and warmed. A liquid gold that traced themselves across frozen stone to turn their edges brilliant.
It was a hurt. An ache. A burn. A consumption.
It was him holding the coals in his hands and pressing their heat through the calluses until they fell ashen and gone away. But the look faded, the brilliance fell dull and the eternity to her eyes was gone in the ache and forever of a second.
Thank you, husband.