AN: This story is going to be marked M. I apologize to those who are not allowed to read M. But let's face it, most of my PG13s actually have some M here and there. Warning: This part contains material that might be offensive to some readers. But I assure you, I never write in these parts without them being integral to the story.

Part 12

"Bless me, padre, for I have sinned," he said. Chuck Bass' voice, despite its quietness, reverberated inside the cool interior of the confessional. The priest's face was shadowed, partly blocked by the loosely woven screen between them. "My last confession was a half year past."

"A long time ago," the priest said.

"Si, padre. It was before the fall." Right after Richard was killed in battle. "The last time I confessed, I had brought the bodies of my father and our knights back from the field where they were mangled by French mercenaries."

And it was a path that even the priest would not tread. There was no separation between the church and the kingdom. "Speak, hijo. What is it that hangs heavy in your heart?"

Chuck opened his tightly closed fist, and reveled in the shiny token of the golden heart. "I have blood on my hands," he admitted softly.

The priest released a large sigh. "I have heard of your efforts, hijo."

"I do not speak of the battles I have led." And he had led the Norfolk army, to battle after battle, to surge through Lancastrian keeps, to ram through the walls of the minor Tudor fortresses. Norfolk had become a bane, and they would be a bane that Henry would not ignore.

Once, he had given to Henry what Henry had desired. Chuck's sun had gone, and nothing took its place.

"Then what blood?"

"I sought to keep my people safe, to earn protection for my brother, to retrieve my sister, and for those I have her blood in my hands," he rasped.

"Whose blood?"

Chuck shut his eyes, squeezed them tight at the rapid and violent flood of the memory. He had ridden to Harcourt and pounded at the gates, screamed at the guards. "Let me in!"

As a favor, grand and undeserved and for only one time, Henry climbed the ramparts and called out to him. "Bass, return to your home. Do not come to this place of death."

"Henry, you bastard, I want to see her!"

Henry had gestured to the dark smoke rising.

Chuck opened his eyes, and now he was no longer under the punishing glare of the sun. Inside the cold confessional, he continued, "I delivered her to her death. My Blair."

But the priest had seen far too many deaths since the beginning of his calling. There had been too many people taken by disease and war. "I am certain, my son, that you did not cause her death."

"She wanted to stay," he recalled, from Jenny Humphrey's words on the day that the princess died. "And I exchanged her for my family and my village."

The priest was silent. "You must forgive yourself for the choices that you have made."

"I cannot."

"Would you rather your family died and your village gone if you had her back?" was the priest's question.

And his answer was not the one the holy man expected. Because this was the duke of Norfolk. This was the last remaining Yorkist son to raise his arms and fight the Tudor king. "In a heartbeat." And the answer killed his soul in all its truth.

"Yet you would feel the same if she had lived and everything else was gone. Regret is everpresent, mijo."

"Tell me what to do," Chuck said urgently. "I fight my wars each time with the hope of killing the king." And he was a berserker, Daniel had said. Uncontrollable, charging to the front when the nobleman must remain at the back with his flanks guarded. "I fight my wars each time praying a stray arrow would pierce me." He saw the shadowed image of the priest make a sign of the cross. "I would that I could come home to her."

"Hijo," the priest cautioned in a hushed voice, "it is a sin against God to take our own lives."

"It is a sin to take away one so beautiful," Chuck whispered. In the back of his head he wondered if lightning should strike him as he walked out of the church for holding a grudge against God.

And in the end, it was unsettled. The priest asked him to pray, and told him that he would pray as well. He drew her rosary beads from her pockets, and kissed the cross. Chuck bowed his head, his lips moving quickly as he muttered, "Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos, santificado sea tu nombre." Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. "Venga tu reyno, hagase tu voluntad, asì en la tierra como en el cielo." Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

They continued in the silent prayer, and Chuck had closed his eyes. With his head hung low, he willed himself the see his Lord. And when the prayer finished, the priest asked, "You did not kill her. The disease had found her; and so grieve with England, mijo."

Chuck shook his head frantically, kept his head down.

"Then see her. Apologize. If this is the only way you will forgive yourself."

There was no vision in hand, and Chuck forced himself to remember her smile. In his dreams she haunted him, but now that he called for her, in his wakefulness, so he could take her hand and tell her his deepest guilt at his part in her fate, she would not come.

And then he smelled her, all around him, surrounding him. He took a deep breath so he could drown in her scent, the way he had prayed for since the day he returned her to the king, and delivered her to Harcourt. And with his eyes closed, he imagined that he was in her embrace.

He took in long deep breaths, relishing in the fragrance, allowing the sensation of her arms around him to sink deep into his pores, forever a part of him.

"Do not forget me," he heard her whisper into his ear.

"I will not," he murmured into the utter blackness that was filled only with her scent.

~o~o~o~o~o~

"Who decides who lives and who dies?" she whispered into the wind whipping at her as she stood on the ledge from the ramparts.

"Blair, come inside," Henry called, his voice full of authority, his tone enough to send diplomats to their knees.

Her eyes drifted closed, and she relished the sensation of the harsh wind blowing her dress until it plastered to her form. She extended her arms and breathed. If she should fall, perhaps he would meet her. One thing kept her, and it had kept her from leaping for too long now.

"If you take your own life," her brother had told her, "it matters not that I am king. You will be unshriven and I cannot save your soul."

"I have been dead for months, Harry," she said softly.

The king walked up slowly and took Blair's hand in his, and then he urged her down. She sent a longing look down at the grounds, and he sighed in relief when she stepped off the ledge. "You are lonely, still mourning for the loss of Norfolk."

"I lived with them, Harry. I know their faces. They cannot be gone."

"Yet they are," Henry said. "I cannot understand, Blair, why you would grieve for them so. They are barbarians who took you by force."

She shook her head. "They are just like us, just like Richmond. You would not understand, Harry."

He king pushed his sister's hair away from her face, as the wind had blown her hair into disarray. "I understand," he assured her.

"I belonged there."

"You will soon have people who will love you, people you will care for. And they will know you as their lady."

And it was how her brother informed her that she would now do her part to bring peace to England. And all along, as she had traveled from Calais to England long before, to be princess, she had known that this was what Henry had intended for her. And through it all she had not complained, not doubted her brother. Even then, as he told her that he would marry her to a Yorkist lord who had pledged his fealty to the Tudors, and brought with him as allies other once loyal Yorkist lords, Blair's heart clenched, rebelled at the very idea.

"It is his prize for his show of loyalty, Blair."

"And now I am a prize?" She had always been a prize. It was why she had been so adored.

"Fret not, my dear sister," Henry advised. "He is a handsome young man. I would not have given you an unsightly old lord." She turned her face away. "Look at me, Blair." And she did, because he was the king. "I am doing this for you as well. When you hold your child in your arms, your heavy heart will be cured, and you will be happy."

Happy.

"And you will not find yourself tempted to fling yourself from the ledge."

Very briefly, once upon a time, she had thought to experience all of these in Norfolk, with Chuck. And now she ends with another Yorkist lord, a lord against Henry, who had turned to him belatedly. What loyalty! she thought. "What is the name of my husband then?"

"He is a good, strong fellow, Blair. You will be pleased with my choice."

"Who is it?"

"Baizen," Henry offered. "You know him not."

He grabbed her arm and pulled her against him. "Do you wish to be ripped and torn apart by a man?" Chuck asked in a menacing whisper. "That is what will befall you in Carter Baizen's bed. He cares nothing for a woman, and will near kill you."

"You will be married here tonight. And the lands I have given you will be safe in his care, as will you."

The wedding was quiet, hushed, done in the dead of the night in the small chapel. She had worn a dark blue gown and a black veil covered her as the priest pronounced the wedding rites. Blair had looked at Carter's countenance as he married a girl he had not even seen. But he was somber, and he said the right words.

"It cannot be a big wedding, nor a royal show. To everyone you are an orphaned heiress," Henry had told her. "This is the best for you, Blair. Do you not trust me?"

"Harry, Carter Baizen is not a good man. Chuck Bass told me."

"Chuck Bass was a traitor who wished death to fall on our house," Henry reminded her. "Carter Baizen surrenders with more Yorkist keeps and lords. Who is to be trusted between the two?"

And when Carter lifted the veil, to give a kiss to his new bride, his eyes widened. He leaned towards her, and whispered in her ear, "So this is my reward? The king hands me Bass' leftovers? No wonder he cannot marry you off to his own nobles. He thinks to dump his trash in York."

She sucked in her breath, then threw a helpless look at Henry.

Henry pronounced, "I am trusting you with Lady Blair. She is precious to me."

Carter gritted his teeth, then looked around at the former lords of York that he had brought to pledge fealty to Henry. "Take a look at my lovely wife, cousins, before I take her away to my keep."

"Your grace," she pleaded with her brother, "I do not wish to leave your court."

Henry chuckled, then threw a look at Carter. "You are newly married, Lady Blair. I am certain Lord Baizen will have enough entertainment as you celebrate in Graystone." At Carter's look of surprise, Henry said, "I am granting you the whole keep of Graystone, my lord. It should be a welcome addition to the properties you will hold from Lady Blair's dowry."

Carter bowed deeply in front of Henry. Then, he took Blair's hand and pulled her along out of the chapel. "You might just be worth all this, lady."

During the travel, she was spared from his presence. Carter Baizen had been engrossed in discussion with the man-at-arms that Henry had provided for his new keep. Yet the moment they stepped into Graystone, she knew that what she had once feared was about to happen.

She shivered when he entered her chambers. He discarded his clothes in front of her and showed no shame when he stood naked before her. Blair lowered her lashes.

"Come, wife. Do not act the maiden. Bass had you until he tamed you, did he not?" Carter smirked. "Did he not say you were a vixen in how you scratched his back?"

Blair flushed at the crude words. She was no virgin, and she regretted nothing of that last night when she lay with the duke. "I loved him, my lord. I love him until now." And she knew how unadvisable it was to claim to love another man in front of her husband. She walked up to him, avoided turning her gaze to his bare body, and asked, "If you will give me time, my lord. Perhaps someday we will like each other."

"Until we consummate, none of this is mine," he breathed into her face. She stumbled away from him. Carter turned away and poured wine into a glass, then handed it to her. "We will make this quick and easy."

Blair took the glass and drank the wine, then made a bitter face. She placed the glass down. Then looked at the empty bed. She shook her head. "I cannot, my lord."

He grabbed her wrists and pulled her against him. She jerked away at the feel of him prodding at her thigh. His fingers buried in her hair as he pushed his tongue into her mouth, bit at her lip. She yelped and try to tear her face away from his. When she dislodged his mouth from hers, his lips roved hungrily and wetly all over her face.

"Don't!"

And then he had grabbed her by the waist and pushed her towards the bed. She collapsed crosswise on it, with her feet still flat on the floor. He held up both of her wrists with one hands and pressed it back against the bed. He held her down with his knees and she squealed in pain when his bone dug into the skin of her leg.

Tears flooded her eyes, as every contact sent back memories of the only night she had spent with a man. This, this was so different. This was pain and force when Chuck had been gentle and attentive. She was a princess, not anyone who should suffer through this indignity. She bucked her hips to dislodge him. Caught off guard, he stumbled to the floor.

And then she screamed when he caught her leg and pulled her down. She fell to the hard floor with a thud and hit the side of her head. Dazed, she shook her head. And then he was on her, pulling down her drawers, hiking her skirts to her hips. "Carter, please stop." And now she was sobbing.

She beat at his chest and pushed at his shoulders. Again, he caught her hands with one and pressed them to the floor. He clapped a hand on her mouth, and he shook his head. "Hush, wife. Do not fight it. If you could take Bass, you can certainly take me."

And then he released her mouth as his hand went between their bodies. She panicked when she felt that he was freeing himself from his breeches. He slammed his mouth on hers and swallowed her scream. And then, he plunged his fingers into her dryness and she squeezed her eyes shut, tears rolling down their corners.

And that was when she felt his hard, insistent flesh pressing against her. With one final effort, she tore her face from his and screamed.

His name. Over and over. Knowing he was gone and he would not come.

Red rage mottled her husband's face, and he backhanded her. And for once, she was grateful. The blow had sent her reeling, and the pain was so intense that the next, when he rammed himself into her dry, tense body, seemed a little less painful.

Blood filled her mouth, and she was grateful.

He released her wrists, but she did not move her arms. They remained over her head, crossed, as he used his hands now to hold her open as he battered his body in her. His heavy weight bore down on her, and she retreated to a place far away from where she was. When she reacted to none of his thrusts, he took her chin in his hand and turned her to face him.

"Look at me!" he spat.

But with her eyes closed, she could imagine somewhere else, someone else.

Even while he tore her apart. He leaned closer, then ran a hot tongue along the shell of her ear. "Listen to my voice, wife. I'm not Chuck. I'm your husband, and we will do this every night until you accept that."

He pumped inside her as she lay open without movement, and it frustrated him. He thrust in and out, violent, knowing he was ripping her. Her eyes squeezed even tighter. "Chuck," she whispered.

And it incensed him. "Stop it," he hissed at her. "He's not coming. He doesn't even know you're here. The bastard's gone insane with this rebellion he's gotten most of our line killed."

And with that exclamation, her eyes flew open, meeting his as he sweated above her.

tbc

AN: I know it might put off some of you, but I am hoping you stick with it.