AN: It feels like it's been a while since I've posted, but I think that's just because this week has seemed to go on forever and forever, but the good news is that I'm feeling like a real person again! My migraines have decided to leave me be for the last few days and I'm forever grateful for the reprieve. The last two weeks have been really hard, and my writing routine has gone down the drain, but I'm feeling like I can get back into the swing of things now!
So here's the next chapter. I hope you enjoy it!
Lily got quite a bit of work done Wednesday morning. She had a few meetings in town, and then a meeting with the children's fund back at the castle. They gave her a report on how well the tea had gone and what they were hoping to do with the money that they'd raised.
She was feeling pretty good by the time she went to go and find some lunch.
And so of course, she ran into Bertram.
"Oh, sorry," She didn't know why she apologized, he was reading in the hallway again, she hadn't walked in on him. He was in a public space and her walking into that space didn't warrant an apology. She clenched her jaw and shook her head.
"Are you going to lunch?" He asked, closing the book with his finger between the pages. It was Kurt Vonnegut today.
"Yeah, I have a few minutes." She looked at her watch and then started toward the kitchen.
"Would you mind if I joined you?" He asked, and when she looked back, he was standing up.
Lily looked back at him and realized that she really didn't have any strong opinions on this bloke one way or the other. And now that she realized that she didn't have feelings for him, he didn't seem nearly as intimidating as he had before.
"Sure, if you'd like," She shrugged a shoulder and then waited for him to catch up with her before she started toward the kitchen again.
"You seem like you're having a good day." He commented.
"I am having a good day! I spoke with the representatives from the charity tea last week, and the fundraiser did really well! They're going to be able to build a new wing at the group home and fund six more scholarships with the money that we raised!"
"That's fantastic!" Bertram smiled, and Lily remembered what he'd told them about his mother and how important this cause had been to her when she was alive. The passion seemed to have sparked something in him, and that was the first time that she'd seen that in him.
"You know, if you're not busy, we could use your help with the outreach campaign that we're putting together. Our goal is to raise enough money for all the kids to go to school."
It was an off-handed offer, one she expected him to take, but not one that she thought was a big deal. There were many people working on this initiative. And Alice, who was in charge of the project overall , was phenomenal.
"You'd like my help?" Lily cocked her head to the side.
"It seems like it's an important cause to you, I just figured that you might want to help."
He nodded, but he seemed disappointed by the way she worded that. "I think I would like that."
"I'll have someone send you our schedule." Lily grinned.
They reached the stairs and Lily went down first. She walked over to the fridge and pulled out the sandwich that someone had made for her. She then walked over to the table and saw that Bertram was already sitting there without any food in front of him.
"Are you upset with me?" He asked as she sat down, setting her plate and her phone in front of her.
"No," Lily shrugged. "Why would I be upset with you?"
He frowned. "Because of what I said about James."
Lily frowned. "I was upset with you."
"And now you're not?"
She shrugged, "I guess not. I hadn't really thought about it." She picked up her sandwich and took a bite.
"I feel like I ruined something."
"What did you ruin?"
He gave her a pointed look, and she felt like she should know what he was talking about, but she didn't. He set his book aside and reached his hand toward her, but then pulled it back. He shifted in his seat. "We had- I mean, I thought that we'd had… I suppose it doesn't matter."
Lily felt her cheeks heat up and looked down at her sandwich.
They had had a few moments, but Lily was not going to sit here and talk about that with him.
"I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings," She said quietly, because even saying that felt like some kind of admission. She felt the need to look around the room to make sure that there was no one there, but she refrained. She hadn't done anything wrong. "I'm going to marry James. That has been true since I met you."
He narrowed his eyes and looked up at her, and she could tell that he wanted to be as careful as she was being. "I know. You want to be queen."
He said it so lightly, as though it wasn't etched into every fiber of her being, as though she hadn't spent the last six years of her life working toward the day that she would take over for her gran. He said it as though he didn't understand the weight of what she was willing to take on for her people, for her country, as though he didn't understand the importance of it. Like it was just another job that anyone could have. Like it wasn't her once chance to make real change in the world.
"I do." Her voice was still quiet. She knew that there were kitchen staff around somewhere, and she really didn't want anyone to overhear her but she also wouldn't mind if someone were to walk in and interrupt whatever this conversation was. "You don't want to be king. You want to be a writer."
"And you don't want to get married in two weeks."
"I'm going to marry James." She repeated.
"But you don't want to."
She tapped her fingers against the table and stood up. "I think I should have lunch in my office today." She said, picking up her plate. "I'm sorry, Bertram."
"Can't we just talk about this honestly," He stood up as well. "Can't we just say it?"
Lily shook her head, her lips pressed together. "No, I don't think that there's anything more to talk about."
"That's not fair, Lily."
"I know it's not. But that's the way that it needs to be. I thought you understood that." And it's not as though anything had happened, sure she'd had confusing feelings, but she didn't think that she really fancied him so much as he confused her, and she found him attractive. Generally speaking, he made her feel angry or upset either about him or herself, and those weren't the hallmarks of a good friendship.
"I do," He sighed, rubbing his hand along his jawline. "I do, I promise, I just don't like it."
"I'll see you later, Bertram."
"Alright, I'll see you later, Lily."
Lily walked quickly back to her office, not sure if she needed to talk to Bertram again, declare more definitive boundaries and what not. That certainly sounded like a terrible and uncomfortable thing to do, but she didn't really want him to keep trying to have conversations with her like he just had.
She took a big bite of her sandwich and then pushed her door open, deciding that she would worry about Bertram the next time she saw him and no sooner.
James sitting behind her desk with a large white box and a smirk sure helped to cement that idea for her.
She laughed when she saw him and covered her mouth with the back of her hand so that she didn't accidentally spit sandwich everywhere.
"Honey, I'm home."
Lily finished chewing as quickly as she could, but not quickly enough to keep James from laughing at her. "What did you bring me?"
"First you must tell me how much you missed me."
"I think that should come second actually," Lily set her plate down on her desk and wiped her hands on her skirt. She knew that he'd be back this afternoon of course, but he still managed to surprise her.
"And why would it come second?"
"Because I might have missed you more if I like what's in the box,"
James let out a heavy breath through his nose. "That sounds about right."
"Well," She nodded toward the box.
He flipped the lid up and revealed that he'd brought her a box of donuts.
"I think I missed you a lot," She said, forgetting about her sandwich and reaching for one of the chocolate donuts. James laughed and stood up so that he wasn't sitting in her chair anymore.
"Alright, now I know to give you gifts first."
She sat down in her chair and took a bite of her donut. "I mean, you could leave for more than twenty-four hours too, and then I might miss you more. Also we talked a lot last night. Kinda feels like you didn't actually leave. Did you?"
James sighed dramatically and sat down in the chair that usually sat members of parliament and whoever else got meetings with her. She much preferred him sitting there. "My fiancée has no concern for my feelings."
"That's not true, I just think you enjoy a bit of drama." She leaned against the desk, her feet now only a few inches from James'.
"And now you're teasing me about it," James looked at her over the tops of his glasses. She was sure that he couldn't see her at all just then. Only the blurry shape of her. "And didn't you try and kick Mary out of your life for teasing you last night?"
Lily snorted and took another bite of her donut. "That's completely different."
"And very dramatic. I'm calling you a hypocrite right now. A double hypocrite."
"I know what you're doing, and I'm ignoring it and eating this delicious donut." She took another, larger bite.
Someone knocked on her door and Lily smiled at James and covered her mouth again. He smirked at her, "Come in!"
The door opened and Bertram was standing there. The smile almost entirely fell from Lily's face. She didn't know where to look or how to act. She'd never been alone with both of them before. She'd been in a room with both of them many times, since they were both at dinner and breakfast most days, but she didn't like this. She didn't like this at all. This made her feel itchy and not good.
"Hey," He stepped into the room and held up her phone. "You must have left this in the kitchen. It was on the table." And now he was making it sound like they hadn't just had lunch together, which meant that it was supposed to be some kind of secret. She pushed her toes against the ground and nodded. "There's a picture of you and Mary- it is yours, yeah?"
She nodded, still chewing the large bite she'd just taken. James knocked his toes against hers and she looked up at him.
"She's got her mouth full," James said, and then held out his hand to take the phone, to be helpful or so that Bertram didn't have to come any further into the room, Lily wasn't sure, but she was very glad to see Bertram hand the phone over to James.
She managed to swallow and cleared her throat, "Thank you. I'm not normally careless with it."
"You've got a lot on your mind lately." He waved his hand and then turned to leave without saying anything more. Lily sighed and took another bite of her donut.
James leaned forward and slid the phone onto her desk. She gave him a quick smile and started tapping her fingers against the desk. She should say something. She should tell James that she'd just been with Bertram. She should tell him that Bertram was acting weird, that they had had a few weird moments.
But her tongue went dry and she didn't know which words to use to try and explain any of that. And she didn't want to tell him half-truths, though perhaps that would be better than no truths.
"He's up to something," James said, breaking the silence.
"You think?" Lily cursed herself in her mind. Why wasn't she saying anything?
"Yeah," He nodded, and then his hand ran through his hair, Lily's only clue that he was uncomfortable about something. She wondered if she had a tell like that, or if it was just written all over her face. He glanced at her and then looked at her sandwich. "Can I have some of that?"
"Not all of it. I can't just have donuts for lunch." But she handed him the plate.
They were both quite, eating their respective food, and the sinking feeling in Lily's stomach only grew.
"Alright, who should go first?" She sighed after a moment of silence. She didn't like this kind of silence with James. Especially not after they'd just been joking and laughing a few minutes before.
"What?" He blinked at her as he picked up the sandwich.
"What's on your mind? Spit it out." She held her hand out as though she wasn't also keeping things to herself, and she felt like a triple hypocrite. Though she'd set this up so that she'd have to tell him something too, that had to count for something.
James sighed. "I don't want to go first." He ran his hand through his hair again. "I don't want to say anything actually."
Lily frowned. She didn't know what to say to that. Because whatever it was that James knew, she didn't think it was so bad that he should say anything like that. "Well I don't want to say anything either." She frowned, realizing that that really wasn't true. She did want to say something. She wanted to spit out the whole truth, even if it didn't make her look so great.
James looked at her and then put the sandwich down. "Alright. I think he really wants the throne."
Lily blinked at James and shook her head. That was not at all what she'd been expecting him to say. "He doesn't want the throne though. He's told me that he doesn't want it. A lot of people are trying to push him into staking a claim or to challenge me, but he hasn't, because he doesn't want the throne." She was unsure about a lot when it came to Bertram, but not this, this she was positive about.
James looked at her and then he shrugged a shoulder. "Maybe. I just… I've known him my whole life, Lily."
"Yes, but you've never gotten along with him."
"That's true," He nodded. "I haven't."
That didn't seem like a point in Bertram's favor though, which is how she'd meant it. James couldn't know what he wanted if he didn't know Bertram, that was how she'd meant it.
But James was one of the easiest people to get along with that Lily had met in a long time. Her Gran liked him, Mary liked him, and Lily liked him. Those were three very strong personalities that he seemed to get along with just fine.
And then there was the fact that Lily was the only one who seemed to like Bertram.
She's just been ignoring all kinds of things, hadn't she?
This wasn't really a realization that she had wanted to come to just then though.
"He told me that he wanted to be a writer." She tried anyway, because she still didn't believe that Bertram wanted to be king. She remembered that James and Gordon had told her that he was an ambitious bloke, but she'd never seen that in him since they'd been talking. He just seemed a bit lost.
"I'm sure he told you lots of things." James picked up her sandwich again and took another bite.
It wasn't an accusatory thing to say, not really. It could have been, but it didn't sound accusatory. But there was something about the way he said it that tipped Lily off.
"He's spoken to you recently." She leaned back in her chair. They had been laughing not five minutes ago. How had things been mucked up so quickly?
She didn't know what to say next, she felt guilty, but she also felt like she'd been cuckolded.
James stood up and started pacing. "I didn't want to have this conversation." He started, and Lily was surprised to see that he looked as though he was feeling guilty. "I didn't think that we'd need to, not after the last few days."
"I don't think we do," Lily said quickly, also standing. "I don't really think that there's anything to talk about."
He looked at her, and for a moment, his confusion masked his guilt. And Lily realized that they were talking about two different conversations. Bertram hadn't told James that Lily had feelings for him, which meant that he'd told him something else that was making James act this way.
James must have realized this too because he sighed and started pacing again.
"Is this where we play rock paper scissors to see who goes first?"
"No," James shook his head, "I'll go first. I think I already know what you think you… I'll go first." He came back to the chair and sat down. Then he pushed his glasses up his nose and rubbed his face with both his hands. "I really like you, Lily."
She shifted from one foot to the other and then sat back down on the desk.
"I just want you to remember that, alright?" She didn't want to hear what he had to say. She had no idea what he was going to say next, but she didn't want to hear it.
"Alright," Her voice was quiet.
"Can you remember that you kind of like me too?"
"I think you're stalling." Lily cleared her throat. "But yeah, I'll keep it in mind." He gave her a small smile and she tried to return it, but just like when she'd first met him, she wasn't sure if she was moving her face correctly.
"It started at the State Dinner," And then he was on his feet again. "Bertram wasn't just talking to Sirius that night. That's why Sirius was annoyed with me too, because he thought that I should be mad at you or something. I wasn't though, because I hardly knew you and Bertram is good at practically everything, so I thought, 'fine, I'll just have to be better.'" He wasn't making much sense, and she still had the knot of dread in her stomach.
"So, he told me and Sirius that you weren't going to marry me, that you were going to marry him. He said nothing about the fact that you'd already told him that that wasn't going to happen, and Sirius and I didn't know about how he would essentially take your throne from you if that happened at the time, so Sirius- well, both of us really, we thought that it might happen. I might get nudged out of the picture if he kept getting you to smile at him like he was. And Sirius kept telling me that it wouldn't be so bad, would it? Because while we had gone to the dinner together, we hadn't made any official announcement so it would be in the news for a week or two, and then they would forget about it in favor of everything else that was happening.
"But then you came down the stairs and you were looking at me like you weren't actually wishing that you were somewhere else, and you kept giggling and asking for biscuits and I didn't want to leave you or step aside or whatever Bertram was trying to get me to do."
Lily folded her hands on her lap and remembered the look on James' face in that picture of Lily and Bertram. She'd been thick to think that he hadn't noticed that she'd had at least some feelings for Bertram. James already knew, and she'd been feeling guilty thinking that he'd been in the dark. She still felt guilty, but it was different now. She stood up, only to move to the chair that James had vacated. She looked back up at him. He was still pacing, but he looked her in the eye before he continued.
"And then the next morning, you barely paid him any attention and you let me help you talk out how you were going to approach the press and you told me that you only wanted me here if I wanted to be here. You told me that you'd already spoken to Bertram and that there wasn't a chance that you were going to toss me aside for him, and I decided then that I was all in. That I wanted to see if we could make something good together." He'd been so kind to her that morning.
"But then you forgot about our date- dinner, and I knew, I honestly knew that it was because of everything you had on your plate. When I first started toward your room, I had every intention of just reminding you and seeing if I couldn't tease you into coming down to the kitchen anyway. I just wanted to spend time with you again and see if the night before was a fluke, if you had thought it was a fluke.
"And then he was walking out of your room when I got up there, and I know that jealousy was a stupid reaction, but I couldn't help it after what he'd said. And you were so calm and diplomatic about everything, and you wanted to talk everything out and you gave me your number and I felt better, but I couldn't forget about the stupid look on his face when you'd started walking toward me." She remembered thinking that he hadn't left the corridor when she'd dismissed him. She had tried to get James to stop talking about Bertram because she hadn't been sure if Bertram was out of earshot.
"He was waiting for me downstairs and- well I guess that was part of the reason I was so quick to get upset the next day. I didn't want to get upset with you, I knew that expecting you to share everything with me after knowing me for less than a week was ridiculous, but I felt like I was racing someone who seemed to have some kind of advantage over me-"
"James," Lily interrupted him. She'd let him go on for too long. "What exactly are you trying to tell me?" Because he'd seemed so worried that she was going to be upset, but he wasn't really saying anything yet. She hadn't known that Bertram had talked to him after he'd left her room, but why would she be upset with James about that?
He stopped pacing and seemed to realize that he'd been prattling on and on. "Bertram, he told me that he didn't have to get you to marry him, because I'd told him that you told me that that wasn't going to happen." Lily narrowed her brow. "He said-" She held up her hand.
"Rosier knew that we were getting engagement photos tomorrow." She looked at James and frowned. "He told you that his plan was simply to get me to call off the wedding with you, didn't he?"
James clenched his jaw and nodded.
"He told you that Thursday of last week?" He nodded again. "And you didn't think to mention it to me?"
James opened his mouth once, twice and then a third time. "It seemed like you liked him." He said softly, his hand in his hair. "I didn't want to tell you if I didn't have to. And after the last few days I didn't think that I was going to have to tell you."
Lily felt herself flush with embarrassment, but she held James' gaze. "Because you thought it seemed like I liked you now." His hand raked through his hair.
"You didn't need me to tell you that there was one more person trying to control your future." Lily looked down at her lap and then back up at James.
It made sense.
She only ever ran into him when she was alone, the only time he seemed genuine was when he'd been talking to her about the children's fundraiser, Rosier had known more than he should for the last couple weeks, the photograph in the paper. She'd always felt like something was off when she was around him, and he never seemed as though he was actually interested in her unless she was pulling away. Like today at lunch.
"So you decided that the best thing to do was to just, keep all that to yourself?" She felt like an idiot.
"No, I just didn't-"
There was a knock at the door.
Lily felt as though someone had just submerged her in cold water and she looked over at the clock. It was nearly one. "Come on in Alice!" She called out, standing up so she could straighten her skirt. James looked a little bewildered. "We can talk more later. I have to get back to work." She walked over and sat down behind her desk.
"Lily," James moved her plate so that it was in front of her and she handed him the box of donuts. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you." He said this quietly, because Alice Fortescue was walking into the room with a large tote bag full of posters and toys.
"We'll talk later," She repeated, reaching for her water. She took a sip and then smiled at Alice. "It's so good to see you! Frank and Adam will be here any moment and then you can start your presentation. I'm so excited that you were able to come today!"
James clearly had more that he wanted to say, but she wasn't going to ask Alice to step out in the hallway so they could continue a conversation that she'd never wanted to have in the first place.
"Of course, your highness! I was so excited to be invited! I know that if we work together, we can do a lot of good for a lot of people. The hospital I work for is one of the leading research hospitals on the continent for childhood illnesses."
Lily nodded, and she was excited about the prospect of working with Alice's organization, but she wished that the last thirty minutes had never happened.
She wished that she hadn't forgotten her phone in the kitchen.
"Fantastic. Why don't you set up and I'll call Emma to see where the boys are?"
"Perfect," Alice grinned and then went about setting up all her props.
"I'll see you later, James," Lily dismissed him again as she picked up the phone and called Emma, "Afternoon, have you heard from Frank and Adam?"
James' shoulders dropped and he turned and walked out the door.
AN: Don't forget to review!
