I do not own Reign.
So excited for this chapter. Excited just thinking about it!
Another Banquet and another party; Sophia hadn't been in the best of moods. Gerald would return in a week and yet she still was in no way prepared for it all. The thought of getting married made her palms sweat and she would get dizzy.
Tonight's celebration had been to introduce Lady Kenna as the official mistress to the king. Sophia wasn't sure if she agreed with having a party because the king wanted to lay with someone younger. However she supposed it was more a reason to have a party that it was for the actual even itself. Henry loved to get court people drunk and dancing. Made him feel less like a fool Sophia supposed. She however had not taken a drink of anything. Every time she smelled the wine her stomach turned sour and twisted inside her.
The Lady Kenna had been perched next to the king wearing a golden dress and so much jewelry Sophia thought it a wonder that the girl didn't topple over. She wore a smile too. A smile of someone in love; and Sophia's stomach twisted again at the sight of that. To fall in love with royalty was a mistake. The poor girl fancied herself in love with the king. Or rather she was in love with him; it was written plain in her features. The sad bit about that was that she probably thought the king was in love with her. Sophia had seen all the signs of lust written on the king's face but love did not resonate there. Perhaps he would come to love her as he loved Diane.
Diane.
It was rather too easy to upset Sophia's stomach tonight. She stared at the woman who also stood next to the king and wondered at how Kenna was dealing with her presence. Perhaps she was kinder to Kenna than she was to Sophia. Kenna after all wasn't close with her son; that would put hr in higher standing automatically.
Sophia watched as people danced and wine was poured generously. People laughed louder than they should have touched more than necessary and spoke too often. It was giving Sophia a headache in her bad temper. She had excused herself after a goodbye to Mary and Francis who had danced together practically the whole night. Sophia was pleased about that.
She knew that Francis' and Mary had won each other's hearts and as long as Francis kept being the sweet Francis that she knew she thought they had a good chance at true happiness. With Olivia gone their affection had bloomed. She wondered if Francis would take another mistress; one day perhaps but for now he was infatuated with Mary. Sophia smiled to herself as her shoes made noise on the stone. She was headed back to her room, perhaps for some reading. Or perhaps she would slip into bed and go to sleep she was rather exhausted.
She was halfway up the stone stairs when she heard a shuffle of feet. She looked up to see Bash at the top of the stairs. She groaned out loud and turned to walk back down. She was in no mood and if she spoke to him now she would regret everything that came out of her mouth. She had been regretting too many things lately and she was not in need of something else.
"Lady Sophia, where are you off to in such haste?' He called to her. His words swam together from too much alcohol and she resisted the urge to turn and glare at him. She kept her steps quick and light as she made her way down the stairs. When she was almost back down Bash flew past her on the banister. She looked up startled and watched as he flew down the polished wood and tripped and fell at the bottom and lay on the stone floor looking up at her. She stayed on the bottom step for a long time before she picked up she skirts and made her way around him. He grabbed her foot and she almost tripped herself.
"Sebastian let me go." She barked out at him.
"I don't think I will.' He said as she tugged on her foot trying to lose her balance. "You have rather nice feet."
"Yes but the thing of it is that they are mine, so if you wouldn't mind unhanding me I will be on my way up to my room." She said pointing in that general direction.
"But you just came back down the stairs." He said to her.
"Yes that was when you were up there." She paused looking at him with his half smile. "Now that the problem has come down here I can continue on my way."
"Take me to my room first." He ordered her and she looked at him as if her had grown two heads
"No." She said to him
"No?" He asked. it was almost comical how truly confused her looked. Like he hadn't considered no to be an option.
"No I don't want to." She said to him
"But I have your foot." He reminded her shaking it and she nearly tumbled to the floor again.
Sophia then weighed her options. She could stand here for another ten minutes arguing with this drunken man or she could take him to his room. This task would take a great deal less than ten minutes and she could be on her way and be rid of him sooner.
"Fine." She said and he let go of her foot and gave her a victory smile. She helped him up as he leaned against her. It was a wonder that he hadn't broken his neck on the way down the banister. Even more wonderful that he had even been able to stand at the top of the stairs. He reeked of alcohol and he wobbled more than a table with three legs.
"How many days until you leave?" He asked as they made their way to his room.
"Seven days today." She answered him. She didn't want to talk to him she wanted to get him to his room and then leave.
"Soon then." He asked and she kept silent hoping that he would pass out. She would prefer to carry him rather than hear his voice. "He doesn't care that you turned him down once before?" He asked still with honest curiosity but she still stayed silent. They were not ten feet from his door. If she could make it there would be nothing stopping her. "Why did you turn him down in the first place?" He asked again and that was all Sophia could take. She threw him off her and into the wall where he stood for a minute and then slunk down into a sitting position. He looked up at her with those eyes.
"Why?" She asked him barley able to contain her anger. "Because you told me you loved me!" She almost shouted at him and the dark hall reverberated with the noise.
"No." He said shaking a finger at her. "Don't you lay your problems on me. I know that you didn't leave him for me I read the letter." He said matter of fatly like he had just discovered something fantastic and couldn't wait to share it. "I read the letter you wrote not minutes after I told you that I loved you. I shouldn't have read it." He said but it was almost as if he were talking to himself now. "I wish I hadn't. Saved myself a lot of trouble."
"Sebastian what are you talking about?" She asked him now. Her head spun with what she was hearing as she prodded him for information in his drunken state. She asked what he meant but she already knew and she was now facing her own horror; the monster that she had created. It couldn't be that after all this bitterness toward him; after all this time….
"I read the letter that you sent Gerald, Sophia." I convinced Hannah to let me read it before it was posted." He seemed almost ashamed then but remembered the context of his story. "You told me you loved be and then you were going to marry him anyway." Sadness filled his voice and she felt ashamed that she was using this state he was in to gain information.
"Oh" It was all Sophia could say. Her heart rose and sunk again several times over at the news. She realized that one of the greatest heartbreaks of her lifetime had been caused by her.
"Oh" He said back at her and looked up at her with a face of disgust that she knew so well.
"Goodnight Sebastian." She said to him and turned to leave. Her heart cried out to go back and explain everything. To tell him it had been a mistake. She ached to tell him that she loved him. She wanted to tell him that the letter he read wasn't the one that had reached Gerald. Her head kept her heart in check and somehow she made it to her room.
When she opened the door Mary was sitting on her bed looking at Sophia with a worried expression. When Sophia looked up at her Mary's worried look deepened. Sophia's emotions were probably painted across her face.
"Sophie, I was coming to see if you were okay you didn't look well…" Mary said uneasily. Mary didn't have to ask. She didn't even have to prep Sophia for the information. Sophia started at the beginning and told Mary the whole story. From start to finish and added the newly found information that she had picked from Bash. She didn't stop pacing back and forth in front of Mary until her story was complete and she was no closer to figuring out what she would do than when she started telling the story.
"He read the first letter." Sophia said for the fourth time. "He read the first letter. I changed it out fifteen minutes after I wrote it. Fifteen minutes have disrupted my life." She said loudly. "My rash actions have led me to this."
"Oh dear" was all Mary could say.
"That is exactly how I feel." Sophia breathed out. "Oh dear are my exact sentiments. Nothing quite explains it better than that." She walked and sat next to Mary who started rubbing her back in a comforting way.
"What will you do?" Mary asked her
"I'll ask Francis. He will know what to do. Talking to him always clears my head." Mary just nodded and continued to rub Sophia's back.
"Matters of the heart are much more complicated than court affairs." Mary sighed.
"You are perhaps the best friend I ever had." Sophia started to cry. Why was she crying? There was no need to cry. She wasn't sure why she had told Mary that. It was sure to be sure. She loved the girl more than she could remember loving any friends of hers that were girls. She got along with her so well. She was so easy and she knew what to say to make Sophia feel better. Now she would have to leave that. Perhaps that is why she was crying.
"Sophia we are going to get along just fine." Mary said with a smile in her tone repeating the words that Sophia had told the girl in the beginning of their friendship; this made Sophia cry harder and squeeze Mary's hand
She hadn't slept at all. Not one single minute. She hadn't even dozed.
She had slipped a note under Francis' door when it had still been dark out and she had gone to their meeting spot. She had been sitting here for hours. The sun had come up and she was sure that Francis would be here soon. She was sure that he would know what to do. She had been contemplating it all night while she had been turning over in her bed. It seemed that when she came to one conclusion another factor would come to her brain and would completely start her thought process over.
She could tell Bash what had happened. Explain that he had simply read the wrong letter. Tell him that she had loved him all along. That she still di and she couldn't contemplate loving someone else. She could tell him that she understood why she had slept with Hannah. She could tell him that she was sorry. But after all that would things turn out like she hoped they would. Could he forgive her? Could she really forgive him? Would he still send her to marry Gerald? What would come of her telling him the truth?
That started another long list of possibilities.
She could not tell Bash. She could get married to Gerald by choice. She could leave here and be with a man that she would probably one day learn to love. She could live in Italy for the rest of her life. It would mean security. She knew that Gerald would marry her and she would have a place there. Could she live there; knowing that a few words could have gotten her what she really wanted? Could she be happy with a man when there was the possibility that she could have been with the one she loved?
She had completely misjudged him; blinded by pride and devastation. She was as much at fault as he was she realized. He shouldn't have read the letter but she shouldn't have written something like that in a blind panic. He shouldn't have lain with Hannah out of anger but she shouldn't have left without resolving this.
Footsteps coming from the side of the shack reached her ears and she jumped up from her sitting position. She began to pace not looking at Francis. She would wear a pattern in the grass at this rate.
"Francis." She said beginning "I just need you to listen. I need your advice but I must get my side out before you come in with what you think." She didn't wait for him to respond and she didn't look at him. "Remember when I told you about Bash and I? Remember how I said that after he told me that he loved me I wrote to Gerald to break off the engagement? But my first letter was to tell him how I missed him." She was talking so fast. Francis just stood there and she turned her back to him standing still now. "I wrote a letter to him because I was afraid of instability with Bash. But when I realized how ridiculous I was being I changed the letter with one telling him I couldn't marry him before the other was posted; because I loved him." She stopped taking a breath. "Francis, he read the first letter. Bash read the first letter I wrote after I gave it to Hannah." Francis was still silent and she took the time to explain the part of the story her friend wouldn't know. "He felt like I betrayed him Francis. That's why he lay with Hannah because he was mad. He thought that I took his love and laughed at him. His eyes when I saw them in his room that day Francis. It explains it all. He was disgusted that I could do the very thing that I loathed about him. I treated him so awful when I got here…." She trailed off. Still silence behind her. "So now Francis I have a choice because he doesn't know. I could tell him or I could not and…" She didn't finish
"I think he would like to know." A deep voice said closer than she thought it had been. A shiver ran through her as her eyes went wide and a cold shock went over her. Her mouth went dry and every word she had meant to say caught in her throat like too much bread without water.
Because it wasn't Francis' voice; it was Sebastian's.