Striking: Chapter 21
The Mornea Murmur
We at The Murmur love a tiara moment as much as the next royal watcher, but catching our queen in pink scrubs and sneakers instead of an evening gown and diamonds this past weekend might just have been better. She had volunteered her time in the neonatal unit of St. Corianders Hospital, and seeing her do so beat any bejeweled photo-op this reporter has ever seen.
Better yet, she wasn’t doing it for the good press this would undoubtedly have given her. She wasn’t there to curry favor with the citizens of Mornea. She was simply there because our hospitals are understaffed and our nurses overworked. She was there to help.
I was there, visiting my sister and new nephew, when I spied Queen Bellamy. To most, she looked like any other nurse working their shift. But once you saw it, you couldn’t unsee it. Our queen was working. She wasn’t smiling and shaking hands, afraid to get dirty. She was helping in a far greater way and for a far greater purpose. She was impressive in her quiet determination, and I’m not afraid to admit I may have misjudged our queen. She may have been an American, but I think it’s about time we claim her as our own.
We’ve already given them our Princess Royale, so it’s only fair we get a queen in return.
Stay tuned, royal watchers.
Just once, I’d like to be sitting in front of Parliament and not feel like Nanny trying to wrangle a group of angry toddlers. I’m expecting biting to be the next form of communication, if the yelling proves ineffective.
“Are you going to step in?” Atticus groans as he leans back in his chair to my right, his eyes never leaving Viscount Lindsey. If this man bares his teeth, I may bring back beheading as a form of punishment.
“I can’t. They’re fighting over my fate. If I step in, it can be seen as coercion.” My eyes bounce back and forth between the two sides for over an hour as law after law is cited until finally Lady Louise Darlington stands.
“I think it’s obvious we’re at a standstill. We’ve been debating the legality of your marriage for months, Your Majesty. We are a government formed in your name. What say you?”
“He already did the damage. The monarchy is standing on shaky ground with anti-monarchists knocking at its doors. His opinion is irrelevant,” Lord Exxiter yells.
Well if they want to piss me off, they did it.
I slowly rise and press both palms against the table, meeting each member’s eyes. “My family has ruled this country for longer than your family has existed, Lord Exxiter. I assure you there will always be anti-monarchists in this country, just as I assure you there will always be a member of the house of Windsor sitting on that throne.” My voice is eerily calm, considering I’d like to rip his heart from his body and shove it up his arse.
A murmur slowly makes its way around the room.
“Bellamy Windsor is my wife. There is no debating that fact. She is who I choose. She is recognized as such in the eyes of God and the government of Mornea. The question is whether you recognize her as your queen.”
“And if we do not, where does that leave us, Your Majesty?” one of the few loud anti-monarchists within Parliament calls out.
“It leaves you with a decision to make.” I think about my grandfather and my mother and the last conversation I had with her. About the life I was raised to live. To lead. And I think about Bellamy and the life I want to have. “I have no intention of letting a three-hundred-year-old scrap of paper that no living soul has laid eyes on in this century dictate who I love, and I love my wife. My decision has been made. I married her. I made her your queen. If you cannot live with that, then let the Marriages Act stand, and I will step aside.”
“What?” Atticus demands as the same question echoes around the room.
“I said that throne will always belong to a member of the house of Windsor. I didn’t say me. The same blood runs through my brother’s veins that runs through mine.”
“Don’t complicate the situation,” Lord Allington sputters, his red cheeks puffing up with indignation.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Atticus grits with unadulterated fear in his eyes. “Don’t complicate the situation.”
“The decision is yours, my lady and lords.” I look at Atticus with a silent apology. One I know he’ll never accept. One he’ll never forgive me for. “So vote.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Atticus yells, once we’re alone in my office minutes later. “I’m not a king.”
“I love her, brother.” I drop my head to my hands as the weight of the day threatens to crush my soul. Grandfather is no doubt rolling over in his grave.
“So do I, but you can’t give up the throne.” He grabs the crystal decanter from the corner of the room and doesn’t bother with a glass as he drinks straight from the bottle. “There has to be another way. I can’t be the fucking king, Rhys. This is your destiny, not mine.”
I watch as he has a whole conversation with himself and hear my mother’s weak voice in my head. “Give Atticus time to surprise you.”
“If it comes to that, you will be the greatest king this country has ever had, brother. Better than me.”
He swallows as the color drains from his face. “You’d have to leave.”
He gives words to the truth we both know.
You can’t have a former king living in the same country with the current king.
It would undermine his reign and confuse the country.
“But you knew that already.” He takes another sip as his shock morphs to anger. “You’d move to America. That’s your plan, isn’t it. You’re going to dump this on me and move across the fucking ocean. You can be Lennon’s neighbor, while I’m here ruling the country you should be ruling.”
He’s not wrong.
It’s not what I want, but if they force my fucking hand, it’s an option.
“Have you even discussed this with Bellamy?” He narrows his eyes. “You haven’t.” His words are slow and drawn out, and I watch as he snaps. “You just threatened to abdicate the fucking throne and didn’t discuss it with your wife. You’re almost as screwed as me.”
I groan and grab the decanter from his hands.
Fuck me.
Bellamy
“Do I really need a separate press secretary?” I whine. The idea that I need my own full staff still blows my mind. No matter what way Rhys and Joss try to spin it, it still just doesn’t seem real.
“You absolutely do. You and I can’t do it all, and trying to coordinate everything with Rhys’s office is a bigger job than I can do.” She looks down at her phone as another message comes in, and her eyes triple in size. “Oh shit, bee. Did you know?”
My heart sinks as all the possibilities flood me at once. “Know what?”
Joss hands me her phone. “The Murmur is saying Rhys just threatened to abdicate the throne.”
“He what?” I quickly scan the article and try to ignore the way my heart inches farther and farther up my throat until I can’t breathe. “He can’t do that.”
My voice is barely above a whisper.
Denial thick in my veins.
“He can’t give it up. Not for me.”
“Breathe, bee. We don’t know anything yet.” She takes the phone back, and her fingers fly across the screen. The phone pings before my next breath, and Joss looks up at me with pity in her eyes.
I think I’m going to be sick.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting on our balcony overlooking the rose garden, a blanket wrapped around my shoulders, thinking how sad it is that I’ll never get to see them in bloom as the doors open, and Rhys finally walks through. I don’t turn his way . . . I don’t need to see him to feel the pain rolling off him in heavy waves.
“You know.” It’s not a question. It doesn’t need to be. He knows me as well as I know him. So much better than I would have thought possible just a few short months ago. “I should have talked to you first.”
“You should have,” I agree, still unwilling to turn around.
“I’m not sorry, love. I’d do it again if it meant keeping you.” Thankfully, I’m sitting because the emotion in his voice threatens to bring me to my knees. “I’d do anything to keep you.”
It’s the anything that has me finally looking at him.
He’s aged ten years in the ten hours since he left this morning.
And he did it for me.
“You can’t give up your country for me, Rhys. I won’t let you.” I stand in front of him, clinging to the blanket, knowing if I let go, I’ll walk right into his arms and never leave. “I love you enough to not let you do this for me.”
“It’s not your decision to make, Bellamy.” He runs his fingers through my hair and wraps his hand around the back of my head, forcing me to hold his eyes. “Not because I don’t respect you. But because there is no decision.”
“Rhys . . .”
“I never thought I’d walk away from this country for anything in the world. Until I met you and you became my world. I don’t want to do it, but if they force my hand, I will.”
“You can’t. I won’t let you give up the one thing you were made to do for me, Rhys. You once told me I could help a few patients or millions of people. And you were right. I can’t keep you for myself when an entire country needs you.” I give in and rest my face against his chest, soaking in his strength. Wondering how I’m supposed to live without it. Without him.
“I was made to love you. For the rest of my life, everything else will come second to that, my queen. And whether that’s here in a palace or in Kroydon Hills with your family, you will always be my queen.”
“I love you, Rhys.” I lift my face and press my lips to his. “What are we supposed to do now?”
“Now, we wait.”
“Do you guys have clothes on under there?” Atticus questions from the balcony door as he looks at us, unamused.
I’m curled up against Rhys’s chest, with the blanket wrapped around us both, trying to enjoy what’s probably our last few hours of peace before the storm of the century blankets us all.
“Really, brother?” Rhys holds me tighter, like he’s scared to let go.noveldrama
We both are.
“Well, you have done stranger things today,” Atticus’s normally playful voice sounds exhausted and not at all like him as he moves deeper onto the porch and leans back against the balusters. “I wanted to see how you were doing.”
Even with his world spinning out, he’s still here.
They’re still a united front.
“We’ll be okay, brother. All of us. Have they gotten a vote?” Rhys’s voice is calm and strong, which makes me think maybe there’s a chance we’ll all come out of this unscathed.
I wish it wasn’t a false hope.
“How can you be so sure?” I ask softly as tears pool in my eyes.
I don’t want to know if the vote is in because I don’t want to see the look in his eyes if he loses all of this because of me.
“Atticus has slept with half of Parliament, my love. I’m banking on the fact that they won’t want him on the throne,” he scoffs, and my mind spins.
“I refuse to put wrinkly balls in my mouth, you prick. I’ve only fucked two of them.”
“Oh my God,” I groan, frustrated with them both. “How can you joke right now?”
“Because our family has been through worse and survived, queen bee.”
Rhys kisses my temple, and I close my eyes. “He’s right. We’ve survived worse, and we’re still here. It’s going to take more than this to destroy the house of Windsor.”
My lip trembles as I look at them.
Really look at these men. So different in every way, and yet so very much the same.
My family.
“No vote yet. Last I heard, they were arguing loud enough for Lennon to hear from America,” Atticus jokes, and I cringe.
“Let’s go to bed, little bee. We’re not getting any answers tonight.” He stands with me in his arms, and Atticus sighs.
“Thank God. Clothes.”
“This from the man who hates to wear pants,” Rhys chides.
“Maybe I’ll be known as the pants-less king.”
I feel Rhys’s deep exhale and the pain it’s hiding. “Maybe you will.”
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