‘I went to college here in Torfarn. It’s such a beautiful campus and the lecturers were wonderful. And... I didn’t want to be anywhere else,’ she said, shrugging as if she should apologise for her love for Svardia. The candlelight flickered in her middle-distance gaze. ‘That’s where I met Nils.’
Beneath the table, Aleksander’s hands fisted reflexively and it took an inordinate amount of energy to undo the unconscious action.
‘He was studying biology, but his flatmate had a few lectures with me. Nils was,’ she said, finally turning her gaze back to him, ‘nice.’ She nodded as if agreeing with her own assessment. ‘He was quiet, easy, uncomplicated. And I felt safe.’
He could hear the longing in her voice, as if she still felt the need for such things—safety—and a small part of his mind filed the important fact away.
‘When he proposed, I thought that it was done. ThatIwas done. That my future was a home with him and a family. He was so different from the hysteria of Viveca and her mother, there was no game playing, no drama. He was quiet and...’
‘Safe,’ Aleksander completed.
She nodded, and reached up to sweep a hand through her fringe. ‘I didn’t want him to meet them. I thought they would devour him and that he might run away. Might decide that it wasn’t worth it.’
Aleksander read between her words. She’d feared that he might find thatshewasn’t worth it. He didn’t quite know where this story was going, but he didn’t like it and he most definitely didn’t like the idea that Henna would think at any point that she was unworthy. From the corner of his eye, he saw the waiter hovering at the kitchen pass with the first course and subtly held him off with a hand.
‘But I took him home and, surprisingly, it went well. My stepmother behaved herself. Viveca was on her best behaviour, which simply meant ignoring us both for the most part which, of course, I was more than fine with,’ she said with a smile that trembled a little. Her inhale drew the candle flame ever so slightly towards her as if it too was waiting on what happened next. ‘And then, about two weeks later, I came home and the bed wasn’t made. It was a silly thing—Nils must have been in a rush that morning. Only when I shook out the duvet, Viveca’s earring came flying from the sheets. It was gold and long and nothing about it being there was a mistake.’ Henna looked at the napkin she was twisting in her hands, her cheeks as pale as the white cotton. ‘She wanted me to know that she’d slept with my fiancé.’
He had imagined Viveca callous and cold, but the intent behind her actions was vicious. During his stunned silence, the waiter appeared and placed the first course on the table, having incorrectly identified a lull in the conversation. Ignoring both the man and the food, he asked, ‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing,’ she replied, taking a small sip of her wine before carefully placing the glass back on the table.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I did the opposite of what Viveca wanted,’ she said, finally looking up at him with eyes that exposed her hurt. ‘I ended my relationship with Nils and never spoke to either of them about what had happened.’
‘You didn’t confront them? At all?’ he asked, shocked.
‘No,’ she replied.
‘But she got away with it.’
Henna shook her head. ‘She’s a bully. She wanted the drama. She wanted the responsibility for ending my relationship with Nils. I refused to give her that.’
He understood the logic, had now seen enough of Viveca to know that Henna was right. But that kind of hurt, that kind of devastation...to keep it all locked in and not let it out...he knew the toll it took.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, for asking, for forcing her to admit such a thing, and for such an awful thing to have happened to her. He could see the hurt and betrayal simmering beneath the cloudy honey colour of her eyes and recognised that particular brand of poison.
She nodded, accepting his apology even through the clawing sense of shame and hurt unspooling in her chest. She’d never told anyone what had happened with Nils, the betrayal one so shocking that it had spread a numbness through her. A shock so close to grief that for just a moment, in that bedroom, she’d been tempted to ignore the earring.
Yes, she’d felt the hot sting of humiliation because Nils had slept with Viveca, but the deeper cut, the real source of shame was that for one moment she’d considered disregarding it. Her longing for safety and security, for a home where she was loved once more was so strong she would have lied to herself and deny that she’d ever seen the earring.
Even Freya didn’t know about Nils, the entire situation over and done with before her return from university in Switzerland. And when Freya had come back she’d been so broken-hearted by the lie that had severed her burgeoning relationship with Kjell that Henna had had no time to wallow in her own heartache, moving into her role and lodgings at the Palace immediately.
How could she explain the devastating loss of a future she had believed in because she’d been so utterly convinced it wassafe? The way that it had crumbled everything around her and beneath her and left her shaking for months after. How everything had suddenly felt less real than the fantasy of a future she had created where she would be happy.
Nils had been her future, her safe harbour and her security. Viveca had destroyed that, and she still didn’t know what she’d done to make her stepsister do such a thing. Logically, Henna had told herself, it had been better to find out the nature of her fiancé before she’d married him. And she had been so utterly thankful to throw herself into royal service, which gave her a home and a purpose. But in her most secret heart she wondered if she had forged a bond with Nils because of the future she’d thought he could offer her. Maybe if she hadn’t lost her father at such a young age, if Marcella and Viveca hadn’t been so cruel, it wouldn’t have impacted her so severely. But it had made her determined never to build her safety, herhome, around one man ever again.
‘Did Natassia really have a family emergency?’
Henna felt Aleksander’s eyes watching her reaction to his question and decided to go with the truth. ‘I’d say the chances are fifty-fifty at this point.’
‘Interesting,’ he said, spearing the delicate flesh of the salmon with more enthusiasm than he’d seemed to give his date.
‘Well, it might have something to do with the rumours about you and Reina—’
‘Michaels!’ Aleksander said, snapping his fingers in recollection.
‘And something to do with a maid’s uniform?’