I know it must kill you to see him in Eleanor’s arms. I can’t look at him without seeing you, and what was stolen from you—from all three of us—and I know it must be exponentially worse for you because, unlike me, you’re forced to keep your distance. All I want is to take our son and run with you to the edge of the world. But that would collapse the whole house of cards, a house built by no less than the ruling family of this country. We could never outrun it. Richard would grow up with it haunting his every move.

But we also can’t keep up this dual life. Hiding in windowless garrets behind wardrobes, consuming each other under cover of darkness, stealing seconds alone in palace halls…I’d have done this forever, selfishly, if I hadn’t walked in on you today and seen you crying. It made me realize that it’s my turn to be the strong one. And that means letting you go.

Get married, Georgie. Have more babies. Live big and loud, the way we wish we could have. There is happiness in the world for you. Please let yourself find it, let it sustain you; that’s the only thing that can sustain me. And then, someday, possibly when we’re both gone, our son will be king. And that is bigger than us all.

Always yours,

Henry

Freddie put the letter down, his face waxen. “Fuck,” was all he said.

Nick’s color wasn’t much better. He’d been green since we unearthed it, his hand shaking so badly when he tried to dial Freddie that I’d ended up having to do it. With a pang of guilt for adding yet another lie about my father-in-law to this morass, I’d told Freddie that Nick was really struggling, and that he needed Freddie to help defuse tensions with Richard in person. It was enough to get Freddie on a private jet, but not so much that he’d go rogue and phone Richard on the sly. It wasn’t even that far from the truth. Technically, Nick was having a hard time with Richard—it just wasn’t, for once, Richard’s fault.

Freddie had turned up at our door six hours after I called.

“Where’s the fire?” he joked.

“We need to go someplace private,” I said, and I’d led him up the stairs into the master bedroom and opened the door to the Narnia closet. He’d stood there, blinking, confused.

“This is unutterably kinky, Bex,” he’d said, but he did as I asked, climbing up into Sex Den with deepest trepidation. “I’ve heard of safe rooms, but this is another level of— Oh.”