Page 26 of Propriety (le morte d’Guinevere #1)

She didn’t sleep.

Or maybe she did.

It didn’t matter.

She lay on her bed, fully clothed, for a lifetime, for an age.

She didn’t even process what Morgana had said until she rose the next morning.

When she woke up — came to — she was clinging to his tunic, curled around it like it could stitch her back together.

Guinevere rose, her muscles ached, her stomach was angry. But the sun on her face felt… welcoming.

She sat in the chair by the window, wrapped up in a blanket.

That was when she thought through what Morgana had said to her.

He couldn’t have been with Morgana.

He had been here, with her.

Her stomach surged, but there was nothing left inside. She closed her eyes tight, pushing the hurt down, burying the pain — the nausea.

He had held her all night long.

She swiped her tears. Her breathing accelerated.

She was trapped. Morgana had put her in check. She couldn’t fight, couldn’t flee.

Argue too much… Arthur would find out about the things she and Lancelot did.

But to accept it openly, publicly, felt like a betrayal to the man who lived inside her heart.

I love you.

He wouldn’t.

He didn’t.

She was sure of it.

So why did her jaw clench?

Why did tears burn at her eyes?

He wouldn’t.

He had spoken her name in his sleep, let his guard down enough that a stranger had heard him calling for her.

He wouldn’t.

Her heart… warmed.

She smiled.

She laughed.

She started crying again. She sat there with the sadness, though. She breathed through it — tried not to let it drown her.

She had lost three months. Three months she had spent wandering in an endless fog of grief.

And her sister-in-law had spun a web so dastardly, she had been too blind to see it.

Did Morgana know about them?

Or did she think Gwen had a pathetic infatuation, had taken a liking to their oldest friend, and wanted to break her spirit?

If she continued to sink under the weight of her grief, there would be no Guinevere for him to return to.

She smiled again.

She hadn’t allowed herself to believe he could come back.

Guinevere didn’t leave her room that day, taking just one meal in her chambers.

When she looked in the mirror, she was met with a shocking sight. Her cheeks looked hollow; her eyes were dull.

Her fingers trembled as she braided her hair.

The sun was setting when a knock at her door shook her from her trance.

“Your Grace?” A handmaiden. When she opened the door, the maid she had passed the visitor off to the night prior stood before her.

“Good evening, Lunete.” The queen attempted a smile — it felt foreign on her lips.

“Your grace, the gentleman that passed through here yesterday asked me to deliver this to you. Said it was from ‘the big one’, and that you might know where to send it.” She handed over an envelope. Guinevere barely clocked the gentle curve of the older woman’s lips. The knowing look in her eyes.

There was a single word written on the outside.

Dove.

Her hands began to tremble again, nodding to her maid. “Yes, thank you, Lunete. I will deliver it from here.” Her voice was thick, her words sticking in the back of her throat.

The door clicked shut; she fastened the lock.

Her fingers traced the lettering on the envelope, as if she could feel his touch through the paper.

“Lancelot,” she whispered, and her heart felt like lead.

A tear darkened the paper, and she tossed it on the bed. She couldn’t ruin it, she couldn’t ruin it.

I love you .

She wiped her face quickly, shaking her head. Retrieving the letter, she gently peeled back the envelope.

Mon amour,

I can hardly believe that this letter will make it into your hands. Edmund, while a kind fellow, seems quite simple. I pray you see this.

Should you see this, know that I cannot look at a lily without thinking of you. Truth be told, there are very few things that I can look at without thinking of you.

You remain imprinted on my heart, in my very bones. My comrades tease me, as they find company in every town we stop in. But I am left only with your memory, and that is richer than anything they might find.

I love you, ma chérie.

Ever yours,

L

“I love you,” she whispered, clutching the letter to her heart. “I love you.” Her cheeks ached. When her fingers brushed them, she realized she was grinning, wide, easily.

“I love you.”

Guinevere fell back on the bed, the letter still clutched between her fingers. She read it again.

Twice .

Three times more.

“I love you.”

She clutched the letter throughout the night. She didn’t sleep — not really. She lay in the light of the moon, reading his words over and over again. Relishing that he had touched this paper, that his hands had written these words, that he had sent hope to her.

And with the light of the sun came a different feeling. Not the ache of grief, not the tangy sweetness of hope.

Rage.

She had been drowning in her sorrow, swallowed whole by the monster that whispered terrors in her ear.

She had let that outshine the tender touches, the reverent kisses, the sweet nothings that he left her with.

But that wasn’t where her vitriol lay.

In the pit of her stomach, a viper lay — poised.

Morgana .

Spreading lies throughout the castle, telling everyone that she carried his child.

Guinevere had to stop herself from screaming as she watched the sun rise. He would come back, and he would be faced with the fallout that Morgana was setting him up for.

But who was she trying to punish?

Lancelot?

Or her?