Page 23 of The Rest is History

Elodie

S till nothing.

He rescued me from sleazy Mr Crane on Tuesday, obviously. And then there was the blouse and the message .

A message that had my sister screaming, ‘Oh my God! Marry this guy!’

A message that sprinkled my entire body with goosebumps, because Gucci ? And more importantly, showcase your eyes ?

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. You can’t do things like that to my heart and expect me to survive them.

Then there was the look in his eyes when he saw me in the blouse.

Solemn.

Hungry.

Almost like he was… moved.

I don’t know. All I know is that it was charged enough to send me scurrying to my desk where I sat and crossed my legs tightly.

But yesterday we did our usual uneasy dance around each other, so maybe that’s that. Maybe he’s not planning on taking things further.

And maybe that’s for the best.

That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

It’s not till just now, when he insists on making me my morning espresso for the first time ever while I hover suspiciously behind him, that he makes any kind of move. Zara’s not in yet, so it’s just me and him. He turns to hand me the tiny cup and I go to take it, but he doesn’t let go.

I look up at him quizzically. He looks tired beneath that tan, shadows under his eyes lending him an air of fragility.

Damp, dark hair that’s so perfectly tousled it’s practically begging my fingers to rake through it.

Jesus, I loved clutching at his beautiful hair last weekend.

It was the only part of him I could properly grope because of his stupid, padded costume, and it was heaven.

‘So.’ He clears his throat. ‘Not long till Saturday.’

I stare at him blankly, at the astonishing blue eyes sweeping over my face. Alighting on my mouth.

‘What’s Saturday?’

He smiles a little, like I’m being deliberately obtuse.

‘Hampton Court.’

‘Right. And?’

He shrugs. Looks down at our hands on the espresso cup’s saucer. His finger brushes mine. Just the slightest touch.

‘I just wondered’—his voice is so deliciously low and intimate—‘if it’ll be as enjoyable as last Saturday was, that’s all. Because last Saturday was very enjoyable . ’

His eyes flash back to my face and, once again, this man has me gobsmacked.

‘Charlie Vaughan. Are you proposing some kind of Tudor booty call?’

So help me God, he grins. Full-wattage, dirty, panty-melting grinning that makes my stomach flip like I’m stuck on the downward rush of a rollercoaster. It’s the kind of knowing, conspiratorial smile I imagine he’d give me if he had me pinned down in his bed, his body braced on top of me.

Like an I’ve got you right where I want you grin.

‘That’s one way of describing it.’

And it hits me that he’s been obsessing over our hookup as much as I have. He loved it, too. And he wants a replay.

But he wants a replay on his terms .

I don’t think so.

‘Charlie. No.’

The grin vanishes, and I hate myself. I press on. Clarify.

‘I’m not some sort of… Tudor plaything for you. I know you have a massive boner for Anne Boleyn—everyone knows that—but you can’t just jump on me when I’m in costume and ignore me during the week.’

‘Elodie.’ Those eyes are blue pools of horror. For someone who finds it so difficult to show basic emotions, his eyes are his Achilles heel. ‘God. I would never do that—I’d never think of doing that. It wasn’t—that’s not what it was.’

I hold firm. ‘Well, that’s what it felt like.

Obviously, you know I had a great time on Saturday because you were, um, there’— you wicked sorcerer with your magic fingers —‘but if all you’re offering is weekend hookups in costume, then I’m not interested.

If you have the balls to make a move on me as Charlie Vaughan, and not Henry VIII, when we’re right here and I’m just me, then you’ll find me a lot more amenable. ’

I wait for him to say something, but he just nods, his face stricken.

‘Okay, then.’ I gather up the remnants of my dignity and turn away from him. I’m sure it took a lot for him to proposition me like that. To acknowledge what happened between us. But it took a lot for me to say that too.

To stand up for myself.

To turn down his very appealing proposition.

To see that look on his face and yet stand firm.

To ask for what I’m worth, and to hold out for what I think we could be. For real life, and not just a convenient weekly fantasy.

‘The main character is so hot,’ Zara says, ‘and so morally ambiguous. I feel like the dodgier their morals are, the hotter they are. Is that fucked up?’

She and I are tucking into our stir-fries in the staffroom while engaging in a thoroughly enjoyable conversation about the dark Mafia romance she’s reading.

‘As long as you only feel like that on the page and not in real life, it’s not fucked up at all,’ I say.

‘That’s what I told myself.’

I shovel up some rice. ‘Do we think the hot PE teacher is morally ambiguous?’

‘I suspect the extent of Pete Gibbs’ moral ambiguity is ghosting women after he’s shagged them senseless.’

‘And has he had the opportunity to do either to you yet?’

She wiggles her eyebrows at me. ‘Not yet. And there will be no ghosting, because the guy is falling. I can tell.’

‘I do admire your confidence,’ I tell her.

A movement catches my eye, and I look up to see Charlie. He’s hesitating by our table, tray in hand.

‘Can I sit with you?’

‘Of course,’ I blurt out. Charlie has never once sat with us at lunch.

Zara and I watch as he puts his tray down and sits.

CHARLIE

‘If you sit with us, you have to contribute to our conversation,’ Zara tells me.

I unfold my paper napkin and spread it on my lap like this isn’t a big deal and I eat lunch with my department every day. Elodie’s words have circled round my head all morning. She thinks she’s a novelty to me. A plaything . She thinks I was using her on Saturday to act out some sort of fantasy.

I was, of course.

Just not the one she thinks.

Elodie is the fantasy.

She’s everything I’ve dreamed of, and no matter how complex my personal situation is, there’s only one thing I care about right now.

Showing up for her. Engaging. Making it clear as day that she’s the object of my desires, not some long-dead queen.

‘What are we discussing?’

‘Morally grey characters in dark Mafia romance.’

‘I see.’

‘Got any thoughts on the genre?’ Zara asks.

‘I’m more of a Hilary Mantel man, myself,’ I say, and I swear Elodie rolls her eyes, ‘but wouldn’t Mafia romance be very misogynistic?’

Zara sighs. ‘Very. And we were just discussing our double standards. Like why we’re attracted to stuff in books that would be fuck-off red flags in real life.’

My gaze flits to Elodie and back to Zara.

‘Fascinating. And what did you conclude?’

‘That books are a safe place to explore fantasies that push the boundaries.’

Did they, now?

I’m silent, spearing a piece of tenderstem broccoli with my fork.

‘It’s the whole I’d burn the world down for you energy, right?’ Zara continues. ‘It’s so hot. I mean, who wouldn’t want a tough guy to burn the world down for them?’

‘Who, indeed,’ I deadpan.

Elodie’s being very quiet, but Zara doesn’t seem to notice.

‘Of course, you guys both know who’s the ultimate example of that energy,’ Zara says.

Elodie and I exchange a panicked glance.

‘Come on, guys. Henry VIII. He’s the perfect example. I mean, he literally razed monasteries to the ground for Anne Boleyn.’

I can’t allow this kind of reductionism. I set my fork down. ‘The situation was far more complex than that, Zara, and you know it.’

‘Humour me for a sec, Charlie. I mean, God bless him, the guy wasn’t a looker, but I know he cut an imposing figure in his day.

And that desperation he had for Anne? That was hot.

One of the most powerful rulers in the world, used to getting everything he ever wanted, but he couldn’t have her.

He was frantic. He would have burnt every monastery in the country to the ground to get her.

‘He broke with Rome—yeah, yeah, I know there was a groundswell of religious reform happening, but she was the catalyst. He executed men who couldn’t get him a divorce.

The guy couldn’t think straight. Basically, it feels like he was thinking with his dick most of the time.

He’d never seen anything like her. She held all the power. ’

I close my eyes briefly at the word dick and draw strength from somewhere deep inside me. Jesus Christ.

‘Their relationship was a deeply fucked-up, toxic power play from the start,’ Elodie tells Zara.

‘But she didn’t hold the power, absolutely not.

She was the sole focus of a monarch with absolute power in a patriarchal society.

She had very little power. What was different about Anne was that the tiny piece of power she held in her hands?

She wielded it to perfection. It was like a decade-long chess match. ’

‘Elodie’s correct,’ I interject. ‘Anne played her hand like a grandmaster. But it was a constant battle for her. Holding Henry off and keeping him interested for those long years while they fought for the divorce.’ I shake my head. ‘I can’t imagine the toll it must have taken on her.’

Elodie’s head jerks up in surprise. ‘I’ve always thought exactly that,’ she says softly.

‘The push-pull of getting the dynamic exactly right. Keep him hanging on, but don’t piss him off too much.

And all the time, with every year that passed, her fertility levels would have been declining.

It was such a waste. She must have been so worried that she was heading down a road towards a dead-end. ’

She gazes at me before Zara breaks the moment.

‘ Dead-end. No pun intended, right?’

I flinch. So does Elodie.

Zara leans forward conspiratorially. ‘Can you imagine, though, what their wedding night must have been like? Henry must have been fucking unleashed . Imagine finally getting your hands on someone you’ve wanted for that long.’ She shudders. ‘Gives me goosebumps.’

It’s giving me a lot more than goosebumps.

My dick stirs at her words. That’s how I felt the other day when I got Elodie to myself.

Fucking unleashed. Being able to put my hands on her.

My mouth on her. My fingers inside her. God help me.

And the idea of a wedding night with her—of having her laid out for me on a bed with the knowledge that she was mine forever?

Jesus Christ.

Deflection is the only option here. The only way I can keep my cool.

‘You’ve been reading too many romance novels,’ I tell Zara coldly, but Elodie clearly hasn’t got the memo that we should quit this inflammatory topic while we can.

‘Anne and Henry didn’t have a proper wedding,’ she tells Zara. ‘At least, not a public one. We don’t even know when they got married. It was probably January 1533, but it was a private affair. The big event was her coronation.’

Zara looks like a child who’s just been told there’s no Father Christmas. ‘No big wedding?’ She pouts. ‘That’s a bit anticlimactic.’

I tense at her use of the word, and Elodie does the same, the memory of our conversation from the other morning jolting us.

‘They probably started sleeping together just before or just after they got back from Calais the previous November,’ Elodie continues, ‘when Anne was sufficiently confident that a divorce from Katherine was in sight. And we know she let him take liberties with her before that. She had to do something, at the end of the day.’

Zara sits up straighter, sensing some incoming smut, no doubt, while I curse the decision to sit down at this table.

Please, God, why?

‘What kind of liberties?’ Zara asks pleadingly.

For fuck’s sake.

Elodie looks at me as if she’s just worked out she’s dug herself into a hole. I shrug as if to say, this has nothing to do with me.

Elodie sighs. ‘She let him play with her, you know…’ She gestures to her breasts, and I want to sink beneath the table. A white-hot flashback assaults me.

My hand clawing its way under the bodice of Elodie’s dress.

Finding soft flesh.

Pinching hard nipple.

The moans she gave me as I did it.

Sweat pin-pricks my body, and the chances of my disgracing myself when I get up from the table are increasing rapidly.

Jesus fucking Christ. I need out of here. Now.