Page 7 of The Rest is History

Charlie

O h, shit.

I am so fucked.

Elodie’s standing at the entrance to the chapel, her dark dress illuminated in a pool of hazy sunshine swirling with dust mites. But she’s not the Elodie I know, the colleague I lust over from a pitiful distance every single day.

No.

She’s morphed, by some weird fucking alchemy, into the only other woman who’s ever really intrigued me. Bewitched me. Albeit from a far greater distance.

Anne Boleyn.

It’s all there: her dark hair centre-parted, most of it hidden under that iconic hood. Her tall, willowy figure showcased in an appropriately modest but stunning Tudor gown. Her pale hands clasped in front of her skirt.

And most unsettling of all: her neck. That white, swanlike neck that men of paint and words celebrated and Henry once loved, before destroying it in the most sickening way.

The neck I worship every day at school is now beautifully on display, Anne’s famous B necklace hangs a few inches above Elodie’s perfect (from what little I’ve seen) breasts.

Holy fucking Christ.

She’s nailed it. The posture. The gait. And something else—something intangible. She’s channelling Anne. I can see it already. I can see it in the flash of her eyes and the challenging tilt of her chin as she sees my gaze on her.

She can already feel the power that comes with this role. That comes from aligning herself with a woman who captivates the public as much today as she did her contemporaries north of four hundred years ago.

She’s the most fucking beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

I put out a hand to stop Greta, one of the stewards, in mid-flow. I cannot listen to her drivel right now.

I walk to my queen.

‘Your Majesty,’ she says, but in a tongue-in-cheek manner. There’s a twist of her mouth that suggests she’s self-conscious, embarrassed, even, about playing along with this (admittedly) childish charade.

‘My queen,’ I say, with a tilt of my head and a touch of swagger. Henry would most likely have called Anne darling , which is how he addressed her in the love letters that exist, bewilderingly, at the Vatican of all places.

But I don’t want to freak her out too much.

Not yet, anyway.

Given the ice-cold shoulder I give her at school, I imagine she’ll need time to acclimatise to playing happy families with her seemingly hostile but really heartsick boss. She won’t be used to bantering with me at all, given I never engage when she attempts it.

I shut it down.

I shut her out.

And, in case I’m shooting up your what-a-dick scale at the speed of light, I’ll tell you this.

Every time I do it, every time I see the hurt and embarrassment and disappointment in her eyes, a piece of me dies.

‘Alright, lovely?’ Shelby asks. I wasn’t even aware of her until now.

My focus was somewhere else entirely.

‘My queen,’ I mutter again, with far less enthusiasm.

‘This is feeling more and more like a Tudor harem.’ Elodie’s gaze darts from me to Shelby.

I shudder. ‘God forbid.’

‘He wouldn’t have the stamina, would you darlin’?’ Shelby coos.

‘I wouldn’t have the stamina for you lot outside the Royal Bedchamber, let alone inside it,’ I assure her. A glance at Elodie shows those huge eyes of hers widening. This is a side of me she is not familiar with.

Shelby squishes my jaw between her thumb and fingers. ‘Damn right.’ Her eyes narrow slyly and she jerks her head towards Elodie. ‘Nice Queen Anne you’ve found yourself, eh? You dark horse, you.’

The last thing I need is the spectacularly indiscreet Shelby stirring up shit.

‘Elodie is a colleague,’ I tell her stiffly. ‘She’s an excellent historian and she’s well qualified to bring the character to life for the visitors.’

Shelby winks at me. ‘You tell yourself that, you cheeky boy.’ She must be a decade younger than me, so how she makes me feel like a naughty schoolboy, I’m unsure.

Moving on.

‘Let’s go entertain some tourists.’ I hold my arm out for Elodie to take. She eyes me suspiciously before sliding her hand gingerly around the crook of my arm like I have scabies or something. Fuck’s sake.

If I thought seeing her as Anne Boleyn was surreal, then processing around the palace with her as my queen, her hand on my arm, is a total head fuck.

Shelby’s wandered off to find Cassie, who plays Katherine Howard, and Rebekah—Catherine Parr.

I think she wants to round them up and drag them to meet our shiny new member.

We carefully descend the main staircase (I can tell Elodie’s getting used to dealing with her long, full skirt) and emerge out into a sunny Base Court. There are tourists milling around here, and I feel unusually self-conscious as I lead her across cobblestones shiny with centuries of foot traffic.

I’ve held off from turning my head and looking directly at her. It’s too much in too short a space of time.

Seeing her outside of school, in a place that’s special to me. A place where I’m someone else completely.

Seeing her like this . The woman of my fantasies dressed as the woman who’s beguiled and bewildered people for centuries, and this lowly academic for years.

And now, touching her. Her arm in mine. The fabric of her skirts brushing my (very attractive) white tights as we walk together.

I wonder how we look together. What kind of picture we make. Eye-catching, certainly, even if her pearls and my ermine are fake. Simultaneously at one with the profound history around us and at odds with the tourists in their denim cut-offs and Crocs and rucksacks.

Blending in and standing out.

But do we look cohesive?

All day, every day, all I feel is the weight of separation between our beings. In these instantly identifiable costumes, could we pass as a couple? Even a long-dead one?

Anne and Henry’s relationship was undoubtedly marred by power struggles and toxicity, by disappointment and delay, for so much of it.

Eric Ives, the historian who’s conducted the most thorough rehabilitation of Anne’s character in recent decades, talks about the ‘gradient of catastrophe’ from her coronation to her execution.

It can feel as though she and Henry waited years and years to be married (which they did; seven years, almost), and that the three short, busy, tumultuous years after they were wedded were like the downward spiral of a rollercoaster.

The sweet spot of their happiness was so fleeting.

I’ve noticed, therefore, that it makes visitors to the palace exceedingly happy to see Henry and Anne as an actual couple. Familiar. Intimate. Content. And that’s what I hope to give them once I’ve given Elodie a chance to warm up to both the role and this new dynamic with me.

It’s also a selfish move.

Obviously.

Because this is the closest I’ll ever allow myself to get to her.

The first visitors clock us and move right in.

I nudge Anne—I mean Elodie. ‘Ten o’clock.’

She breaks her visual survey of Base Court to look up at me. I jerk my head.

‘Oh. Should we?—’

‘Greetings, good sir!’ I boom as a family nears us, all four wearing headsets and holding the audio tour guide.

The parents look amused and the two kids apprehensive.

The public reacts to us in such weird ways.

Some people get genuinely flustered, or star-struck, or intimated.

They lose the power of speech and turn bright red.

I find it all highly amusing.

The dad plays ball. ‘Good morning, Your Highness!’ he exclaims heartily, elbowing his eldest kid in a isn’t this a lark kind of way. The boy looks like he wants to sink into the ground and die.

‘Actually,’—I soften my voice so I don’t sound like I’m lecturing them too much—‘you may address me as Your Majesty . I heard that the Holy Roman Emperor had employed this new title, so I have adopted it too. I rather like it.’

‘Your Majesty,’ the dad whispers, looking blindsided.

The daughter, probably eleven or twelve, is staring open-mouthed at Elodie.

I can relate.

She points. ‘Is that Anne Boleyn?’

Elodie seems to remember her role. ‘Yes, I am. Hi there.’ She gives a little wave. I’m sure she feels awkward. I felt utterly ridiculous the first time I played Henry. Now I find it terrifyingly natural.

The girl turns to her mother. ‘She’s so pretty,’ she stage-whispers.

I sneak a glance at Elodie. She’s smiling shyly at the girl.

‘My queen is the most beautiful woman in the land,’ I say smugly to the family and several other visitors who are creeping nearer to our little cluster. ‘And the most accomplished. She dances like an angel.’

I glance down. Elodie’s turned her head to mine in shock, her lips slightly parted.

I take great satisfaction in giving her the broadest smile possible, and patting her on the hand that rests on my sleeve.

It’s possible she’s never even seen my teeth.

She stares for a second, searching my face, before her expression lightens as if she likes what she sees.

‘You smile now, do you?’ she murmurs after the family has taken selfies with us and faded away. She waves graciously at a couple of children who are watching us suspiciously from across the courtyard. ‘Do they pay you extra for that?’

‘I’d much rather be a miserable fucker and scare off all the kids, but unfortunately I need that per-smile bonus,’ I mutter back. She throws her head back and laughs, and I shamelessly admire the view.

Her beautiful green eyes sparkling.

Her lips curved into a dazzling smile.

And that neck. Arched and elegant. So perfect. Her lean white throat exposed.

I would give a limb to kiss a trail down it.

To mark it.

The mere sight of it turns me into Count Dracula.

I watch her, my face soft, hoping she won’t see the hunger in my eyes. I simultaneously can’t believe I got lucky enough to find myself here with her and consider this to be the most dangerous, ill-conceived plan I’ve ever had.

She recovers and rights herself. ‘You’re full of surprises today, Your Majesty. I might speak to Mr Willoughby about incentivising you better at school.’

‘Phil gave up on me and my personality a long time ago,’ I tell her.

I have an inkling as to why I’m finding it so much easier to behave like a semi-normal human being with her today.

It’s being here, in costume. Pretending to be someone else entirely.

Someone full of entitlement and swagger and confidence.

A man the world looked up to. Flirting gently with his beautiful queen on a late spring morning.

This is a safe space, an opportunity to try out a new way to be with Elodie in safe mode. To actually enjoy up close all the aspects of her I marvel at from afar.

And this afternoon, when I hang up my ermine and my fucking codpiece and white tights, I’ll close myself up again. Reinstall my armour. Lock the fortress.

But for now, I’m Henry and she’s Anne. And she’s mine .