❝ Tell me losing everything is what saved you,
Tell me you finally tasted freedom.
Can you even imagine yourself in paradise?
Even the daughter of gods must know loneliness, must sometimes want nothing more than to be trapped in a hell of forevers...
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Outside, Lily was walking with many people of the court after mass, including William and some privy council members.
She frowned, turning her head as Henry walked past her, looking to be in a rush.
"Quite a night I had with the Lady Caitlin," Henry suddenly spoke up, causing Lily to turn to him with wide eyes, just before her eyes became consumed with betrayal. She knew, of course, she knew of what had been going on between her husband and sister...but to make it so public? To let the court know her sister was going into her husband's bed?
Lily stayed rooted to her spot, while everyone else continued to walk, including her husband. She felt as someone took her hand in theirs and turned slightly, to see her younger sister looking at her with tears welling on her eyes.
"I am spent," Henry boasted and as William turned his head, looking for his sisters in the crowd of courtiers.
He knew what Caitlin had thought about marriage and children growing up — how she often said she wouldn't marry so no children of hers would challenge Edmund's children for the throne. When they were older, she had sometimes joked about taking a lover to satisfy her needs and drinking the tea their mother drank to avoid having bastards and tarnishing her reputation.
This is what Caitlin didn't want. She didn't want to be branded a whore and it would be ten times worse since the man she was sleeping with was her brother-in-law. The worst part was, Henry was only making that spectacle to get to William. And the worst part was, it was working. In truth, what bothered him was not that Henry was sleeping with his sister — it was that he dared shame both of his sisters in such a public way.
His sisters had grown up in awe of the love their parents shared, but they had all dreamed of having a husband who would only go to their beds. They wanted a relationship like the one between their Uncle Richard and Aunt Anne, rather than the one between their parents. No one would deny the love between their parents, but his father was not a faithful man and more than once, they had seen the effect his philandering had on their mother.
And, yet, Henry was shaming Lily publicly — not only by admitting he visited another's bed, but by admitting he had crawled beneath Caitlin's sheets.
Lily turned her head, seeing her brother giving her an apologetic look. She sighed, turning her attention toward her husband instead. "Henry?" She called out, causing Henry to immediately turn to face her.
Henry stopped walking, allowing Lily to finally catch up to him.
"How could do you such a thing?" Lily asked her husband, beginning to glare at him.
"How could you say such things publicly?" She paused, waiting for Henry to answer, but he didn't. "What, do you wish to make a joke out of me and my sister? Do you wish for that to humiliate him?"
"I need to rattle him," Henry said, unconcerned. "He'll grow cocky if he thinks there's strife between us."
"Well, at least you succeeded in one thing," Lily spat. "You shamed me and my sister, Henry."
