Emma pov
"Michael?" Luke and I both said in unison. I turned to Luke, my shock doubled.
"Luke, how do you know Michael?" I ask, looking back and forth between them.
"Michael is one of my best mates. How do you know him?" He asks, looking extremely confused.
"Michael and I were... friends back in France," I stumbled over my words, not sure what to say.
"Oh come on Emma, we were a lot more than friends," Michael interjects.
"Luke, can you excuse us? I'll be upstairs in a few minutes," He nods, still looking very perplexed as he walks away towards our chambers. I turn back to Michael, the boy with dirty blonde hair who broke my heart.
"What are you doing here?"
"Don't I get a 'hello' sweetheart?" He asks cockily.
"No, you don't! I haven't seen or heard from you in more than a year," I hiss.
"I wrote you once a week, you never responded," he says.
"The letters must have been intercepted," I realize. I met Michael in France. He was the son of one of the many lords my father kept in court. We had a short romance. The most we did was hand-holding under the table and stolen kisses. Eventually, my father found out and he sent Michael away to be an Ambassador of Foreign Affairs. In my father's opinion, Michael's title was far too low to be courting a princess.
"Wait how do you know Luke?" I wonder.
"I was sent to England a lot, and I sort of fell in with Luke and his mates," he explains.
"Oh..." I look up and gaze into his eyes, "I've missed you!" I attack him with a hug. He wraps his arms around me just as tight.
"I've missed you too," he leans down till our faces are inches apart. Just as our lips are about to meet, I pull away.
"What am I doing? I'm married!" I scold myself. I quickly excuse myself from Michael and go back to Luke before I can cause anymore trouble.
...
I manage to calm myself down before entering our chambers. Though I expected Luke to pounce on me with questions the second I walked in the door, I found him with his head on his desk, completely asleep. There was still a small stack of work he has to do, but it looked like he'd finished most of it. He slept peacefully on top of the completed documents, just barely snoring. His blonde hair had fallen down onto his face and the worry lines that were usually present had disappeared.
"Luke?" I call softly, trying to wake him up so he can go to bed. No response.
"Luke," I try again, this time a bit louder. Still no response.
"Come on Hemmings, surely you don't want to sleep on this desk all night," I sweep some of the hair out of his eyes. He mumbles what sounds very much like my name, but stays asleep. I have to poke at his cheek for a full two minutes before his blue orbs finally open.
"God forbid there be a fire in the middle of the night because I doubt you'd wake up," I comment as he stretches and yawns.
"I would hope my wife would be kind enough to wake me up before she escapes the burning castle," he says groggily.
"Not if it takes ten minutes!" I laugh making him smile.
"Emma?"
"Yes?"
"What happened with Michael," he asks, his smile fading.
"Let's talk about it in the morning. You look too tired right now," I stall, trying to avoid the inevitably difficult conversation for as long as possible.
"Okay," he yawns. We stand there for a minute, in between our two rooms. There's an awkward energy. I have a sudden urge to close the gap between us. I want human contact, I suppose. These past two months, I've kept to myself. My friendship with Luke has kept me intellectually and emotionally satisfied, but we would never go as far as to embrace in a goodnight hug. I start to imagine what it would be like to hug Luke. He's so much taller than me that I would probably get lost in his embrace. I ignore the thought, as it was likely only brought on because I miss my family.
"Goodnight Emma"
"Goodnight Luke" and with that, we go our separate ways.
...
The next night, I go to the evening party for the first time since the incident. I've been hesitant because of the bad memories associated with the daily celebrations. I'm doing this mostly for Luke. I can tell he's getting restless staying in every night, but he does so because I do. And I know if I told him to go out without me, he wouldn't. So after insisting three times that I'm okay to go out, we are walking through the dark hallways to the ballroom. We have a light conversation, laughing and smiling until we came upon a particular spot that has haunted my dreams for a month. I notice the uneven floorboard first, then I recognize the spot where he threw me against the wall. I clutch onto Luke's arm tightly, trying to suppress the unwanted memories. Luke stops talking and realizes this is the scene of my almost-rape. He quickly leads me out of that part of the hallway.
"Are you sure you're okay to go?" He asks me. I nod, knowing my voice would shake if I tried to speak.
"I think it would be better if we stayed in tonight. We can play chess or something," he starts to tug my arm in the direction of our private quarters again.
"No Luke, I don't want to stay in again. I'm going stir crazy from being holed up in the study all the time," I say, though I want nothing more than to go back to the warm room.
"Alright," he says hesitantly.
Luke sat with me for the first 30 minutes. He made little comments about the music or someone's frilly collar, but I could tell he wanted to go have a drink with his friends. It took a while, but I finally convinced him to go. Even now, he still glances in my direction every few minutes. I only roll my eyes at his overprotective tendencies and wave him back to his mates.
"Hey," someone says as they sit down next to me. I whip my head around, about to yell at Luke for leaving his friends, but instead I see Michael.
"Hi Michael," I say. The memories from last night remind me to keep my distance.
"We should dance," he suggests.
"I don't know if that would be a good idea..." I say.
"Come on Em, it's only an innocent dance," he pulls me to my feet and we join the couples gliding across the floor.
"I've actually come back to England for a reason," he starts, "When I heard of your marriage, I was a bit angry at first. We had promised to wait for each other after all. But then I learned it was an arranged marriage. I got on a ship to France at once, and I pleaded with your father to have the marriage annulled. He said no, of course,"
"So why have you come here?"
"I want you to run away with me. We could go to Portugal or Germany. No responsibilities to the France or England. Just us. We could live a quiet life, be vegetable farmers or something," his words paint a beautiful picture in my mind. He can make the thought of pulling cabbage and carrots out of the dirt for the rest of our lives sound appealing, maybe even magical.
"Michael... I don't know what to say. It could never work!"
"But what if it could work? Give it a chance Em! Give us a chance,"
Every detail swam around in my head. My vision turned blurry and I clung on to Michael for support. Everything went black seconds later.
