ALISTAIR
The carriage wheels crunched softly along the gravel path as the Everleigh estate came into view. The gardens stretched wide under the afternoon sun, their hedges trimmed with precision, their roses in full bloom. Alistair had always admired this place. It was too modest to rival the grandeur of the capital's manors, yet there was an elegance in its restraint, a peace that the court could never imitate.
He had not been here in years.
When the carriage stopped before the stone archway, Alistair remained seated for a moment. His gloved hand rested on the door handle, unmoving. He had thought carefully before coming. There were a dozen reasons not to, all of them reasonable, all of them political. Yet he had come anyway.
He stepped out. The air was warm, fragrant with lavender and early roses. The servants greeted him with polite bows, their faces carefully neutral. He knew the rumors that followed him, the quiet disdain that flickered behind their courtesy. He ignored it.
The steward approached. "Lady Evelina is in the garden, Your Grace."
Alistair nodded. "I know the way."
He walked through the winding paths until the tall hedges parted into the inner garden. It was quiet there, save for the distant trickle of water from the marble fountain. Evelina stood near the roses, sunlight catching the pale fabric of her gown. She turned as he approached, her expression calm, though her eyes flickered briefly with surprise.
"Your Grace," she said softly. "You did not send word you were coming."
Alistair stopped a few steps away. "Would you have preferred I did?"
She hesitated. "I would have been better prepared."
He smiled faintly. "You have never needed preparation to speak with me, Evelina."
Her hands folded gently before her. "It has been a long time since we spoke privately."
"Too long," Alistair said. He let his gaze wander across the garden before returning to her. "You have made this place beautiful. It suits you."
"Thank you," she said quietly. "My mother's gardeners tended it long before I could. I only keep what they built."
Alistair's eyes softened, though a shadow lingered behind them. "You always preserve what others neglect. It is one of the things I…" He paused, then looked away. "Admire."
Evelina said nothing. The breeze stirred a strand of hair across her cheek, and she tucked it behind her ear.
He drew a breath and turned back to her. "Tell me, Evelina. Is it true what they say?"
Her gaze lifted. "That depends on what they are saying."
"That you and Lord Ravenscroft are… attached."
The words hung in the air like the echo of a bell. Evelina did not flinch, but he saw the faint tension in her shoulders.
"I will not deny it," she said. "Lucian has been kind to me."
Alistair's jaw tightened. "Kindness is a dangerous currency in this court. It buys loyalty more quickly than gold."
"Then perhaps kindness is the only honest thing left," she replied.
He studied her, his voice low. "Do you love him?"
Her eyes met his, steady and unafraid. "Yes."
For a moment, Alistair said nothing. The word struck like a quiet blow, sharp not for its sound but for its certainty. He had expected hesitation, perhaps even denial. He found neither.
He turned slightly, his gaze drifting toward the fountain. The water glimmered under the sunlight, calm and indifferent. "I see."
Evelina stepped closer, her tone gentle. "You knew my answer before you came here."
"Perhaps," he said. "But I had to hear it from you."
The silence between them deepened. Alistair's expression softened, the weight of years slipping through the cracks of his control. "Do you remember, Evelina, when we were children? You used to visit the palace gardens with your mother. You would always run to the eastern gate to see the lilies. I followed you once and you told me I looked like a lost boy trying to find a home."
Her lips curved faintly. "I remember."
"I never forgot that," he said quietly. "You were the only one who spoke to me without fear or motive. The only one who saw me as something more than the Queen's son."
She looked at him with quiet sadness. "I saw you as you were. Not as what others believed."
Montclair's voice broke slightly, though he caught it before it faltered completely. "And what was I to you then?"
"A friend," she said. "And for a time, I wished we might always be that."
He smiled, but it was a weary, hollow thing. "I wished for more."
"I know," she said.
His eyes searched hers, hungry for something he could not name. "You cannot deny what we were. There was a time you looked at me with kindness."
"There was," she admitted. "But that time has passed."
He took a slow step toward her. "It does not have to."
Evelina's voice was calm but firm. "Yes, it does. You speak as if the past can be rebuilt, but we are no longer the same. The boy I knew is gone, and the man before me carries too much shadow."
Alistair's expression darkened, though his tone remained measured. "Do you think I'm cruel?"
"I think you are lonely," she said. "And that loneliness has made you cruel without meaning to be."
Her words struck him more deeply than he expected. He turned away, staring at the roses that climbed the trellis beside them. Their petals were perfect, unmarred, but the stems beneath were thick with thorns.
"Lonely," he repeated softly. "Yes. I suppose that is true. But loneliness does not make me blind, Evelina. I see what is happening between you and Ravenscroft. I see the way you look at him. But he will destroy you in the end. He cannot protect you from what is coming."
She met his gaze steadily. "You mistake me for someone who needs protection."
His lips curved in something that was not quite a smile. "You are brave, but bravery is not safety."
"Neither is deceit," she answered.
The silence that followed was heavy, filled with words left unsaid. Alistair's hand brushed the edge of the marble fountain, his fingers tracing the cold stone.
"I came here because I needed to tell you," he said finally, "that I have loved you longer than I have loved anything else in this world. Before power, before ambition, before all of it. You were the only thing that felt real."
Evelina's eyes glistened, but her voice did not waver. "Then you loved me wrongly. Love that seeks to possess is not love,my Lord. It is hunger."
He flinched as if struck. "You speak as if I am a monster."
"I speak as someone who once cared for you," she said. "But what you are now frightens me."
He turned sharply toward her, his composure cracking for the first time. "Do you think I wanted this life? To wear a crown that was never mine to claim? To live beneath secrets I did not make? You think you know me, Evelina, but you know only the shadow of what I am allowed to be."
Her voice softened, but there was no yielding in it. "Then be something more than the shadow."
Alistair stared at her, the fury in his chest fading into something hollow. He wanted to hate her for her calm, for the quiet pity in her eyes, but he could not. She was still the girl in the garden, untouched by the rot of the court, speaking truth to a boy who had already begun to lie.
He stepped back. The wind stirred the roses, scattering a few petals onto the path between them. "You have made your choice, then," he said.
"I have," she replied.
Alistair nodded slowly. "Then I wish you had chosen differently."
"I wish you had given me reason to," she said softly.
For a long moment, they stood in silence. Then Alistair turned, the folds of his cloak whispering against the gravel. He walked back toward the archway, his steps measured, his heart heavier than he would ever admit.
At the gate, he paused. The sunlight had begun to fade, and the sky was streaked with pale gold. He looked back once, but Evelina had already turned away, her figure small against the vastness of the garden.
He left without another word.
In the carriage, the silence pressed around him like a weight. He removed his gloves and stared at his hands. They were steady, but his pulse was not. The words she had spoken repeated in his mind, each one cutting deeper than he expected.
Love that seeks to possess is not love.
The wheels turned, carrying him back toward the city, back toward the palace that had given him everything and nothing.
He leaned against the seat and closed his eyes. For the first time in years, Montclair felt the emptiness of what he had built. It was a kingdom of mirrors, each one reflecting the face of a man who no longer knew which image was his own.
And somewhere deep within that silence, he realized that what he felt for Evelina had never been love at all. It was the desperate ache of a man who had been living his whole life pretending to be someone else.