Falling For You [Tom Hiddleston]

47

Tom's POV

Too wound up to sit still, I meandered about the room, taking in its ambience. I couldn't recall being in this particular room the last time I was here, but it had the same comforting, lived-in feel to it that most of the rooms in my own house lacked. That was the difference between a house and a home, I suppose.

Trying not to allow my thoughts to turn maudlin, I turned my attention to the far wall, which  was almost completely covered in a rather eclectic display of picture frames made up of assorted sizes, colors and styles. Drifting closer, I began to skim over them, not even realizing that I was subconsciously searching for Claire - until I found her, that is. 

But it was where I found her that gave me pause; Claire was Kara's best friend, therefore one would naturally expect her presence in Kara's pictures - not James'. But Kara had described her husband as a career soldier...and I now that I knew Claire had served for several years as well, perhaps it wasn't such a stretch that they'd served together at some point?

I stared at the photo of five soldiers in the desert posed with their weapons: Claire was in the middle, surrounded by James and three other men, one of whom looked eerily similar to her belated fiancé.

Again and again, Claire featured in various pictures with these same four men, some of their candid shots so absurd that I caught myself laughing aloud at them. I only shook my head in disbelief when I saw one of their little group with Prince Harry; surely nothing could surprise me anymore when it came to Claire.

Clearly, I had that thought a moment too soon because the very next photo set me back on my heels. Sliding my mobile from my pocket, I quickly snapped a picture of it and sent it to Luke without preamble; I couldn't wait to hear this explanation. While it was an innocuous group photo like the others, featuring James and a half dozen other men...it also had Luke Windsor with his arm around the shoulders of a much younger Claire.

As I stared at the picture again, I considered sending it to Claire as well, but quickly decided not to since she was already avoiding me and it probably wouldn't be wise to give her another reason to do so.

Now that I was looking for Luke, I noticed he was in a fair amount of them, making me wonder if he was in fact related to James; Windsor was a common enough surname that I'd long ago ceased to ask him about connections. But Luke was a chronic over-sharer, so I found it very odd indeed that he'd never once mentioned the fact that he knew Kara before she'd attended Megan's concert with us...unless he thought that he'd told me that already?

But neither Claire nor Luke had ever mentioned that they knew each other, instead acting like they'd never seen each other before I'd introduced them - which was very clearly not the case. 

The next picture hit me like a load of bricks; I hadn't expected Claire's engagement photo to be mixed in among James' pictures. I exhaled slowly; despite knowing what happened, the sight of Claire gazing as lovingly at him as she did hurt no less than the first time.

"That was taken at their engagement do," Kara said quietly, startling me; I hadn't heard her approach me. "Our Jacob might have been a Kingsley in name, but when it came down to it, he was a Windsor in every way that mattered."

I turned to look at her. "I read somewhere that he had no close family."

Kara snorted. "And you believe everything you read in the broadsheets?"

I shook my head. "Hardly."

"Aye, while his birth parents might have passed on, Jacob Kingsley didn't lack for family, Tom," she said firmly. "He and James were like brothers, they were."