Hello everyone!
I just wanted to give a preemptive apology if there are more grammatical errors than normal in this chapter. I've had a horrible migraine for the past couple of days so my focus hasn't been great, but I really wanted to get a chapter up quickly since I was on vacation all week. Let me know what you think and I'll talk to you all later. 🤗
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The kiss was brief, barely a peck on the lips, but it was enough to silence both Henry and Adelaide. They stood frozen staring at one another with confused expressions and scarlet cheeks. Henry had started blinking rapidly while Adelaide, in contrast, appeared to have forgotten how to blink.
Adelaide took a tentative step away from Henry, slowly lowering her arms back to her side, while Henry remained standing where he was with his mouth slightly open. Adelaide's throat had started to feel scratchy and incredibly dry, and she desperately needed water. She had, for the moment, stopped crying, but her entire system seemed shocked beyond reasonable functioning.
Henry, too, couldn't seem to comprehend just what had happened. He tried several times to formulate a sentence only for his words to be dropped off in the space between them. He raised his hand up, though, his finger pointed as if indicating to Adelaide to give him a moment.
"I'm not sure what just happened," Henry said in a, what he probably thought, was a composed voice. His tone was too high pitched, though, and too formal to be convincing.
"Me neither," Adelaide responded, her tone sounding astonishingly similar. Everything from their postures to the sound of their words screamed awkwardness. Just hearing them talk would make anyone passing cringe with second-hand embarrassment.
"You kissed me," Henry stated, still using the fake tone of voice. His body was incredibly stiff and his blinking continued to be alarming fast and a little disturbing. Adelaide backed away one more step up the staircase looking at anything but Henry.
"Did I?" Adelaide squeaked, forcing out a choppy, unrealistic laugh. Her arms were behind her back in the hopes of giving the impression of a relaxed demeanor, but everything else about Adelaide looked bewildered and uncertain. It was clear her actions were just as shocking to her as they were to Henry.
"I'm not sure how to process what happened," continued Henry. His voice had somewhat begun to return to normal, but Adelaide noted that he had started speaking to her in the same way he spoke to the guards and soldiers around the castle.
"Me neither," repeated Adelaide. Henry shot her a look that made her want to smile. It was an expression of disbelief he usually showed when someone refused to give the response he wanted.
"Are you even going to attempt an explanation?" He asked clearly annoyed. Adelaide could only sigh a little. At least he had stopped being angry. She could deal with him being shocked a lot better.
"Do you really need an explanation?" Adelaide asked honestly while fiddling with her hands. She knew he wouldn't drop the subject but she secretly hoped he'd be willing to forget what just happened if she refused to give a straight answer.
"Do you like me?" Henry blurted, making Adelaide's face resume a humiliating scarlet color. Her reaction, of course, made Henry's face turn red again as well, and for several minutes they stood blushing at one another, occasionally clearing their throats awkwardly. "Up until a few hours ago, I still thought you were a guy, so I'm not entirely sure how to handle all this."
Adelaide didn't say anything, just merrily nodded her head in understanding. With the atmosphere suffocatingly weird between them, the two silently nodded their heads to one another and turned in opposite directions slowly. Henry turned back, though, ready to say something, but only managed to catch the image of Adelaide sprinting up the stairs and around the corner. His mouth was hanging open in an unsaid sentence that his brain had still been trying to formulate.
Adelaide, during Henry's momentarily lapse, had begun darting up and down the staircases of the castle, sprinting around the corridors and through the numerous halls. Several people attempted a greeting only to be blown off by a frazzled and panicked looking Adelaide. One of the many witnesses was Kayden, who was brushed off before his hand could fully come up to a waving position. His eyebrow cocked curiously and without thinking, he began sprinting after her. The pair were rather comical as they ran through the castle. To anyone looking at them from the outside, it would appear as if they were playing tag, although they were much too old for such a game.
Adelaide didn't have great stamina and she very quickly needed to rest. She took shelter in a broom closet, sinking to her knees and burying her face in her arms. Kayden arrived almost immediately after her, not looking even a tiny bit winded. Adelaide only noticed him once he had shut the door and taken a seat across from her. The closet was rather small and there was barely room for the two of them to sit comfortably. It was also dark, with only a tiny sliver of light seeping through the bottom crack of the doorframe.
After a long silence, Adelaide hesitantly raised her head to look at Kayden who was watching her with his typical degree of interest. His grey eyes almost appeared to glow in the dark, and Adelaide could feel her stomach flip at their intensity. She also noted that his mouth was pulled into an almost signature smirk. He always appeared as if he was laughing or about to laugh whenever Adelaide saw him. It usually put her to ease. Right now, though, it just pissed her off.
"What do you want?" Adelaide snapped, the harshness of her voice startling both of them. Her volume was also unfitting for the small space and echoed loudly around the pair. Adelaide shrunk back from the sound of her voice and instantly looked regretful.
"What's wrong?" Kayden asked, not bothering to get upset at how she had spoken to him. He was fairly certain Adelaide could push him down a flight of stairs and he would still be unable to get angry with her. Adelaide shook her head, resisting the urge to unload her worries. Even just recalling the incident to herself was humiliating, her face instantly flaring up at the memory. She felt her ears burn and her headache painfully. Her eyes, too, still stung from all the crying and her chest constricted unbearably tight, making even breathing difficult.
Kayden moved closer to her, pulling her arms away from her face so that she was forced to look at him. He couldn't help but think how child-like she looked sitting in front of him. Her hair was a sweaty mess around her head and her eyes were large and red, traces of tears still on her cheeks. Her lips were puffy and red, and she looked shockingly small with her legs tucked to her chest.
"Did something happen with Henry?" Kayden asked in a quiet tone of voice. Another long silence followed before Adelaide nodded her head. She tried to avoid eye-contact with Kayden, but a slight tug on her arms brought her attention back to him. "Did you tell him?"
Adelaide didn't need to think hard about what Kayden was referring too.
"Not intentionally," Adelaide whispered, whipping her face with the sleeve of her shirt. Kayden moved back a little from her as her body relaxed and also released her arms, forcing his mind not to think about how thin her wrists had been within his grasp. "He accidentally found out while I was changing," she whispered.
Kayden's body immediately froze and his entire spine went erect. He coughed loudly and blinked several times at an alarming rate that had Adelaide a tiny bit freaked out. Her eyes, in response, also went wide as she waited for him to regain his composure.
"W-what did he say?" Kayden forced out, still coughing gruffly. Adelaide, alarmed, waited until his coughing subsided to re-shift herself into a more comfortable position.
"He didn't really say anything," Adelaide said with a shrug of her shoulders. "He ran from the room, actually."
Kayden paused as he pictured a bewildered Henry running after seeing Adelaide changing. He wasn't sure why, but the picture formed oddly in his mind and he couldn't quite formulate why Henry would run. Most men, after all, when observing a woman changing, would stop and admire the sight, not run away from it. Then again, Henry was as innocent as they came. Kayden was fairly certain the young man had never even pictured a woman naked before or even in any particular embrace. Henry was always far too concerned with reclaiming England to consider romance or love.
"Give it time, Adelaide," Kayden encouraged, patting Adelaide on the head. She cocked her head to the side at his actions and smiled a little. He felt his stomach twist, however, at the look in her eyes. He remembered faintly seeing a similar look exchanged between Anthony and his younger sister. Kayden suddenly wanted to throw up. Or punch something. He wasn't entirely sure which feeling was stronger. "Henry will come around. You two are inseparable, after all. I can't imagine anything being able to pull the two of you apart."
"Not even my confession of love to him?" Adelaide mumbled. Again, Kayden froze. His coughing resumed, loudly and uncontrollably, but was now accompanied by a red, hot surge of jealousy that seemed ready to burn his throat and shred his insides. He had to fan his shirt hastily and dab at his forehead profusely to even regain a semblance of sanity.
"W-what?" He stuttered again. His vision was slightly spotted and Kayden blinked rapidly to try and see through his anger. Adelaide felt her face burn scarlet for the millionth time and her shoulders slacken. The sensation of embarrassment was exhausting and Adelaide was gradually growing weary of it. That exhaustion, unfortunately, was leading her tongue astray.
"Nothing!" She blurted waving her hands in front of her face in hopes of distracting Kayden. She, however, ended up slipping and landed firmly on her butt. She groaned loudly and rubbed the now sore spot gingerly. Kayden, meanwhile, still looked to be fighting to gain control of his body.
"You told him you loved him?" Kayden finally managed to shout back, his face a horrid mixture of anger and confusion.
"Well, not directly," Adelaide unintentionally shouted back. "I just kissed him, is all."
"You kissed him?" Responded the soldier, in another booming tone of voice.
"Will you stop shouting?" Adelaide retorted, smacking Kayden on the chest. The action had momentarily stunned him and he sat back against the wall of the cupboard mute. "It's not like you didn't already know how I felt about Henry."
Kayden's brows furrowed at Adelaide's words. "What do you mean?" He said in a much more contained voice this time. Adelaide rolled her eyes and also leaned against the wall heavily, the red of her cheeks fading to a soft pink.
"Please," Adelaide said with a wave of her hand as if the notion of Kayden not understanding her was ludicrous. "You've always given me the impression you knew exactly how I felt about Henry. I realized it a few years back after the three of us and a few more guards went out for an evening horseback ride."
Kayden waited for Adelaide to continue and she just sighed at his silence.
"It was the late afternoon and we were all tired and needed a rest. Henry went off on his own to the stream and you told me, and I quote, 'why don't you go join him? I'll make sure you both have some time to yourselves.' Now, normally, I would have just taken that to mean you were granting Henry and me the rare opportunity to have a little freedom out from under the watchful gazes of the other soldiers. However, the way you looked at me and the way you spoke was suggestive." Adelaide scrunched up her nose and wiggled it as if the memory was putting her into a sour mood. "To me, it was as if you were telling a young couple they could run off for some private, uninterrupted moments together. That's when I first figured you thought Henry and I were in love with one another."
Kayden opened his mouth to respond, but Adelaide held up a firm hand and cut off his words.
"The more time that passed, the more confident I was that you knew how I felt. It also seemed, that along the way, you came to understand that my feelings weren't reciprocated by Henry. I remember you started treating me very gently then, which I guess was your way of consoling me and my one-sided affection," Adelaide said with a bitter smile and a half-laugh, half-scoff. Kayden was stunned again into silence. His mouth hung open a little and he blinked several times as his brain worked to understand what she had just said to him. Eventually, Kayden managed to shake himself back into the present and leaned forward on his knees. He scoffed a little in bewilderment and amazement and looked up at Adelaide as if she was the most astonishing thing he'd ever laid eyes on.
"You're smarter than you look," he said after much contemplation. Adelaide just shrugged her shoulders in an attempt to hide the small smile at the corners of her mouth.
"You're wrong about one detail, though," Kayden said holding up a single finger and smirking.
"And what's that?" Mused Adelaide.
"I didn't start treating you gently because I thought your feelings were one-sided. I had always known that you were in love alone," explained Kayden rather harshly. Adelaide frowned.
"Then why were you so sweet to me?" Adelaide persisted. "You were always so mindful of me, and checked up on me regularly. I always thought it came out of pity."
Kayden swallowed his words impulsively. For so long he had wanted to tell her about the uncontrollable desire he had to protect her. How, for ages, he had been drawn to her like a moth to a flame, scorched each time he got too close. He wanted to tell her how attracted he was to her. How desperate he was to get to know her intimately. He had kept the feelings secret for so long that their ache had become a familiar numbness.
But Kayden knew that piece of information would be too much for her. Adelaide was already overwhelmed, discovering the truth to how Kayden had been looking at her all these years, how he had always looked at her, would just further confuse her.
"Well?" inquired Adelaide, impatiently.
"in truth," Kayden paused. "I figured out you were a girl. It didn't feel right treating you roughly after that."
The lie came out smoothly and convincingly. It was partly based on the truth, which Kayden supposed helped made it more convincing. In actuality, he had always just theorized that Arthur was really a female. He was never confident in his speculations, and it didn't really matter what the truth was anyway. He was still drawn to her regardless, no matter what he did to fight the urge.
"Really?" Adelaide's eyes were wide in surprise but her body had leaned forward on eagerness at the revelation. " I had always thought I hid it so well."
"you did," continued Kayden with an exaggerative nod of his head. He crossed his arms firmly and tries to play off his usual smirk.
"Why didn't you say anything?" Adelaide prodded.
"Never felt right," Kayden said with what he hoped was a convincing shrug. "I had always figured you had your reasons for hiding the truth."
After that, Adelaide didn't say anything else. She just merrily nodded her head in understanding and sat back calmly with her hands now folded in her lap. She had stretched out her legs comfortably and appeared to be staring intently at a crack in the wall.
"Thank you for talking with me," she finally said. Kayden, lost for words, just nodded and watched her stand. He half-bowed, half-waved her out of the room. He sighed loudly once the door was closed behind her. He slumped down to the floor and before it could occur to him how strange it was to be laying in a closet, alone and on the floor, he was asleep.