A Royal Rose

Chapter Thirteen

He was going to be King. I’ve kissed a King. A member of a royal family fancies me! she thought this is all too much. Those dead bodies, Easton’s father has died.

“I’m sorry, I need a minute to breathe, bye guys,” Rose said, as the thoughts became too much, she then made her excuses to leave. Meanwhile, Easton was too busy talking about details with Meredith, that he didn’t truly register that Rose was leaving so carried on chatting.

Rose got outside and breathed the cool, crisp air. She was pleased to leave so didn’t mind him not paying much attention to the fact she’d left. Plus, she wasn’t quite sure what to do or say to him in the aftermath of his father dying. Annoyingly, everything was still so raw despite it being an event from her childhood, you never get over the loss of a parent – no matter what age you are, Rose repeated in her mind her grandmother’s words.

Rose turned the corner towards her mother’s tree, all she wanted to do was talk to her mother about the whole horrific turn of events. She picked up the pace and walked home as fast as she could, the sun was setting, and she didn’t waste any time in getting back inside in case anyone decided to try to kill her too. She was home at last, urgently, she knocked on her mother’s front door. Afraid someone from the Toft would come and jump her, Rose’s heart thumped loudly in her ribcage and she looked around until her mother opened the door to her home and Rose shot inside.

Aine hugged her daughter tightly for many minutes after Rose arrived home in tears. Stroking her daughter’s hair, as they sat on the sofa – Rose cried softly into her mother’s shoulder “I’m sorry it reminded you of losing your father” Aine said softly.

Rose sat up straight and wiped away her tears “I feel terrible for him, but I got out of there as soon as I could… he didn’t need to comfort me on top of dealing with his own grief!” Rose said tearfully.

“He’ll understand, he’s a really sweet guy,” her mother told her. The letterbox opened with a loud metallic creak and the evening paper landed on Aine’s doormat “KING DEAD – MURDERED BY TOFT MERCENARIES” read the headline on the front page. Aine got up from the sofa and scooped up the paper from the mat. Opening it up, Rose could see from the sofa that there was a large picture of King Edwin in his regalia, he looked like a greying version of Easton as their smiles were so alike. Aine sat down on the sofa again, and they read through the countless pages of an obituary for the King. A collage of pictures was on one page of King Edwin throughout his life, the picture that stood out to Rose the most was the one in the centre of the page. Edwin with his arm around Easton as a teenager. Rose saw Easton’s young face smiling back at her from the newspaper page. His brown hair coiffured but shorter, his huge tooth-baring grin and the dimples either side of his smile, he was skinny as a rake, but he still looked handsome. Rose hoped he was grieving for his father rather than planning a war with the Toft to distract himself from his emotions.

Rose leant forward to the coffee table and poured herself another cup of tea from the ornate china teapot. Aine gasped, looking back over at her mother, she could see Aine had read been examining each picture in the paper.

“Look, Rose. Here’s a picture of Gabriel. Wasn’t he handsome?” her mother sighed. Picking up her cup of tea by the saucer, she sat back and looked at Gabriel’s picture in the newspaper, pale skin with jet black hair, he looked like a 1950’s singer with his quiff and deep gaze into the camera. She must have loved him deeply despite their rocky relationship, Rose thought, seeing her mother looking teary-eyed at his picture.

Reading more of the articles out loud, Rose learned a lot about the Holt’s history as she listened to her mother read. Towards the middle of the newspaper was a small article, declaring that the Holt would step up the security level and thus the army presence around it. Easton and his aides had done the right thing in Rose’s eyes, she had been fretting for most of the night that he was going to go and bomb the other Kingdom.