Chapter 347: This Changes Your Standing

Livia slowly pieced it together. "So my mother... She was the king’s mistress?"

"Yes."

All her life, she had believed one story. Now, it was being torn apart and replaced with another that sounded too extraordinary to belong to her.

She was the illegitimate daughter of a king. "What does this mean for us?"

"If you acknowledge Alessandro publicly as your father, then our marriage becomes a royal marriage, a matter of diplomacy between England and Italy."

"Does it change anything? Does this mean it will take longer?"

"God, no. I cannot wait another day, never mind several more weeks. I made that perfectly clear to the archbishop."

Whatever treaties, titles or political agreements now had to be dragged into their marriage, Henry had no intention of allowing any of them to postpone it.

"This changes your standing. Perhaps how England sees you. It does not change us. Would you want to meet him? Your father?"

"I don’t..." Livia stopped and let out a long breath. "All right."

"You have not exactly come to terms with what this means, have you?"

She frowned. "What?"

"My love, you are a princess by blood." Henry’s mouth curved. "Bella always did think there was something wrong with you."

The mention of Bella pinched somewhere deep, but the joke was so very Henry that Livia still gave him an incredulous look.

Henry helped her to her feet.

The moment she was standing, Livia looked at him again.

"How did this happen, Henry?"

"After the assassination attempt, I sent word to Italy demanding an explanation. They were given a fairly simple choice. Explain why an assassin bearing their markings entered England, or prepare for war. So the king came himself," Henry continued. "He arrived last night. I met with him this morning and..." He spread one hand. "Here we are."

Livia pressed her fingers to her forehead. "This is insane."

"I have had stranger mornings."

"I have to get back to the Abbey before someone notices I am missing."

Henry stepped closer. "It will be fine, my love. I only need to have you returned before dawn. Whatever must be done, we do tonight." He was entirely serious.

There would be no sleeping on this revelation, no sensible period in which she might sit quietly and understand that the father she had believed abandoned her was not her father at all, while her actual father was a king.

"You realise ordinary people are permitted time to process things?"

"You are about to become Queen of England. Ordinary has abandoned you."

Livia exhaled. "All right."

Henry stepped back into the chamber and tugged the bell-pull.

Stephen appeared not long afterwards. "Your Majesty?"

"Clear the necessary passages and courtyard. Lady Livia is leaving Whitehall, and I want no one seeing her."

"Of course, sire."

Within a short while, everything was arranged.

Henry kept Livia close as they left his lodgings and made their way under guard to the residence where Alessandro had been lodged. By the time they were shown into a private withdrawing chamber to await him, Livia could barely keep her hands still.

They trembled openly now.

He moved in front of her and rested both hands gently on her shoulders. "Look at me. This changes nothing about who you are, Livia. You are still the same woman who walked into my life and made it impossible. You remain you."

Livia nodded, though she was not certain she believed that yet.

A sound came from beyond the chamber doors. The doors opened.

King Alessandro stepped through.

Livia slowly pulled away from Henry.

"You look just like your mother," Alessandro breathed.

Every lesson in court manners abandoned her. She simply stood there staring at him, at the man Henry had told her was her father, trying to understand how someone she had never seen before could look at her with such recognition.

Then instinct returned.

She lowered herself into a curtsy. "Your Majesty."

"The king told me some of what you have been through," he said quietly. "He told me enough. I did not know you existed. You must believe me. I would have loved you. I would have claimed you as mine."

Livia remained where she was.

The distance between them suddenly felt necessary.

"I was told Elena had run away," he said. "That she had left court and wanted nothing more to do with me. Every attempt I made to find her ended with some grave report." His mouth tightened. "At least now I understand why. Bellaforte never made any true effort to find her."

Livia swallowed. "I thought he was my father. I have spent all these years believing I was not wanted."

Alessandro moved one step closer. "You are wanted. If you were not already tied to the King of England. I would take you away from here tomorrow. I would bring you home, put a crown upon your head and let you pass judgment on every person who ever wronged you. I am so sorry, Livia."

She looked away.

Sorry could not return her childhood. It could not undo the hands that had treated her as property.

But somehow, knowing that she had not been abandoned by him loosened the feeling of abandonment she had carried for most of her life.

She looked back at Alessandro. "Tell me something. Anything. Something that makes sense. Just anything about my mother."

"She used to call me Blue."

Livia frowned through the tears already gathering in her eyes. "Blue?"

"Because of my eyes." A faint smile touched his mouth. "She said she had never seen that shade before and decided Alessandro was too formal when we were alone. I wondered why she chose your name. Perhaps it was simply her way of keeping some private piece of me with her. Something only she understood. Livia is Latin for blue."

His gaze lowered briefly. "She had something to remember me by. I had nothing. Until now."

Livia’s eyes burned. "Papa..." she sobbed.

"Bambina." Alessandro remained where he was, though every part of him seemed to ache to close the distance between them.