The King's Lover-Chapter 435: Duke of Hartfield

Rose gripped her bag tightly as she approached her carriage. Thomas opened the door and helped her into it. She got comfortable and peeked out the window, but there was still no movement from the other carriage.

Not even when her carriage started to move. Rose kept straining to see but didn’t see anything useful in the cover of darkness. Eventually, she gave up and leaned back to see Thomas giving her an odd look.

"Do you know who was in that carriage?" Rose blurted.

"Why?" He sounded more concerned than suspicious.

"I don’t know," she mumbled. "But it felt as though they were looking at me."

"That wouldn’t be surprising. I think the carriage belonged to Lord Nicholas. I have run into it a few times here, especially when His Highness was... Never mind." Thomas suddenly stopped when he realized he was speaking more than he should.

"I don’t think I know who that is," she mumbled.

"He is a very important lord, the Duke of Hartfield, and he is my mother’s brother."

"What?"

Thomas shrugged. "We don’t have any relationship and have never spoken."

"I see," Rose mumbled, unsure how she should pry, Thomas seemed pretty closed up about the topic. "And your mother?" Rose asked.

"She is in Hartfield. I try to visit when I can."

There was a reason Thomas and his uncle didn’t have a close relationship. His mother was the eldest, but though she was the firstborn of the Duke of Hartfield, she couldn’t be the lord of the land.

His grandfather, in a bid to appease her, had said that if she should have a son before Nicholas did, he would be the next heir after Nicholas. His uncle had not liked this very much, and the strain between them only grew worse over the years. It also didn’t help that his mother had made sure to have a child as soon as she could.

Lord Nicholas was still without an heir of his own, which only solidified the fact that, regardless of Thomas’s grandfather’s wishes, Thomas would still end up being the next duke.

Thomas wasn’t bothered by his uncle’s indifference towards him. His mother had always told him his uncle was jealous of him and angry that Thomas would take his place. With his uncle staying mainly in the capital, there was hardly any reason for interaction, and even when he moved here, not much changed.

He could understand why the carriage would have unnerved Rose, but he didn’t see it as anything out of the ordinary, as this was his uncle’s usual approach. He avoided all contact with Thomas, and Thomas did the same in accordance with his mother’s request.

He had never really thought too deeply about his uncle’s situation. He always knew he was going to be the next duke and has always been treated in this manner.

"Are you two close?" Rose asked.

Thomas simply nodded; he knew she was asking about his mother. "Yes."

There was a somber air in the carriage, and even in the darkness, Thomas could almost guess her expression as she thought about her mother. It was not hard to realize who she was thinking about as she looked out the carriage windows.

Conversation trickled, and soon enough they were at the castle once again, and the dread that Rose had been ignoring came crawling back. The gates sounded unnecessarily loud as they were led into the castle compound, and Rose realized that if someone appeared and gave her a chance to escape this situation, regardless of what the price was, she was confident she would agree to it.

The carriage moved to the side entrance and came to a slow stop. Thomas exited first, and Rose couldn’t hide her hesitancy as Thomas stretched out his hand toward her.

She reluctantly stretched out one hand while the other clutched the bag. He carefully helped her out of the carriage before leading her into the castle.

The castle was pretty quiet and dimly lit. Rose followed after him quickly. Thomas took the hint and briskly led her to her room so she wouldn’t have to spend too long outside.

When they approached the stairs leading to her floor, Rose got even more anxious. She had run into the princess on this path just earlier; who was to say she wouldn’t again? Just because the princess had been kind enough to ignore her once didn’t mean that would remain the same next time.

Rose rushed up the stairs, and if she didn’t fear that she might lose her footing and probably cause more commotion than she wanted, she would have run up them. She let out a sigh of relief when they got to the door of her chambers and there was no sign of anyone, only the guards that usually watched the hallway.

"Thank you, Lord Thomas," Rose was saying as she stretched her hand to turn the handle. Her smile quickly turned to horror as the door wouldn’t budge.

Rose tried again, wondering if she hadn’t done it right, but she couldn’t unlock it. It was pretty clear it was locked. She looked at Thomas in horror and he gestured for her to step aside so he could try, but before he could move, the door unlocked, opened in their faces and a hand stretched out to grab her.

Caius pulled her inside and shut the door, not caring to explain to Thomas, but the latter had clearly seen the crown prince before the door slammed. He stared at the door for a moment while a series of expressions passed across his face before he turned on his heel and left.

Rose was locked between the closed door and Caius’s hard chest. "Your Majesty," she mumbled as she grabbed her bag tighter and looked down.

She could hear Caius’s loud breathing above her head. She shut her eyes as she waited for what he was going to do. But Caius didn’t do anything; he just stood there, staring hard at her.

Eventually, she slowly lifted her head to look at him, meeting his gaze, and Caius had a pained expression on his face. Rose couldn’t comprehend why he was looking at her like that when he was the one treating her as he did.