Chapter 19

Emil had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the day. This is because he simply had nothing to say about the situation to anyone around him. Nothing to say to Barkley who came to wake him in the morning from his restless sleep, while giving him a sympathetic look. Nothing to say to his mother as she dressed him up for the ceremony and carefully did his hair, all while chatting on and on about his bride to be. Nothing to say to his father as he gave him a stern talking to, warning Emil against screwing anything up for them, except to say ‘yes sir’ when required.

He had stood quietly at the altar which had been set up in the estate garden, for once the picture of obedience. Watched sombrely as his bride was walked down the aisle on the arm of her father. This was Emil’s first time even seeing her at all. She was pretty, just as his mother had said. With bright blue eyes and wavy auburn hair, freckles spotted her rosy cheeks just as they did Emil’s. Their children would certainly be bright eyed, curly haired and freckled. And pretty, that was for sure.

Her name was Juliana, from the Ashdown noble family which lived on the other side of the kingdom. Though in a moment she would be Juliana Rosenthorne, he supposed. She was looking around at the gathered audience of their two families, smiling at them cheerily. Finally, she looked up at her groom, and when their eyes met, Emil tried to read her face to see what she thought of him, or what she felt about this whole situation. 

Her smile had dropped away for a moment in a brief look of surprise when she looked at him. Then the corners of her eyes creased with the smile when it returned to her lips. Well, it seemed that she was pleased enough with him at least. At least one of them might have hope of being happy about this arrangement.

The rest of the ceremony felt like a blur to Emil. Vows were spoken, though he felt like he could barely hear anything, and he gently kissed her on her brightly coloured, soft lips and felt… absolutely nothing. And then there was polite applause, and the pair of them were bustled inside for the traditional celebratory feast. Emil sat next to his wife at the table and spoke not a word to her, or barely anyone else unless directly addressed. He gave short answers, stopping any attempts of conversation with him dead in its tracks. He saw Juliana look at him with concern.

And then, somehow, the day was ending, and he was suddenly in the bedroom with her. Alone.

He carefully assisted her in unbuttoning and unlacing her wedding dress, his movements so stiff that he felt like some sort of stone golem. Once she was stripped down to her frilly undergarments she went and sat on the bed as he methodically pulled off his own clothing, folding it up and placing it on top of his dresser. Once he was dressed in naught but his own undergarments, he approached the bed.

Juliana looked up at him with her large pretty eyes as he sat down on the edge of the bed, facing slightly away from her. He rallied his courage, then pulled his legs up on the mattress and turned towards her, searching her expression.

“What is wrong, husband?” she asked in such a soft and gentle tone. “Am I not pretty enough for you?”

Emil let a short, sharp exhale of air out of his nose at that. “No, no, you are beautiful, really,” he said truthfully, giving her a weary smile.

“Then what is the matter?” she pressed, giving him a doleful look.

“I'm just… nervous…” he admitted, glancing away from her.

“It’s alright, we can take it slow,” she reassured, gently cupping his chin in one of her delicate hands.

“You say that as if from a place of experience with these sorts of things,” he said mirthfully. “Aren’t you supposed to be a virgin?”

“What my parents don’t know won’t hurt them,” she said with a small smirk, an expression which clashed with the quiet and gentle nature he had assumed of her up until this point. “Are you one?”

“Hardly,” Emil huffed in response, returning the smirk. “I’ve just… never done it with a woman before…” As soon as the words left his mouth, he internally cursed himself. Why was he telling his wife this, on their wedding night no less?

“Oh!” she exclaimed, pulling her hand away to press it and her other over her mouth as she stared at him in surprise. “You’re…” she trailed off, and then burst into giggles behind her hands.

Emil felt his cheeks start burning with embarrassment. He tried to say something, but the words died in his throat, leaving his mouth gaping slightly like a fish. This only made Juliana laugh even harder, and Emil snapped his mouth shut and ducked his head in shame.

“Oh no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry dear,” Juliana said, reaching out a hand to place on Emil’s shoulder as a gesture of comfort. “It’s just so funny because… well… I’m in the same boat as you, so to say.”

Emil slowly tilted his head to look up at her, brows furrowed in confusion. “Wh… What?” was all he could manage to push out, not certain if he was correctly interpreting her meaning.

Juliana laughed again, such a bright tinkling sound. “You like men, right? Well, I only like women,” she explained plainly, smiling at him again.

“You… you do?” he asked in disbelief, giving her an earnest look.

She let out a small giggle and nodded. “I have to say, I was quite relieved when I saw you, since you look so much like a girl. I thought I could try to pretend in my mind that you were one.”

Emil snorted out a laugh in response to that. “I don’t know how easy it would be for me to pretend you are a guy… but I do like effeminate men…” he said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. This made Juliana crack up again, which had been Emil’s intention, and he smiled along as she laughed.

“Did you refuse all your suitors as well?” Emil asked once she had composed herself again.

Juliana nodded, wiping some stray tears of laughter from her eyes. “Ugh, you should have seen some of the muscle headed men they tried to set me up with! That or pretty boy poncy narcissistic nobles… no offence.”

Emil stifled a laugh at that comment. “Why, I don’t know what you are complaining about! I would have loved to have been set up with some big rippling muscle knight, or even a pretty boy noble. All I got offered was meek ladies that would make good obedient wives, with personalities as deep as puddles.”

“Well, I don’t completely envy you there. I prefer strong women myself. What I wouldn’t give for some lady knight to come along and sweep me away,” Juliana said wistfully, clasping her hands together and staring off into the distance while batting her lashes, clearly playing up the bit for comedic value.

“Well unfortunately our parents don’t really care what we want,” Emil muttered dejectedly. “Mine wants heirs to the house, and nothing else matters to them. I had my big muscular knight and my pretty boy noble… but now I’ll probably never get to see them again…”

“Wow, two lovers? You must be quite the catch Mr Rosenthorne,” Juliana teased, a smile dancing on her lips.

“Heh, well apparently if you try to kill a man’s boyfriend enough times, they both fall in love with you?” Emil joked while blushing lightly, eyes downturned.

“Emil, darling… you simply must explain to me what that means!” Juliana demanded, wearing a bemused expression.

And thus, the pair of them talked into the night, Emil relaying most of the events of his time spent as a castle guard to his new wife, mainly leaving out the part about the vampires. In return she conveyed to him some of her own escapades, flouting her parents’ strict rules as she snuck out of the house to visit her lovers in town, much like Emil himself had when he was a teenager.

In the wee hours of the morning, they lay on the bed together, side by side, smiling and laughing. But eventually the conversation started to peter out, and Emil’s mind was drawn back to the reason why they were sharing a bed in the first place. He rolled over on his side and propped himself up on his elbow as he looked at his wife.

“I… I don’t think I can do it, Julie,” he admitted anxiously. “I mean, I like you a lot, even though we have only just met but… not like that… not enough to…”

She reached out and put a hand on his cheek, making a shushing sound as she looked up at him with those huge bright eyes. “It’s okay Emil. We don’t have to. We can just tell them we did. No one will know any better.”

“But… what about the children they expect us to have?” Emil asked worriedly.

“Perhaps I am barren?” she offered with a smirk. “Or maybe one day you’ll be able to do it. But it doesn’t have to be today, if you're not ready for it.”

Emil sighed deeply. “Thanks Julie… how lucky I am that they paired us up together, of all people.”

She smiled back at him wistfully. “A lot of arranged marriages like this don’t involve romantic or even sexual attraction… they are often about compromise. If you can get along well with your spouse, well, even better. So, are you ready to play house, Emil?”

****

Juliana was a lot of fun. She was so much more interesting than any other noble girl Emil had met before. She had such a bright personality that could light up any space with just her presence. If he had been interested in women at all, Emil could have seen himself falling in love with her.

In short, the pair of them got along famously. Emil found Juliana so easy to talk to, and they would spend time together sitting on his bed doing each other’s hair and makeup for the day while chatting away like they were old friends. They would do all your typical noble people stuff together, such as going for walks around the estate gardens under the shade of a frilly parasol while talking and giggling, sitting in politely on fancy dinners with the Rosenthorne’s guests, riding horses across the rolling hillsides surrounding the estate.

They appeared to get along so well together in fact that Emil’s parents seemed to assume it was a perfectly happy marriage. “See Emil, you just had to find the right girl,” they would say to him smugly. He would just roll his eyes at them and nod, and they seemed to assume he was just being cheeky rather than obstinate. It suited Emil just fine for his parents to think that all was going to plan for them.

Meanwhile, Emil and Julie would often ask to retire to their room early of an evening. Camilla would give them a knowing smile, or at least, what she would think was a knowing smile, as Emil supposed she assumed they were deep in the throes of passion in the bedroom every night. But nothing could really be further from the truth.

Emil had appropriated a proper length of rope, which he kept hidden in the bedroom in a place where the servants were unlikely to look. And most evenings he would tie it to his balcony railing and he and his wife would scale it down the side of the house to land softly in the garden. At first Emil had been surprised at the deftness in which Julie had managed the rope, and she had smiled at him and said she had a lot of practice back home. Then they had stolen away into the night.

They wore hooded cloaks when they snuck into town, in a bid to not be so easily recognised. The first time Julie met the jester and the knight in the tavern she had been delighted. She had squished Thedrick’s cheeks, called him adorable, and said Emil had told her all about them while grinning. Beowulf had held Emil close on his lap, refusing to let go, as if Emil might just disappear if he did so. They had talked and drank well into the night, though Beowulf had much less than the rest of them, perhaps wary after what happened the last time he had gotten drunk. Trying to pry the big guy off him at the end of the night had been difficult for Emil, giving him many reassurances that he would be there again for their next planned meeting in a couple of days' time.

The next time they met up, the group of them attempted to scope out some of the local ladies for Juliana, Emil acting as her wingman. Not that she necessarily needed it, as the girl was brimming with confidence. It wasn’t long before she ended up making out with a barmaid behind the tavern. This gave Emil a chance to be affectionate with Beowulf and Thedrick as well, though the big guy was already holding the noble in his arms at any chance he got.

Beowulf had told Emil about how much they had missed him back at the castle. He said that Maerwynn kept asking after ‘stinky’, demanding to know when her playmate would be coming back to play with her again. It filled Emil’s heart with a strange sort of warmth and a slight ache to know how he was genuinely cared for and missed.

One night, when Emil and Juliana had been stealing their way through the garden, they had run directly into Barkley. They had both stared at the head servant in fear, while he had stared back at them in surprise. Then he smiled, and gave them a wink, before walking away without saying a word.

“Is he going to tell your parents?” Julie had asked in a panicked, hushed tone as the two of them stood frozen in bewilderment.

Emil let out a breath he had been holding, then smirked and shook his head. “I… I don’t think he will. Barkley has always been good to me… and turned a blind eye to my various escapades…” What Emil left unsaid was the fact that the head servant had been the only one to ever try to comfort him when he was upset throughout his adolescence. That the man had acted like more of a father than Elric ever had. That Emil trusted him, or at least wanted to.

They had decided to retreat that night, climb back up the rope and lay in bed, just in case… just in case a servant was sent to check on them, or one of Emil’s parents themselves. Because as much as Emil wanted to trust Barkley, he was also paranoid about getting caught. He didn’t know what his parents would do if they found out he and Julie were sneaking out. Lock the balcony door and set up guards, perhaps. Make sure Emil could never see Beowulf and Thedrick again.

But no one came bursting into their room that night, and they fell asleep together anxiously waiting for it to happen. They were extra careful after that, leaving it until even later in the evening before sneaking out the next time. Beowulf had been so upset the next time he saw Emil, explaining that he thought something terrible must have happened to him to miss their last meeting. Emil had calmly explained the situation to the big guy, and how they might need to reduce the frequency of their meetings, to avoid any suspicion.

Emil wasn’t sure how long this could go on for. Beowulf kept on talking as if the situation was temporary, as if the noble would eventually be back in the castle with them as if nothing had ever happened. But it was starting to sink in for Emil that this was his life now, that he was only ever going to get to see his lovers via sneaking out, at least until his parents died and he took over the estate. And given that his parents were not exactly old, that was going to likely be quite a long time off. And it was unfair on the jester and the knight to keep them waiting on him forever.

Perhaps Emil could learn to accept, and even enjoy his life with Juliana. They got along very well after all; it wasn’t as though he hated spending time with her. Though he still wasn’t sure he would ever be able to bring himself to make a child with her, but perhaps they could find some way around that.

However, Emil didn’t get a chance to ever figure that out.

One morning after he had spent the night out with Beowulf and Thedrick, he was summoned into his father’s study. He felt dread in the pit of his stomach, which only grew as Barkley gestured him in through the door and shot him a look of sympathy. Emil tried to steel his nerves as he stepped up in front of his father’s desk. Something was about to go down; he could feel it.

“Emil,” his father said emotionlessly, his back turned to his son as he faced his fireplace.

“What is it, father?” Emil prompted after a long moment of silence, feeling a lump building in his throat.

“I met with Lord Badeaux the other day,” Elric stated, still keeping his back to his son. “He told me something very interesting. That his servant told him that they saw you in a tavern in the evening last week.”

Emil’s stomach dropped.