🌷The Duke and The Widow🌷

{34}The Song

🌷Chapter 34🌷
The Song

"Good day, dear mother."
"Ashton, my handsome boy!" Priscilla enveloped her son in a long, loving embrace.
"How have you been?"
"I've been well mother. Just caught up in my duties, is all."
"You'd make such a fine King. Just habe to wait for that old fart to die." She grumbled beneath her breath. "Now what brings you here, love?"
"I'm curious. Do you know of Howard's mother?"
"Of course I do!" She blurted out, forgetting of the many attendants all around her.

"Get out!"  She pointed for the door and they all rushed into a single file to take their leave, closing the door behind them.

She exhaled.

"The last time I mentioned her, he threatened to send me back home in a hearse."
"I do recall hearing him say that." Ashton thought.

"Hmph, the little bitch thought she can outclass me? And to think she had all Bartholomew's attention. Witch."

"Mother." He chastised, not quite accustomed hearing his mother use such foul language.

"Sorry sweetheart, the mother-tongue just takes over sometimes." She chuckled.

"So she died in childbirth, couldn't handle it. The wife before her, forgot her name."

"Princess Lucinda.Warrick's mother."

"Well her son was a few months old at the time. So she offered to breastfeed him. Wouldn't have done that even if he paid me. My bosoms are to nourish noble bodies, like yourself."

"So that is all?"

"Yes. Once upon a time, didn't like her, she died—the end." She smiled ingenuinely.

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Luella sat in her chamber before the harp with chipped nails and sore, red fingertips. Her manuscripts splodged with drops of black ink. She sat there for hours on that little stool she was sure it had infused to her buttocks. She just couldn't understand, if music always calmed her down, why is it making her frustrated?
"Is anything the matter, my lady?" Asked Aubrey as he wntered the room.
"I fear so. For I have become one with the stool. I've been sitting here for ages but can't seem to find the perfect harmony."
"Perhaps you've been trying too hard." He took her by the hand and and brought her to her feet, drawing her close to him.
"How can one hear the song, with all the noise going on in their head?"
She sighed into his embrace.

"I hear it now." The sound of his heart syncing with hers, the clacking of the bangles on her wrist, the rustling of the wind between the draperies, the chirping of the birds. She hears the song now. She is the song. So is he She just has to quiet the noises in her mind; her insecurities, her worries, her doubts, everything.

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There Ashton sat in his study, alone, the song of treachery brooding.

"I ought to pay my sister-in-law a visit. It would be rude of me not to."

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Sorry for the late chapter I've jad writer's block and I've also starting teaching Reading and English A in highschool. Not easy at all with the younger Gen Z'ers🫠

I'm thinking about writing a short Prequel on Howard's mom, her tribe and her journal entries from when she first married the King until she died. Would you guys be interested in reading that?

The chapters following are about to get serious😨.

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