49. Sir Thomas' Discovery.

[Luke]
Sir Thomas had an incredulous look on his face as he stared from me to Liam, I'm sure that he was beating himself up for not recognizing our trick earlier.
I did not blame him, sometimes I also couldn't believe how identical Liam was to me whenever he colored his hair dark and wore my outfits.
My hand throbbed and my skin split open at the knuckles when I retracted my hand from the wall, the wall was strong enough so it was only my hand that suffered.
"What have you done?" The old man gasped and continued looking from me to Liam.
"I can explain, it's all my fault, I forced Liam into this." I began immediately.
"No way, I take the part of the blame that is mine, I did all of this willingly," Liam argued.
"You need to get that hand checked." Sir Thomas ignored our speech and pointed at my fist that was probably broken and already spilling blood on the rug.
Thankfully it was a red rug.
"Go back to the party and act as you have been." Sir Thomas shook his head and dismissed Liam.
"You're coming with me." He said to me,
Liam adjusted his suit and covered his face properly with the hat and mask then proceeded to go back to the party.
"Make no mistake, this isn't over." Sir Thomas glared at us before Liam walked off.
"I really can explain, I—" I tried to explain myself but the older man cut me off immediately.
"Save it for later." He said coldly and led me to his office.
"Please don't tell the King." I pleaded with him when he closed the door behind us.
He remained quiet and just went into his bathroom for a second, when he came back out, he was carrying a first aid box.
He silently worked on my hand, I didn't dare flinch when he cleaned the wound and applied a salve on it, or even after he tightly bandaged it.
"Please don't tell the King," I repeated when he was done.
He looked away from me for a second and he sighed before turning back to me.
"You mean your father." He gave me a daring look.
"The King?" I countered stubbornly.
"Well, I'm not going to say anything to the King." He said and I let out a sigh of relief. "But I will be informing your father about this."
"Oh, come on." I flung my hand in the air frustrated, I'd been relieved a bit too soon.
"Don't you think he even already knows?" He asked me.
"If he did we wouldn't have carried on till now, now would we?" I replied smugly.
"I will not be letting him know because this is the last time it will ever happen, I can't believe you've been deceiving everyone for so long, what about the young miss, what… does she know?"
"Of course not," I replied quickly.
"My God. How long has this been going on?" He asked. "Wait… Don't tell me the young lady has fallen in love with Liam." He looked exasperated.
"Well, it's a little bit more complicated than that."
"He's fallen for her too, oh my goodness, this is a fucking mess." I let out a gasp because I had never heard Sir Thomas cuss before.
"You have no fucking idea what you've done, what the fuck were you thinking?" And he went on, still cussing. "Your father would be so disappointed in you, if he finds out, you would send him to an early grave, not to talk of jail, did you never think about the consequences of your actions, Liam could go to jail."
He shoved the first aid box off the desk angrily and I crouched down and started picking everything up.
If only he knew that the matter was even more complicated than that, he had no idea about Claire's involvement and the trouble we had caused in her life.
"I'm sorry, we weren't thinking." The look on Sir Thomas' face was frightening.
I had done a lot of crazy shit in my life but not once did he ever give me this look, he had been the one to clean up all of my messes every time but the way he looked at me now, it looked like I was on my own from now on and he had washed his hands off of me.
"Save your apology for the people who actually need it." The man straightened up and walked out of the office.
I walked sadly out of the room and went to join the party. I watched Liam engaging with the crowd and I wished somehow I could trade my life with his. He felt so comfortable with the crowd and he was effortlessly charming them.
"Hey, where have you been?" Claire came to my side and grabbed my arm.
I flinched because she grabbed my hurt hand and she must have felt the bandage because she raised the hand up to look at it.
"What happened to you?" She asked worriedly.
"Do you want to get out of here?" I asked her instead and without waiting for her reply, I grabbed her hand and started leading her out of the party.
She didn't struggle with me, she just followed me quietly.
When we got outside, I realized that I wasn't with my keys and I had no idea where they were.
There were a lot of cars parked outside and so I just chose a random one and walked up to it.
The security wasn't looking but I knew that they'd find out about it later.
"Sweet, rich people never lock their cars." I smiled when I opened the car and found the key on the ignition.
"Whose car is this?" Claire asked skeptically but I just walked to the other side and opened the door for her.
"Do you trust me?" I asked her and when she nodded I smiled sadly at her. "Then get in."
.
.
[Sir Thomas]
My heart was in a state of turmoil, I couldn't believe that Luke was supposed to be the next King of Denmark, he was so irresponsible but I never thought he would actually take it to this level.
Dragging an innocent and powerless boy into his bullshit.
I was so disappointed in him and for once in my life, I felt helpless.
Before his mother died, she had made me promise to look out for him and I had tried every day since then to look out for him but he just kept making my job difficult.
He had always had a kind of estranged relationship with his father, the pair were never close and it felt like the Queen was the only bridge connecting them both, so when she died, they wandered even farther apart from each other.
I couldn't tell the King about what I'd just realized, it would be a disaster if I did and the King was in no condition to hear this kind of news, the man was getting weaker by the day and his son just chose to be causing him more problems.
The King and I were best friends, almost closer than Liam and Luke were, I would do anything for him and I knew he would do the same for me.
We met in the army, if Liam thought his father was being hard on him then I was glad he hadn't met his grandfather.
The man had forced his son to go to a war that nearly cost his life when he was barely sixteen, we met at war and we became close friends after he saved my life.
After the war, he found me and invited me to work at the palace. I agreed and our friendship bond grew stronger. I was his best man at his wedding and I was Luke's godfather.
He was also there for me when I lost my wife and my unborn child in an accident and when he became King, he named me his second-in-command.
I never recovered from the accident so I never married or had another child, Luke was like a son to me and I loved him very much, there was also nothing I wouldn't do for the boy, no matter how difficult he made it for me to help him.
I calmed myself down after I went back to the party and I watched how Liam conducted himself, if only Luke could be half as organized.
The King probably didn't notice just as I didn't notice because the two seemed almost identical, I would have noticed something if Luke wasn't always covering his face in public.
I wondered how many times they had played this scam and I also wondered how I was going to handle the issue.
I watched a bandaged Luke come out of the hall and head straight for a woman, I gasped in shock, and my brows furrowed in annoyance when he led a woman out of the door.
I could not believe that he had dragged another person into his webs of lies and deceit. I followed them at a safe distance to know what he was going to do and I stopped outside when I noticed them getting into an unknown car and driving off.
"Oh no, he's stealing that car!" A guard exclaimed beside me and I groaned.
"It's fine, the palace will pay whoever owns the car, just make sure the news doesn't come out."