Page 40 of Pregnant In The King's Palace

‘What’s yours?’ she enquired politely, far too politely for it to be anything but a warning. ‘Ram me down people’s necks until they swallow?’

Yes. Faint heart would get him nowhere. ‘Yes! We run positive press to counter the negative. We stand united. I go on record more often to express my joy at the thought of starting a family with you. We get married. Do you know how many articles here are calling me out for not offering to marry you? Dozens! What good a king who rules by example not being prepared to stand up and protect his family? And don’t even start with the “we’re not good together” line, because I won’t believe you. I’m yours. You’re mine. Across time. You know it’s true. Why won’t you even consider it?’

It was the closest he’d ever come to begging.

‘Can’t you see I’m a liability?’ she countered. ‘It will take years, a lifetime, before I am fully accepted by the good people of Thallasia. Maybe on my death bed, at which point I will hopefully be unable to raise my middle finger in response to such largess, but I will be thinking it and you will know it and laugh and kiss me and tell me your life has been richer than you ever imagined it could be. That you never regretted loving me—not for one minute. That you’re proud of our children who are wonderful people. That you’ll think of me every day with joy. That’s what I will consider a life well lived. Not what your papers think of me today or tomorrow or after the birth of two more souls for your royal machinery to shape. Who wants to inflict a life of service onto their children? Not me!’

‘It’s not all bad, Angelique. Yes, there are constraints, but we can still be royal and raise children who are wonderful people. It’s not all tyranny and tiaras and nothing else. You could do such good. As my wife. Why won’t you let others see you the way I do?’

‘Hear! Hear!’ said a male voice from the doorway, and there stood Theo with Moriana next to him. ‘Is this a bad time to call?’

‘Kings,’ muttered Angelique, but then turned and curtseyed and hardly blushed at all. Nothing like airing dirty laundry. Valentine suspected his colour was a dull red too.

Moriana smiled brightly and flowed into the room, a vision of modern elegance, and Valentine could clock the difference between her and Angelique, of course he could, and he’d still choose Angelique’s heart and passion and fire every time. Didn’t she know what she brought to his table?

‘Theo thought we might, oh, I don’t know, go cavorting with you both in public. Somewhere with horses or children or fluffy kittens.’ Moriana glanced at her husband. ‘To show our support for you both, no matter what kind of union you choose.’

‘She also mentioned piles and piles of leftover paella,’ added Theo. ‘It’s the only reason I’m here. Valentine didn’t call for reinforcements against the future mother of his children who has misguided thoughts of ignoring her public image. At all. We didn’t drop everything to get here.’

‘Well, thank God for that,’ muttered Valentine and strode forward to clasp hands with Theo and embrace Moriana. ‘Otherwise I’d owe you both a favour, and that never ends well.’

‘You mean never ends well for you,’ murmured Moriana. ‘I vote we all ride the grounds of this estate and then return for a private dinner between friends that may or may not involve leftover paella made by Angelique’s mother.’

‘But Angelique’s pregnant. With twins.’

Moriana looked at Valentine blankly. ‘I know. Everyone knows. Bravo.’

‘He thinks I shouldn’t ride,’ Angelique supplied helpfully.

‘Oh, for—’ Whatever Moriana had been going to say was cut off by her husband’s elbow to her ribs. ‘Ow.’

‘A drive, then,’ said Theo. ‘Very civilised. Or a buggy ride. I love a good buggy ride.’

The man was very clearly mad, but a buggy was duly found and royal horses trucked in from the palace. A photographer arrived too, and the following day a series of happy photographs appeared online to help sway public opinion. Wedding or not, King Valentine of Thallasia had welcomed the Cordova woman into his inner circle.

Angelique read the half a dozen news articles about her that now turned up on the kitchen table every day, courtesy of the father of her unborn children. In truth, it had been no hardship, sitting in the open carriage and listening to tales from the daily horseback processions that had proceeded Moriana’s wedding to Theo. The ridiculous pageantry they’d endured in the lead-up to their wedding. A cavalcade of horses, the black steeds of Arun against Liesendaach’s greys. The village welcomes, the charities they’d arranged to visit every single day. The medieval-style tournaments at the end of each day that had brought spectators by the thousands and money into every place they’d stayed. Angelique had never laughed so hard as she had at Moriana doing her ‘Ice Queen with ants in her pants while sitting astride a horse at the end of a long day and she simply had to pee’ impersonation, but there was no peeing yet because she still had to listen to an earnest city mayor announce her by every title she held, and then welcome her to their very beautiful city, and then list the name of every last person who’d helped them prepare for her.

‘But you did get to pee, eventually,’ Theo had drawled.

And when Moriana had replied, ‘Like a horse,’ that had been the end of Angelique’s composure.

Their visit seemed to relax Valentine, and for the next few days he backed off, just a little, when it came to treating Angelique like a priceless porcelain doll.

Pregnant, yes. Slow to start some mornings. But she was real, and warm and they were in this together.

And during those nights when he held her close and passion got the better of them, she thought that maybe, just maybe, she could be what he needed.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘YES,’ SHE SAID, one evening a few days later when they were back in his palace and getting ready for bed. ‘I want a small wedding, and by that I mean tiny, with only your family, my family, and one or two others present, and I want to have it in the little tiny chapel here, the one with the stained-glass window that catches the setting of the sun, but yes. I’ll marry you.’

The look on his face.

The lovemaking that followed.

No matter what the world served up as punishment for daring to think she could be enough.

She’d never forget.

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