Page 41 of Pregnant In The King's Palace

Confusion ruled Valentine in the time leading up to the wedding. It turned out that sex was an excellent antidote to actually addressing the issues likely to plague them once Angelique became his Queen. The limitations she would have to accept. The knowledge she’d have to absorb if she wanted to represent the crown and do so without fault. He could protect her from the worst of it, he knew he could. But first she had to listen to him and at the very least acknowledge that, in regard to all things royal, his experience would serve her well.

She knew the news articles about her—and him—were brutal, but had told him she didn’t read them. She missed horse-riding but never mentioned it in front of him. His head of security informed him that she’d taken up jogging through the woodlands as part of her daily exercise routine.

Their wedding banns went out, and instead of a formal picture his publicity team had shown one of Angelique teaching Juliana how to ride and sharing a smile, while he looked on from a few steps away. They’d chosen it because Juliana’s delight and Angelique’s pride in the young girl’s achievement had made him look happy and approachable. A man rather than a king, and a novel approach for his publicity team to take, but it seemed to be working.

Sometimes.

On occasion.

In between the more vitriolic pieces in the press.

Protocol lessons began for Angelique, and folders full of rules now sat on her work desk alongside breeding logs and bloodline registers.

‘It’s okay,’ she would say to him. ‘I’ve got this.’

Moriana and his sister tossed the rule books aside in favour of offering Angelique practical lessons in palace etiquette. They took her under their wings, only to have her emerge hours later, pale faced and subdued, with eyes lit from within by worry rather than happiness.

‘Nothing to it,’ she’d deadpan, only her hand would be shaking when he enfolded it in his, and she’d sag against him as if hoping for strength, and then he’d go berserk with wondering if she’d been on her feet too long and end up sweeping her into his arms and depositing her on the nearest soft surface while he buried his face in her neck and simply breathed her in.

He could give her everything but her freedom.

‘Let’s go riding,’ he said the following morning as they lay in a tangle of rumpled sheets and sunbeams, and she edged up onto her elbows, her dark hair a messy cloud and her expression still warm and open—not yet shutting down beneath the demands of the day.

‘Did you not ban me from horse riding? With the full approval of my traitorous parents?’

He had. Not one of his more logical decisions. ‘I was thinking you could borrow Juliana’s pony and I could ride a quiet horse to match and we could go to the hunting lodge for the day. Just like old times.’

Absolutely nothing like old times, her arched eyebrow told him.

‘I’ll throw in an open fire and a catered meal when we get there,’ he added.

‘I’ll take it,’ she said. ‘With one condition.’

‘Name it.’

‘I need help with the list of charities your sister left for me to look at. I’m supposed to pick half a dozen and become their patron. And, sure, I can put a tick beside half a dozen of them in ten seconds flat, but what will it mean?’

Which was how two days later they ended up in a sitting room stuffed with velvet furniture, velvet drapes and heavy carved wood tables, throwing goose-down pillows in a circle in front of a dancing fire and asking for hot coffee, tea and chocolate for three, as his niece and Angelique spread out on their stomachs on the pillows and looked to him and the dozen or so files full of paperwork for answers.

‘Should you be lying on your stomach?’ he asked Angelique, because, what about the babies?

‘It’s very comfortable at this point in time, Your Majesty,’ she replied with a wink towards his niece. ‘Would you care to join us?’

Surrender seemed inevitable. He sank onto a cushion, legs crossed in front of him, unbuttoned his blazer rearranged his cuffs and straightened his tie. ‘Presentation matters,’ he began. ‘It makes others feel that you’re making an effort for them. It’s a way of showing that you value them and those things they stand for. Will you value me?’

Juliana sat up immediately. Angelique followed. ‘Who are you?’ she murmured. ‘Do I know you?’

‘As His Majesty the King? No, I don’t believe you do. But just as I discovered another you when in the presence of your family, it’s time for you to see another side of me. Who am I, Juliana?’

‘King Valentine II, by the Grace of God, King of Thallasia, Defender of the Faith,’ the young girl answered immediately.

‘And what do I do?’

‘You govern Thallasia according to the laws and customs of the land. You offer law, justice and mercy in all your judgments, in the name of God.’

‘And?’ he prompted, while Angelique looked on.

‘And you do so willingly, with a glad heart, a sound mind, and a spirit of...’ The little girl faltered.

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