Laurie Paige – The Princess Is Pregnant! (страница 8)
Her husband of thirty years, King Morgan, stopped, picked a red rose, removed the thorns and came to her.
Heart suddenly thudding, she watched him with a wary stance. She hadn’t seen him in over a week. Which wasn’t unusual. It was the way of a royal marriage.
She’d been twenty-three to his twenty-eight when they’d wed. An arranged marriage, of course, conducted through officials and ambassadors. Courtship had taken place after the wedding.
A blush lightly warmed her cheeks as she recalled that wondrous honeymoon.
As if he, too, were swept back into a distant time, Morgan bowed before her. With a slight smile on his handsome face, he reached out with the long-stemmed rose and lightly drew it along her cheek, its cool petals like damp satin against her skin. He then continued down her throat until finally he paused at the vee of her morning gown.
With a deft movement, he tucked the flower between her breasts. Heat spread to a point deep inside her. She searched his face, not sure of the meaning of the rose. She saw passion in his eyes and felt an answer in herself. It had been such a long time…
Finally he sighed and retreated a step. “I must be going,” he said, “but I saw you in your garden and knew I couldn’t ignore such beauty.”
She studied the paleness of his skin. No matter how busy he was, he usually took time for brisk walks during the day. “You’ve been working very hard of late,” she began, then stopped, not wanting him to think she was complaining.
“And will be doing so in the future,” he added with a grimace. “Matters of state demand long hours.”
He lifted one finger to his mouth, then touched her lips, implanting a kiss there. A thrill went through her as if she were a young bride just getting to know her husband.
“I will see you…soon,” he murmured, his eyes hot, almost feverish, as he bid her farewell.
It took her a moment to get her breath after he disappeared inside the palace. A knock on the outside garden door caused her to start and gasp.
“Mother?” called the voice of her middle daughter. “May I come in?”
“Please do,” she answered, composing herself.
Megan entered and closed the door carefully behind her. She executed a perfect curtsy, then came forward. Marissa noted her second child’s hesitant air and immediately put her own worries aside.
“How lovely you look,” she said, patting the bench beside her under the old rose arbor. “It seems ages since I’ve seen you.”
Megan settled herself, paying much attention to arranging the skirts of her morning gown. “We’ve all been busy of late.”
Contrition ate at Marissa’s conscience. She and the king had so little time for their children anymore. The girls had their own interests and the twins loved adventuring around the world.
“You seem worried,” she said, giving the girl an opening gambit.
Megan nodded, not sure how to begin. “When you and father were married, did he love you?”
She watched her mother anxiously and held in all the words that ached to tumble from her tongue in a surfeit of confession, guilt and uncertainty.
“I…” The queen stared at her in confusion, then an understanding smile curved the corners of her mouth. “Are you in love, my darling?”
Megan blinked back the sting of tears. She shrugged.
“Might I ask with whom?”
“It wasn’t love,” Megan said after a long silence. “I mean…I don’t think…I’m not sure…”
Her mother touched her hand lightly, comfortingly. “Tell me what I can do to help?”
Megan stared at the rose tucked into her mother’s gown. “You and Father love each other, but your marriage was arranged. Did you fall in love before the marriage? Or afterward?”
Megan saw she’d totally stunned her mother, who reddened then went pale. She swallowed and tried to think of words to explain to her parent the welter of feelings that darted around inside her without rhyme or reason.
“You are in love,” the queen said softly.
“No! That is, there is someone—” Megan realized she was going to have to tell her mother the bare facts at the very least if she were to ask for advice.
“Who?”
“Jean-Paul Augustuve of Silvershire,” Megan answered.
“Jean-Paul,” her mother repeated. She frowned. “His bloodline is acceptable, but he is known as something of a rebel. Your father may not be pleased.”
“There is another problem.”
“Yes?”
“There is a child.”
“Jean-Paul has a child?”
Megan didn’t blame her mother for looking confused. “Not yet.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“I am with child,” Megan said in a low voice, as if the stone walls around the queen’s private garden had ears.
Her mother clasped both hands to her bosom. She lifted the rose from between her breasts and stared at it as if the flower might interpret this news for her.
“Jean-Paul’s child,” the queen concluded.
Megan nodded and sighed as a weight lifted slightly from her shoulders. Her mother was quick to catch on. She was also thoughtful. Megan was grateful the older woman didn’t push a lot of questions at her, but instead contemplated the rose with an enigmatic smile hovering on her lips.
“Tell me what you can,” her mother invited.
“You recall I went to Monaco for the trade conference in Meredith’s place in April?”
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