Someone obediently shoved the door wider instead of closed; she registered the mistake and let it go. Her priorities were out there.
Triplets first. Correct the staff later.
Matilda was in the lead, obviously. She had been the biggest of the three since they were babies and she had a nose for trouble and a reckless disregard for traction. She’d already found the one patch of uncleared, powdery snow and hurled herself into it with a delighted shriek. Frank barreled after her, less coordinated but twice as enthusiastic. Florence hung back by half a pace, which was good, because it meant Erin reached her first.
“Uh-uh,” Erin said, catching the back of her coat just as Florence’s boot hit the treacherous powder. “Slow and careful, Flo.”
Florence glanced up at her, cheeks flushed from the cold, nose pink, blonde curls escaping from under her hat. “But it’s fluffy,” she protested.
“It’s also slippery,” Erin said. “You can go in it. We’re just not going to break our necks getting there. Deal?”
Florence considered this. “Deal,” she said solemnly.
Erin set her down more firmly and let her go, hovering a half-step behind as Florence trudged toward her siblings. Matilda and Frank were already rolling about, shoving snow at each other with mittened hands.
Frank scooped up a handful and threw it straight up. It went into his own face. He roared with laughter anyway.
For a long moment, Erin just stood there and watched their beautiful children play.
Snow fell softly, thick flakes catching in eyelashes andhair, clinging to the stone edges of Balmoral like someone had dusted the entire estate with icing sugar. The air smelled of pine and smoke and cold, clean nothingness. No London fumes. No crowds. No chanting, no placards, no undercurrent of threat humming at the back of her skull.
Just… winter. And kids. And Vic yelling something about cranberries from somewhere behind her.
Erin felt her shoulders drop a fraction of an inch.
Almost peaceful.
She hooked her thumbs into her pockets and tilted her head back, letting one of the flakes land on her nose. It melted immediately, a tiny cold kiss.
This, she thought, should be easy. A few days. One massive castle. No public engagements except the obligatory church walk on Christmas morning and a pre-recorded television message Alex had already nailed. No aggressive schedules—well, apart from whatever Vic was attempting. No emergency Privy Council meetings, no last-minute crises in the Home Office or Defence or Health.
Just them.
Her, Alex, their kids, their friends.
She’d spent the last six months feeling like life had become an endless relay she was always half a stride behind on—pass the kids to the nanny, catch the briefing, hand Alex her notes, dodge a protest, sign off on new security procedures for the palace, pick up the kids before bed, fall into bed beside a wife who fell asleep mid-sentence.
All the real conversations they needed to have had been shoved into the future like a pile of unopened post. Later. After this. When things calmed down.
Except things never calmed down. They just… changed shape.
Here, though… here she could maybe get ahead of it all for once.
Here she could look at Alex without also watching doorways and rooftops and unknown faces. She could touch her without wondering if the CCTV angle was unfortunate. She could?—
Fuck it.
She wanted to have sex with her wife.
Properly. Not the hurried, half-clothed sort of fumble that usually ended in someone crying in the next room or a staff member tapping apologetically on the door with a file that tragically could not wait.
Real sex. The kind where she could take her time, and Alex could take hers, and no one asked for apple juice in the middle of it.
Erin dug the toe of her boot into the snow and made herself a promise.
Before Boxing Day, Kennedy. Bare minimum. Before the Boxing Day walk. You are a grown woman with tactical training and the Queen of the United Kingdom for a wife. You can manage one bloody uninterrupted shag.
Matilda chose that exact moment to fall over laughing into Frank, knocking them both flat on their backs. Florence, who had been about to sit down more carefully, ended up tumbling over their tangled limbs.
