His fingers stilled, tangling in her silky tresses. “And?”
“I’m increasing.” Her eyes shone with exuberance. “We are going to have a baby.”
“Fancy, my love.” He rolled her onto her back and ran an unsteady hand over her flat belly. “How are you feeling? Should you be going on a ship tomorrow? Christ, was I too rough—”
She took his face between her hands. “Knight, stop fretting. The physician said I am perfectly healthy and fine to travel. And marital activities will not hurt the babe.”
He looked into Fancy’s smiling face, and his chest clenched with joy. With the recognition of all she had given him. With the knowledge that, whatever the future held, their love would see them through.
He leaned down and kissed her with all that he felt.
After a while, his wife giggled. “I thought you were tired?”
“We can sleep on the ship,” he decided and took her lips once more.
The Principality of Hessenstein, a few years later
“Your Royal Majesty.” Bea’s lavender eyes sparkled as she curtsied. “May I congratulate you on your coronation?”
“Thank you for coming, Bea.” Abandoning protocol, Fancy hugged her best friend. “I am just glad I made it through the ceremony.”
They were in the castle’s grand receiving room, and Fancy had just come from the coronation ceremony, which had taken the entire day. The Royal Abbey had been sweltering. If her husband hadn’t had the foresight to have a flask of iced water on hand, she might have fainted in her fur-lined robes and jewel-studded crown. Somehow she had muddled through and managed to give a speech in Hessensteinish, her first as Queen Fancy I.
Her fears that she would not live up to her new responsibilities had been drowned out by the cheering crowds that lined the streets from the Abbey to the castle. It seemed Hessenstein’s citizens welcomed having a queen with commoner’s roots. The people also adored Knight, who had spearheaded technological advancements that brought new jobs and wealth to the principality. King Ernst had been so impressed by his son-in-law’s work that he had made Knight a prince.
With a bittersweet pang, Fancy thought Ernst must be smiling proudly down at her from Heaven. Although they had lost so many years, she and her father had made the most of the ones they’d had. Ernst had lived to meet his three grandchildren, and he had spoiled them shamelessly.
Now Fancy had a small respite in this intimate reception with friends and family. Afterward, she and Knight would honor a three-hundred-year-old tradition and step out onto the castle’s balcony to wave at their new subjects.
Fancy let out a squeal of unqueenlike delight when she saw Tessa, Gabby, and Maggie heading toward her and Bea. She hugged the women as she accepted their felicitations, touched but not surprised that they had made the long journey to her new home. That was what friends were for, after all. In the past few years, the five of them had celebrated countless milestones together, including the births of their children who were at present being corralled in the adjoining room by a team of palace nannies.
“Your gown is ravishing, Your Majesty,” Gabby said. “The embroidery is ever so exquisite.”
Made of white silk, Fancy’s coronation dress was embroidered with hundreds of alpine roses, which weren’t roses at all but a hardy species of rhododendron that grew in the mountains of Hessenstein. She ran her fingertips over one of the flowers, the center sewn with beads of pure gold, and thought of her mother Louisa, who she later discovered had stitched that first bloom on her christening gown.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling. “And thank you for coming all this way.”
“We wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Tessa said with a wink. “Coronations are important.”
Tessa would know, for not long ago her grandfather had stepped down as King of the Underworld, and she had been chosen as its new ruler.
“Heavens, we have two queens amongst us,” Maggie said with a laugh. “I do not know if I belong with such a rarefied group.”
“You belong. We all do,” Fancy said happily.
Looking around the room, she saw the people she loved, the motley bunch who meant the world to her. Her older brothers and their wives were helping their children to the buffet, her younger brothers helping themselves. Da was chatting with Aunt Esther, pausing to catch Fancy’s youngest son, Louis, who had, as usual, escaped his nannies. Da swung Louis up on his shoulders, the little prince chortling with delight.
By the champagne fountain, Toby was impressing a Flemish princess with tricks he had taught his spaniel. Eleanor, who had bloomed into a pretty young lady, was ignoring a group of noblemen and trying to read the book she had hidden in her skirts. Cecily wasnotignoring her beaux, of which she had many. Jonas stood with a group of prominent Hessenstein industrialists, expounding, no doubt, upon the technological innovations in which he had taken so much interest since Knight had put him in charge of the weaving business.
Speaking of Knight, where was he?
Fancy was scanning the room when her husband came toward her, a commanding, princely figure in formal court dress. He greeted the ladies, and even after the years of marriage, Fancy tingled when he put an arm around her waist and kissed her temple.
“I was just looking for you,” she told him.
A smile glinted in his eyes. “I was preparing a surprise, sweeting.”
“What surprise?”
