Royal Match

by Parker Swift

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked into my ear.

  “I’m sure. I got this. Go.” He kissed me lightly on my cheek and discreetly exited left, ducking into the church and leaving me to my duties.

  “Your Highness, it’s time.” The official looked into the car behind me and held out his hand to help Caroline out of the car. The second her leg stretched emerged draped in the sea of white skirt, the crowd went insane in a tone I’d never heard before. Not wild. Not reckless. I didn’t know it was possible, but their cheers were as equally reverent, warm, and welcoming as they were loud. They loved their princess.

  Another attendant emerged from the abbey to help me straighten Caroline’s train, and we slowly, cautiously made our way into the church. And there we stood in anticipation. The attendants fussed with Caroline’s gown, and I gathered the children to my side behind the bride and her father.

  The archbishop of Canterbury came to the back of the abbey to welcome us, and I stood, waiting. I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the gaze of the cameras being manned from strategic locations throughout the ancient building. I was smiling and trying just to take in the moment when I felt another ache stretch across my lower back and felt my belly tighten.

  Fuck.

  I closed my eyes for just a moment and breathed through it as I took my first steps behind Caroline and down the aisle. I felt the gaze of those cameras and resisted the urge to bend at my hips or to rub my belly the way I wanted to. Head high. Shoulders back. Just breathe.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Once the ceremony began and I found myself safely seated in my chair in the chapel, I could finally look around, could find faces and take in the scene. I crossed my fingers that whatever pain I’d felt moments before was just a flash, an ache after a long morning.

  I found Dylan across the aisle, staring directly at me, his eyes glowing. And then, miracle of all miracles, for what felt like the first time in two weeks, he looked away from me, at one of his oldest friends and her fiancé as they got married. He was beginning to let down his guard, to relax.

  I found Charlotte wearing possibly the biggest hat in the entire building—purple, with what looked like a giant bird-of-paradise on top of it.

  I saw Zach’s parents across the aisle, tears in his mother’s eyes.

  I listened to their vows, to the sermon. I watched the choir boys rise and sing, the bell ringers stand with reverence.

  And then, another pain, this one worse. Shit. It was definitely a contraction.

  I closed my eyes and tried to remain completely still. One. Two. Three. I counted in my head as slowly as I could until it stopped. When it was over, I realized that I had missed a moment when we were all supposed to stand again. I scrambled to my feet as inconspicuously as possible, and as I did so I caught Nick looking at me with a concerned gaze. I tried to flash him a little smile—the last thing I needed was for Nick to disturb the ceremony.

  I looked to Dylan, but he was thankfully still engrossed in the wedding. If I could only make it through until the recessional, I’d be fine.

  Another hymn. Another reading. Another contraction.

  I gripped my program, thankful that this one didn’t seem to be so bad, and this time I saw Nick’s expression fixed on me.

  I steadied myself and put every ounce of energy I had into remaining still. Calm. A few more minutes, a few more steps out the church, and no matter what was going on, I’d be home free. Done with the wedding of the century.

  * * *

  An hour later I’d followed the doctor’s orders: drank water, put my feet up, sat in a warm bath—careful not to disturb the extensive hair and makeup job—and by some miracle the contractions had stopped. And somehow I’d managed to keep the entire contraction thing from Dylan, who was now watching some action movie on the television in our hotel room.

  “Bloody hell. I’m exhausted.” Dylan was stretched across the bed, and I gave him approximately six minutes of television watching before he was deep into a nap. I giggled to myself remembering his promises about backrubs. The truth was, this was all exhausting for him too—the worrying, the stress of not being able to have me safely where he wanted me. As soon as we’d gotten back to the hotel, I’d promptly (and carefully) shimmied out of my gown and into a robe, and Dylan had dismantled all of the buttons and accessories of his suit.

  After the ceremony, we were meant to have climbed into a carriage and participated in the processional to Buckingham Palace for a meal. But when I exited the church behind the deacons, deans, bishops, and the rest of the choir, I found Dylan waiting for me. He subtly ushered me out of the queue, around the side of the church, and swiftly into a waiting car. I still had no idea how he’d arranged that. Apparently he’d promised our presence at dinner later, but for the time being, I was safe from chaos, and blissfully contraction-free.

  After our substantial disco naps at the hotel, we’d fluffed ourselves back up—it’s amazing how hairspray can survive even the hardest of naps—and made it to the dinner at Buckingham Palace. And after two long hours of talking with Zach’s very eccentric aunt Candy and the even more eccentric Bernard, the Duke of Wilcox, the party had finally moved into the ballroom for dancing.

  This was usually my favorite part of weddings. The wine had kicked in. People felt like they were on vacation. Someone always behaved badly in the most delicious way. But this time, I was relieved for the anonymity this stage of the night brought. No one would notice if you weren’t in your seat.

  “Baby?” Dylan looked down at me. Our eyes locked, his arms wrapped around me, and I felt so safe in his embrace.

  “Let’s blow this Popsicle stand. Whaddaya say?” I asked. Dylan laughed, just a little. I loved how relaxed he was, at ease, even in this old palace.

  “I love it when you speak nonsensical American to me.” He kissed my nose. “You’re ready to go?”

  I nodded, and he took my hand and led me towards the door.

  But just as we entered the grand hallway outside the ballroom, we heard the band begin to play “’S Wonderful” by Ella Fitzgerald. It’s what we’d danced to at our own wedding in New York. The closest thing we had to “our song.” Not exactly a standard wedding song—just a bit too offbeat, harder to dance to than most, but it’s what had been on the jukebox. It was ours.

  Dylan paused and pulled me into a room off the ballroom. He ushered me into the small, dark room and left me standing in the middle of the space. Then he closed the door just enough. We could still hear the band, and there was a strip of light pouring in. Enough light to dance by, I realized, as he slipped his arms around me.

  “Really?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “You’re going to dance with me in the room we broke up in five years ago?” Over five years earlier, we’d had an enormous fight in that very room during the engagement party for Prince Richard and Jemma. A lot had happened that night.

  “Hush,” he scolded. “Let me dance with my wife.”

  I obeyed and leaned into him as best I could. I gently kicked off my flats, pushing them to the side, and he turned me, tucking my side against his front, so we could feel the length of each other without my belly getting in the way.

  My shoulders dropped, and I fell deeper against him, moved with him in the quiet. I wouldn’t have known that I needed this dance away from the party, this moment, but Dylan did. I needed to breathe in his smell, be held by him, have a moment that was just for us. I thought about our story—that breakup so long ago and all of the millions of blissful, and hard, and loving, and gloriously real moments that had made up our life between then and now. A tear slid down my cheek. Then Dylan’s finger lifted my chin, prompting my gaze to meet his. “Baby?” he asked, searching, swiping away my tear with his thumb.

  “I love you,” I said, and he held me just a little tighter.

  The song ended and another began, but we kept dancing. Swaying.

  And then it happened. A pain I knew without a doubt was a contraction. Dylan’s hand
landed on my stomach as the muscles tightened and shifted, as the pain crept around my abdomen.

  “Damsel?” he asked.

  I just nodded, eyes closed, and rested my forehead against his chest.

  “You’re having the baby?”

  I nodded again.

  Dylan called Lloyd from the phone in his pocket, and as six hundred guests danced to jazz standards in the ballroom at Buckingham Palace, we slipped out the front door.

  “Dylan? Lydia?” I heard Nick’s voice behind us. “Everything okay?”

  “I’m in labor,” I said sheepishly.

  “Need any help?” he asked, so sweetly.

  I shook my head. “Thanks, but it’s not my first time at the rodeo,” I said by way of explanation, and I scanned the palace yard for our car—Lloyd would be pulling up any minute. Nick looked at us once more, from Dylan to me, until he was satisfied that his medical expertise wasn’t really necessary.

  “You’re heading off too then?” Dylan asked as he calmly rubbed my back.

  “Uh, yeah. I’m uh…I—”

  “Tell her I’m at the hospital,” I said, smiling. “And that the kids can only have one bowl of Lucky Charms.”

  Nick smiled an enormous smile before bounding towards the exit of the palace grounds.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The wedding had ended.

  The children were safe at home with Daphne and, apparently, Nick.

  And Dylan and I had gone to the hospital together. Just us. No Frank. No rushing. No being flown in from elsewhere required.

  Every photographer in the country was back at the palace. Every journalist at their desk awaiting details from the royal wedding.

  We walked in the front door of the private wing of the hospital hand in hand, full of anticipation. The halls were quiet.

  And at nearly midnight on the same day that Princess Caroline and Zach Washington became the Duke and Duchess of Kent, Lady Anna Georgina Bell Hale was born.

  The doctor had handed Dylan our daughter, and he placed her gingerly on my chest. “No one has ever been more perfect,” he said, staring at her open brown eyes. And I swear she looked right back at him.

  “You said that about Aiden and Eleanor too,” I teased.

  “And you,” he replied, and he kissed me. He kissed me without kink or urgency or demand. Just with love.

  * * *

  The next morning, I’d just finished feeding Anna, and Dylan was sitting on the couch in the room burping her, when there was a knock at the door. Daphne cracked it open, but two little hands much lower pushed it wide open. Eleanor led the charge as she and Aiden came bounding onto the room.

  “Careful with Mummy!” Dylan said sternly as my two older children climbed onto the bed.

  “They’re okay,” I said. “Come on, you two,” I urged as I snuggled them next to me. They immediately started fiddling with my hospital bracelets. When I looked up, I saw that Nick had quietly followed Daphne in.

  I smiled big, and Daphne blushed before shrugging her shoulders. “Hi, guys,” I said.

  “Hi,” Daphne replied, still blushing, and she came over to give me a hug. “Stop staring at us like that,” she whispered, sternly but lovingly.

  “I just pushed a baby out of my vagina,” I whispered back. “I’ll do whatever I damn well please.” She actually stuck her tongue out at me for that. “We are definitely talking later,” I added.

  Dylan brought Anna over, and Daphne cooed just as Nick coughed sheepishly. “How’d it go?” he asked me, and I got the sense he was defaulting to professional questions given how potentially awkward it was to be in my hospital room right now.

  “She was brilliant,” Dylan chimed in, and handed me Anna. Aiden and Eleanor immediately stilled on the bed to admire their new sister.

  I looked back to Nick. “Smooth. It was dead quiet here last night. I got the epidural as soon as I could, and she came out in three pushes.” I looked back down at my new baby daughter and marveled that only hours earlier she had been inside me.

  “Fantastic,” he replied, and then looked at my best friend. “Why don’t we go get some coffee, Daphne? Let these guys get acquainted.” Daphne nodded and went to give Dylan a hug. Nick sweetly came around my side to take a look at Anna. “She’s lovely,” he said. Then he paused and looked across the bed to Daphne, who was laughing about something with Dylan.

  “Thank you,” I said. Then I leaned a little closer to him. “Also, if you hurt my best friend, I might have to kill you. And ever since Dylan brought down a Russian drug kingpin with MI6, I have connections.” I winked.

  Nick laughed, obviously assuming I was joking, and smiled bigger than I think he meant to. “Understood.”

  “Oh, and thank you for looking out for me yesterday,” I added. I knew he’d been keeping tabs.

  “Of course,” he said, taking Daphne’s hand. We waved as they left the room.

  Once we were alone, Dylan came and sat by my knees, leaning over baby Anna, who lay on my lap. Eleanor was tucked next to me on my right, and Aiden was on my left. My family. Complete. I felt a tear of pure joy slide down my cheek.

  “Eleanor, Aiden,” I said. “This is Anna.” Eleanor touched the baby’s hand, and her tiny fingers wrapped around Eleanor’s instinctively. Eleanor’s eyes widened, and she looked up to me, checking in, making sure it was okay.

  “Just be gentle. She loves you, sweetheart,” I said, and Eleanor beamed. “It’s a really important job being a big brother, Aiden, but Eleanor will help you,” I continued.

  Aiden smelled her and then pulled away, making Dylan laugh, just a little.

  “Lydia?” Dylan said softly, looking so deep into me, I felt lost in his gaze. “You are, truly, incredible. Thank you. Thank you for making me a father and a husband.”

  If I could have reached across our children to kiss him, I would have. But I was stuck, nestled in, and then I started to cry. I laughed through my tears when he got down on all fours and reached over the baby to touch my lips with his own. “I love you so much.”

  I kissed him back. I kissed our daughters and our son. And then I kissed him again. This man—this bossy, sexy, outrageously brazen, crazy-smart, gentle, loving, demanding duke—was my husband. And this was our family. “Take me home, knighty,” I said, smiling through my exhausted tears.

  “You got it, damsel.”

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  About the Author

  Parker Swift grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, and then grew up again in New York, London, and Minneapolis and currently lives in Connecticut. She has spent most of her adult life examining romantic relationships in an academic lab as a professor of social psychology. Now, she’s exploring the romantic lives of her fictional characters in the pages of her books. When she’s not writing, she spends her time with her bearded nautical husband and being told not to sing along to pop music in the car by her two sons.

  Twitter: @the_parkerswift

  Instagram: @parker.swift

  Facebook.com/ParkerSwiftAuthor

  Also by Parker Swift

  The Royal Scandal Series

  Royal Affair

  Royal Disaster

  Royal Treatment

  Did you miss the beginning of Dylan and Lydia’s royal romance?

  Make sure to read the rest of the Royal Scandal series!

  Royal Affair, Royal Disaster, and Royal Treatment are available now!

  One seriously sexy son-of-a-duke…

  Behind the posh British accent, Dylan Hale possesses a down-and-dirty sexiness. Off-the-charts gorgeous, a ruthless architect…and did I mention he’s a future duke? Every time we touch, it’s wildfire. All need and lust and heat. But Dylan has rules: just sex, no one can know, and in the bedroom he gets complete control. All I have to do is follow the rules, because falling in love with Dylan Hale is all it would take
to screw everything up…royally.

  “He’s not who you think he is…”

  Meeting Dylan Hale has turned my life upside down. I’m dating an actual duke who’s devastatingly handsome and deliciously naughty. On the surface, I’m living the high life. But this surreal world of royalty and paparazzi is getting out of control.

  Someone knows way too much about Dylan and me—about the moments when we’re alone, about how his hands leave a trail of fire over my skin…about the complete control he has over me between the sheets. And worse, it’s starting to become clear that Dylan’s keeping secrets from me, too…

  All this duke needs is his duchess…

  For five blissful months I’ve been engaged to Dylan Hale, the most handsome, commanding, and wickedly sexy duke in England. For five months I’ve woken up next to the man I love, indulged in secret trysts, and submitted to every delicious desire. Even better? We’ve managed to keep it hidden from everyone. That means no paparazzi scandals, no snide comments from Dylan’s mother, and no harsh public scrutiny. It’s been heaven, but with Dylan’s royal responsibilities looming, our time alone is running out. And while I can’t wait to be Dylan’s wife, I’m terrified that becoming Dylan’s duchess might mean losing myself.