by Erin McRae
Arthur still doesn’t know, and I have no idea how to tell him. He’ll probably be angry that I waited so long to share the news, but there’s nothing for it now. Life continues on — for me, for him, for the monarchy, and for this country. My body proves that, whether I like it or not.
The reality of queen pari passu actually happening tomorrow has brought an unease to the kingdom again even with all the strides we’ve made. But the wedding is only a beginning, and the gulf between our peoples is still wide. Some days bridging that gap seems all but impossible, but I will find a way — if not in my home, then in my land.
*
Amelia woke before dawn on the day of the wedding to a pounding on her bedroom door.
“Hello?” she asked blearily. How had someone got into her rooms? If a servant needed to wake her they would have done so much more quietly. A faint corner of her mind wondered if she was about to be dragged off to the Tower in ignominy and shame.
The latch clicked, the door flew open, and in rushed Priya.
“Priya!” Amelia threw back the covers and met her friend in the middle of the room.
Priya hugged her tightly and Amelia clung to her, grateful beyond words for her presence.
“How did you get in here?” she demanded when she found her voice again. Priya wasn’t meant to be here until later in the morning when the rest of her attendants arrived.
“Your cute Welsh assistant thought you could use some company this morning. He worked everything out.”
Amelia smiled. Macsen. Of course.
Priya eyed her up and down. “Don’t tell me you were still asleep.”
“It’s six in the morning.”
“Of your wedding day. Come on, you have to come see what’s outside.”
Priya grabbed Amelia’s hand and dragged her to the window. It was a strange replay of the morning after Amelia’s first date with Arthur at the observatory, when she had woken Amelia and shown her the crowd of photographers outside their flat. It seemed a lifetime ago.
The roofs of London were just dark shapes under a sky slowly growing light. Rain from the night before glistened on the leaves of the trees just beginning to bud.
Indistinct shapes milled under the trees in the park. Slowly, as the sky continued to lighten, she realized they were people. Huge crowds of people, gathering to watch her make her way from the palace to the abbey. Some had small flags, others, signs and banners; some bore red roses, some wore white, but a few — a very few — displayed roses with petals of both white and red.
She pressed her hand to her chest, hardly able to believe her eyes. It wasn’t a victory or a guarantee, but it was something. Maybe, someday, the country would accept, not just her, but all the other people and history that were a part of it.
Maybe. Someday.
“Told you,” Priya said softly.
*
Priya, George, and Hyacinth breakfasted with Amelia in her rooms, or, rather, Hyacinth and Priya chattered happily together while George bullied Amelia into eating. She was too nauseated to want food. She had no idea if it was nerves or morning sickness.
They were breaking with all sorts of tradition by having both Arthur and Amelia get dressed at Buckingham Palace. But it was hardly traditional for a royal bride and groom both to be living in the palace already, and it made any number of logistical nightmares less nightmarish. Amelia caught no sign or glimpse of Arthur, though, and indeed wasn’t even allowed to leave her rooms. Everyone came to her.
After breakfast Jo arrived, her arm wrapped around the shoulders of her sleepy-looking daughter Meg. Freddy would be with Charlie. All five of them — George, Hyacinth, Priya, Jo and Meg — looked at Amelia, and she realized they were waiting for her signal. Or command, really, even if she remained for now lower ranked than most of them.
“Well,” she said and hoped her smile wasn't as nervous as she felt. “Let’s do this.”
At a sign from her to an assistant, a flood of people entered the rooms. The phalanx of makeup artists started on her attendants while Amelia was shooed into the bathroom to shower. Once she emerged, a flock of makeup artists descended on her, too.
Amelia had never exactly fantasized about a wedding. With Gary, she’d been more focused on the victory of a proposal than anything else. With Arthur, logistics and politics had drowned out any fairytale focus on the day itself.
But here she was, getting her hair and makeup done with her best friend, her sister-in-law and soon to be nieces-in-law. She felt as she had never expected to feel: Like a perfectly normal girl before a perfectly normal wedding.
But her nerves increased as she was helped into the complicated undergarments her wedding gown required. The last time she'd worn anything close to this, she’d gotten it on herself, and Arthur had been the one to take it off of her.
An assistant did up the delicate buttons at the back of the dress. The head seamstress watched from the front, a faint crease growing between her eyebrows.
“Stand up straight,” she said.
“I am.”
“Straighter.”
Amelia sighed and pulled her shoulders back more dramatically than necessary to show that she was, in fact, as upright as possible.
“Oh that is the opposite of helping,” the woman muttered under her breath.
“What? What’s the problem?” Amelia asked. The dress had been fine two weeks ago, and it was fastened now; her body was essentially the same.
“Boobs everywhere,” Priya said as loudly and unhelpfully as possible. With hand gestures.
“What?” Amelia asked blankly. She leaned over to get a look of her reflection in the floor-length mirror. “Oh my God.”
Priya made the hand gesture again, obviously pleased with herself.
Amelia’s breasts were, for lack of a better word, everywhere. The so-modest neckline of her dress, instead of hiding them, had pushed them up so that Amelia resembled nothing so much as an extra from Dangerous Liaisons.
“I am getting married — and coronated! — in front of millions of people all over the world in a matter of hours,” Amelia blurted, unable to contain her feelings. “And this dress is absolutely not going to work.” She didn't even need the head seamstress's face to tell her that. Then Amelia did what she was fairly certain anyone, monarch-to-be or not, would do in her situation: she burst into tears.
There was a flurry of activity around her: The head seamstress snapped instructions at her assistant, one of the makeup people pleaded with Amelia not to ruin her face, and someone asked if they should fetch a doctor.
In all, they were perfectly competent people attempting to rectify the situation at hand. Except the situation was that Amelia didn’t fit into her wedding dress because she was pregnant with a baby her king and soon-to-be husband didn't know existed. The tabloids were going to say she looked like a whore. The country would never see or accept her as queen. The riots would resume! And Beatrice was probably going to try to make her apologize again.
In the midst of the hubbub she heard George declare, “Please call my uncle and tell him to come down here.”
“Ma'am —” the seamstress started.
Amelia moaned. Arthur was the last person she wanted to see right now. Even if she was about to marry him.
“I don't give a damn about tradition,” George snapped. “Do it, or I’ll go get him myself.”
When the seamstress hesitated, George — already in her own bridesmaid’s gown, her honey-colored hair half-finished being styled — bunched up her skirts, strode to the door and yanked it open.
On the other side was Arthur, his hand already raised as if to knock. Edward was at his side, on guard as always outside her door. Briefly, their eyes met. Amelia didn’t know what he had heard through the door, but he knew enough to suspect what Amelia’s problems today might be.
Her eyes flicked back to Arthur. He was fully dressed in his uniform with all his orders and medals. A sword hung at his side. Amelia looked a mess, but Arthur looked
like the king he was. No one would ever question his right to rule. Not even York.
“What's going on?” he asked softly. His gaze broke from Amelia’s to sweep around the room before locking back onto hers. “Amelia, what is this?”
Amelia couldn't answer him. She could barely breathe. Someone helped her into a chair, but that did little to help beyond preventing her from falling down. Arthur’s forehead creased into a worried frown. He stepped forward slowly, and when Amelia said nothing to stop him, strode into the center of the room.
“Everyone, thank you for your assistance. Now get out,” Arthur said.
No one moved.
“Out!” he barked, glaring around at them.
Priya tried to go to Amelia’s side, but she waved her off.
George moved for the door. “You heard my uncle,” she said. “Everyone out.”
“It’s okay,” Amelia said to a still-reluctant Priya.
Once she went, everyone else finally followed, the assistants stealing wondering, confused glances back into the room. Twenty people in all, some half-dressed, all of them confused, spilled out into the hallways of the palace. Amelia had a brief moment of mirth at the thought of Edward and Macsen trying to manage them all.
Arthur closed the door — it wasn’t a slam, but only barely — behind the last person out. Amelia flinched. The sudden quiet, except for her own choked breath, was deafening. She hid her face in her hands so that the only sign she had of Arthur approaching was the soft scuff of his polished shoes on the carpet.
“What’s going on?” he asked again. All sternness was gone from his voice.
Amelia tried to put words together and failed.
“Amelia….” He sounded genuinely worried.
Amelia sucked in a sharp lungful of air, making the tightness of the dress around her chest even more apparent, like a bird that couldn’t stretch its wings. She could lie to him. Pass it all off as wedding nerves. But he knew her too well to believe that, even if he didn’t trust her or even like her anymore. And besides, she was so tired. Tired of the politics, tired of the strain between her and Arthur, and tired the pressure of always living with one eye toward the public view.
“The dress doesn’t fit,” she said. Her voice was watery and she had to clear her throat to get the words out.
“All right.” He knelt in front of her and tipped his head to catch her eyes.
It was the kneeling that loosened her voice. “The dress doesn't fit because I'm pregnant.”
Arthur blinked at her, but didn’t say anything. Amelia’s heart, if it was possible, sank even further.
“It’s yours. I promise it is. Canada….” she trailed off. “I know you’re angry and don’t trust me. But now you’ll have an heir, and you won’t have to talk to me ever again after today if you don't want to." Her voice nearly broke at the end, but she managed to get the words out.
“Why wouldn't I want to talk to you?” Arthur sounded baffled.
“Oh my God, I am pregnant!” Amelia burst out. How was he missing the salient point? “Would you please react to that?!"
“It's difficult to be overwhelmed with joy when you're sobbing on our wedding day.”
Our wedding day. Like this was a day of joy they could still somehow share. Like Arthur even wanted to be with her.
“So sorry to ruin the moment,” Amelia said bitterly.
Arthur shook his head. “Why didn’t you tell me?"
“I couldn’t,” Amelia sniffed.
“Whyever not? Amelia.” Arthur reached for her, but then stopped himself.
“Because,” she said. “If you have an heir you have no reason to woo me or love me or even be my friend. For all the progress we’ve made, a good chunk of the country still hates me and another good bit probably still hates you, no matter how handsome you look in that uniform. I didn’t know whether to tell you or to say I had an affair and the baby wasn’t yours, so I could run away and you and the ministers and the ravens could never find me.”
This time, Arthur did reach for her and wrapped his hands around hers. Her hands were cold, but his were comfortingly warm.
“Do you not want to do this?” he asked, unbearably grave. “Any of it. The baby, the wedding, the crown?”
“No is hardly an option at this point.”
“I would let you go. I would have always let you go.”
“No. I don’t want to,” Amelia said, more strongly than she felt. “I told you that before.”
“That was about the crown, then. And York.”
“No.” Amelia took another deep breath. Even the confession that she was pregnant was not as difficult as this. “It was about you. I just never knew if you wanted it, too.”
“Of course I did,” Arthur said fiercely.
“Really?” Amelia asked. “You could have said something! I’ve been trying not to be in love with you forever.”
“Really?” Arthur echoed her. He looked as stunned as she felt.
“Yes.” Annoyance was warring with the terror of confession. “But then I overheard Charlie shouting at you, that ‘I don’t love her’ was a terrible reason to drag me into this life. So clearly you didn’t love me. And why would you? I was just a solution to your problem.”
“You shouldn’t eavesdrop,” Arthur murmured.
Amelia ignored him. “And then I went to princess camp with your mother, and she told me about her relationship with your father, and I let it go. I thought we could be happy together, that we would love each other in some way. Eventually. In time. But then your father died and George told us there would be no more kings after you!”
“I’d apologize for that, but —”
“And the south hated me! So we made that big humiliating show about the Tower Crown and somehow, somehow it worked! And then Canada and Santa Barbara and you were so angry and it was all much, much worse.”
“I can’t say that was an easy time for me either.”
“Any chance we had at a happy partnership was gone. And then I found out I was pregnant. I’d been useful to you, as much as would ever need me to be. My part was nearly done, and I was foolish to think I could fulfil any destiny at all beyond that — for your people or mine. I’d been too arrogant to think I could have any of this. The Crown. You.”
“Yet here we are,” Arthur said.
“What do you mean?"
His hands tightened around hers. “I’m not relieved an ordeal is over; I’m terrified our life together — ours, not the one made up of the public’s claws in us — won't even get a chance to begin. We’ve never had enough time to deal with our own problems before another crisis appeared. But I do love you. I’ve loved you since you demanded I kneel to you when I proposed. And the more I’ve gotten to know you, the more impressed and awed and in love with you I’ve been. And the more easily hurt.”
“In Canada. You said….” Amelia’s voice trailed off. She couldn’t make herself repeat the words. That he saw no reason not to send her back north where she’d come from.
“I know. I was frightened. I thought you might leave me and the work we were trying to do together. After everything we’d been through together, it was all going to fall apart. The drive for survival makes people do terrible things — kings and wars, the cruelty of language, and, I suppose, even university waiting lists.” He cracked half a smile.
Amelia mirrored it sheepishly.
“A country fighting itself to survive is no country,” he continued. “A marriage struggling similarly is no marriage. But we’re on the same side, Amelia, not as chess pieces in the great endless wars that we have too long let define us, but as people. Today isn’t the end of our story. It’s the beginning. I love you, and the only thing that should and can and will be over today is misunderstanding — in our hearts and, in time, throughout our country.”
“Arthur,” Amelia said. A thought had just occurred to her.
“Yes?” His voice was tense. With nerves, she thought.
“Why did you come
to my rooms? George wanted to go find you, when I started to cry, but she hadn’t even left the room yet. You’re not supposed to be here.”
Arthur dipped his head to press a kiss to her hands. “I suppose I should say it was the irresistible whim of the moment. That would be more romantic, wouldn’t it? But no. For days I’ve wanted to come to tell you all of that. To apologize and try to explain.”
“But why now? You could have done this earlier!”
“Actually, I couldn’t. These were only finished late last night.” Arthur reached into his breast pocket and drew something out. His medals and orders clanked softly as he did.
He opened his hand; in his palm were nestled two rings, one quite a bit smaller than the other.
“What are those?” Amelia asked, hardly daring to hope.
“They’re our wedding rings.”
“You said the king wasn’t allowed to wear a wedding band.”
“I said it was tradition. And the traditions we uphold mean nothing unless we know when to break the ones that don’t serve us. The realm doesn’t come before you, Amelia. Nothing does.”
Amelia stared at the rings in his hand. They were engraved with —
“Are those roses?” Amelia touched the larger of the two rings gently with a fingertip. Minute etching suggested two different colors. Arthur’s fingers closed around her hand, the rings caught between their palms.
“I thought you might enjoy the detail,” he said. “I wanted something that bound me to the Yorkish rose the way your engagement rings bound you to the Lancaster one.”
“Your timing is absolute shit.”
“I’m certainly not going to argue with that.”
“I haven’t always been the best, either,” Amelia admitted.
“I put you in an impossible situation and then handled the fallout poorly. There’s no one I’d rather have by my side. As far as I’m concerned, you’re already perfect.”
Amelia ducked her head to hide her blush.
“Also, Canada’s happy, you’re pregnant, and you’ll always be York’s queen. I saw some signs outside….”