No Rest for the Prince's Virgin
Page 11
“Oh, strangely that makes more sense.” Katrine had always thought peas to test how one responded to an uncomfortable night’s sleep or to see how sensitive someone might be was a little strange. “Are there witches though? There is magic after all? What else don’t I know?”
“Witches are rare. There was the Fairy Goodmother though, but she died, and no one has stepped forward to replace her in the role yet.”
“A Fairy Goodmother? Does she make people’s wishes come true? Whose Fairy Goodmother is she?”
“Well, while alive she would give blessings to babies, that they might become rich or some such thing. She was quite mercenary though. Her blessings had to be bought, and only the rich could afford her.”
“How much?” Katrine always liked to know all the details.
“To be honest I don’t know. A secret deal was always struck.”
“You are a prince. Were you blessed?”
At this question Wilhelm hesitated. “Yes, but when the Fairy Goodmother died and her blessings ceased coming true, we thought the same had happened to me.”
“What was supposed to happen to you?”
“I was to meet my true love before reaching thirty years of age.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. Oh. I think her magic may have been weakened, and so the blessing didn’t come true on time, but I have no doubt you were meant to come to me.”
Wilhelm reached to take Katrine’s hands in his once again. He looked down at where they were joined. At the ring upon her finger. “You wear my ring.”
“I will wear it until you ask for it back.” Please don’t ask for it back.
Wilhelm didn’t give her a direct answer.
Did he still want to marry her? He had called her his true love, but was that just his belief in a magic blessing. Did he want to marry because of the baby, and declared himself accordingly? Their reunion had not been as she had pictured it.
She would marry him whatever his motivation, but she desperately wanted his true love. She was sure they had been in love before. She had been drowning in the emotional intensity of her own feelings.
“You will come back with me now?”
He was still being short with her, which worried Katrine. “Of course, I’ll speak to Sister Mary, and I’ll need to return home to talk to my parents first. I couldn’t possibly just disappear again.”
Does he still want to marry me?
“Give me ten minutes to say some goodbyes, and I’ll be back with you.”
“Quick as you can,” Wilhelm said, not removing his touch.
Katrine stepped back, taking one last look, visually absorbing the fact that he was really in front of her. His physical presence was so powerful her eyes could not doubt her was there, but her mind still whispered it might be a dream.
“Do you want me to come with you?” he asked.
Yes! But the Sisters would want to invite him in. He might say yes out of politeness. Even if they didn’t stay there would be so many questions. The questions Katrine had already spent the past few months not answering. Where had she been? What had happened there? Who was the father? Were they getting married?
Any answers Katrine wanted to hear in private.
“Wait here. It’ll be easier if I go alone. I won’t be long.”
****
A baby. They were going to have a baby. Relief at finding Katrine, and shock at finding her pregnant warred inside him. Though why it hadn’t occurred to him as a possibility he didn’t know.
His mother was going to be thrilled.
He was thrilled, just a little shocked, and he didn’t even have the full nine months to prepare himself. There would only be something like four or five months. Accurate calculations were beyond him right now. And they needed to organise a wedding in that time.
Well his mother would need to organise a huge party to be more precise. The ceremony was happening as soon as he got her back to the castle.
He’d find someone to perform the ceremony here and now if he wasn’t worried about how valid it might be in his own land.
Right now he still felt on edge. She was out of his sight once again, and it was not a comfortable feeling. Until he had her home, his heart would not rest.
He actually breathed a deep sigh of relief when he saw her come racing back into the courtyard. No longer gripped by the crippling fear he might never find her again he did what he’d wanted to do the first time he saw her today and opened his arms wide. She rushed into them.
They must have just stood in the courtyard like that for some time. Two figures embracing, statue-like except for small movements as their bodies settled back into place against each other. Wilhelm wanted that eternity, the permanence, the inability to be separated once cast together.
The silence ended when Katrine’s soft voice piped up. “Do you still have the card?”
She pulled away a little to look up at him. Using the space created between them Wilhelm slipped his hand into his breast pocket and pulled out a piece of card.
It was blank!
“It wasn’t blank before,” Wilhelm said. “It was a guide as it was when you found your way to me.”
Katrine reached out to touch the card. As she did so writing began to appear, one scrolled letter at a time. Wilhelm watched, curious as to what it would say.
The naming ceremony for the son and daughter of Prince Wilhelm and Princess Katrine will take place on the fifth month of the year. All in the land must be invited to the celebrations, magic kind included.
“Twins.” Katrine voiced his first thought. Then she mumbled so that he could barely make out her words. “Princess Katrine ... we must get married.””
Did she not want to get married?
“We’re getting married straight away.” He’d asked once already. Never again. She wasn’t allowed to say no this time.
“Because of the baby?”
“Babies.”
“Oh.”
Katrine wouldn’t look at him. She’d clearly misunderstood that he had just corrected her use of the singular, not given her the reason they would be marrying.
Wilhelm went down on one knee. Katrine was the only woman he would change his mind for. Make himself vulnerable for. He thought he would probably do anything for her. “Katrine Smithson, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife? Not because our love has taken root and we are to become parents, but because you are my love. You are the princess of my heart. You are my true love. There is no doubt in my mind, my heart, my soul.” There was a gathering tear in the corner of her eye, ready to fall. That had to be a good sign.
“You once said you had given me your heart. Please tell me in the chaos I did not drop it. I never felt myself let go. I still feel the weight, grounding me to this earth. It is not a mirage, is it?” He cupped both his hands together palm up and waited.
More than one tear graced Katrine’s face, each track a mirror image of the moisture on his cheeks.
“It is in your keeping forever. I just felt lost not knowing where it was, whether you had it safe or had put it to one side. I want nothing so much as to come with you, marry you, make love with you again, and live happily ever after.”
“I like the sound of that.” Wilhelm said rising to his feet a little awkwardly, his knees and back stiff from all the travel.
Unable to resist the look of longing in Katrine’s eyes, not wanting or needing to resist, he pulled her to him and kissed her fervently. There was no softness to the press of his lips, the push of his tongue, but Katrine welcomed him, opening for him, moaning her acquiescence.
It was only when he heard a gasp that didn’t come from him or Katrine that Wilhelm reluctantly pulled away.
“Oh my,” said the Sister standing watching from the doorway Katrine had come from.
“Oh my indeed,” Wilhelm said to Katrine. “I think I’d best whisk you away from here before we cause any more of a scandal.”
She laughed. “Yes, please.”
“Are you all right
to ride?” He would find a way to borrow a carriage if need be.
“Yes, as long as we take it slow, at a walk, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
He lifted her up onto the horse and began to lead them out of the courtyard. As they passed the Sister watching them he gave a wave. Casting his gaze back he noticed she wasn’t the only one watching. Dotted about were faces peering out of windows. He waved to them all.
Once they passed through the wooden gates he said to Katrine, “I don’t know the way to your house. Can you tell Treasure to guide you home? It will save you having to steer.”
Katrine leaned forward to whisper in the mare’s ear, receiving a whinny in response.
They walked on Wilhelm unable to take his eyes off Katrine, off the rounded bump of her belly.
“Stop!” Katrine called out, “Whoa.”
Horse and rider came to a stop.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, hand on sword hilt, and instantly alert.
“We’re going the wrong way.”
They’d just come to a fork in the road, and the horse had turned right. Wilhelm looked about. “It looks familiar. I’m sure I came this way.”
“We must go back and take the other path before heading even further west to reach my home. There is no way to get there by taking this path.”
Wilhelm smiled, broadly. “Treasure is taking you home. Lerrendor is now your home. Home to you and our son and daughter. It is where they shall be born. You shall have to steer Treasure after all, so that we might visit your family before we go home together.”
Any lingering concern that Wilhelm might have had at Katrine’s desire to make a life with him vanished at the sight of the beautiful smile stretching wide across her face.
“Going home together. I like the sound of that,” Katrine said.
So did Wilhelm. He couldn’t wait to get them both home. Perhaps now he would be able to sleep at night. Then again not too much sleep. There would be far better things to do in bed than rest once he had Katrine there again.
He’d have to punish her for leaving him for a start. Make her earn his forgiveness and then convince her she’d done the right thing by coming back.
Every day. She’d need convincing every day. Every night. There would be no rest for his princess.
The End
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