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“Princess!”
The priest stands on the seat in an effort to find me among the masses. I am being pulled away from him.
“Welcome back, Mae.”
My would-be abductor lifts his face. “You and my brother are lucky that it was me who grabbed you and not a different spy.”
“Ezra!” I smile in relief.
“Maeve!” My husband is calling for me. “Where is she? Where is my wife?”
“She is here.” Ezra pulls me free of the crowd and nudges me into Christian’s arms. “I found her in the crowd with an old priest. Do better, brother.”
“Ezra.”
They embrace the way only two brothers who lost two brothers could embrace. They hold on to each other like they are the last two Beaumont Princes left. Ezra wipes his eyes with his hand when they part. Christian comforts him with dry eyes and a firm voice.
“You are the heir now, Ezra.” He says. “Your people are watching.”
“These are your people, Christian.” Ezra wipes his eyes when they tear up again. “You will be a great King.”
“We should go inside out of the open.” Father O’Toole suggests.
Christian wraps his arm around me shielding me with his body. Ezra takes up my other side and the priest walks directly behind me. I am surrounded by them as they take me into the palace where his aunt waits besides a dying man in a rolling chair.
“Father.”
I watch my husband turn into a boy at his father’s feet. He curls his big body around his father’s knees and lays his head in his lap. My heart breaks for him and my eyes fill with tears. Not because the old bastard is dying, but because his death is hurting my love.
“My son.” The King sobs brokenly. “My beautiful boy has returned.”
The priest takes my arm to move me away and give the family privacy. Maybe he wants to hide me from them? I go along to put off my death for another day.
“Father O’Toole?” Christian stands up and walks over to us. “Where do you think you are taking her?”
“To her chamber, Highness.” Father O’Toole bows his head. “So that you might speak to your father alone. I am sure there is much to discuss.”
“Do not touch my wife or take her anywhere unless you are told to do so.”
Christian takes me by the hand and pulls me to his side. My hand is squeezing his. I am terrified of his family. I have seen the carnage that they are capable of.
“Wife? You cannot marry without the churches approval, Christian.” His father speaks plainly. “Whatever vows you exchanged with this... animal are not binding. They are not recognized by the church.”
“They are binding to me.” Christian tries to lead me forward. “My wife is no animal. She carries a Beaumont within her, Father. My child will not be born a bastard.”
“This child is already a bastard, son.” The King says angrily. “It is no more than a servant. Give the infidel a chamber and a place on the staff. I need you leading our army and preparing to rule. It is your fault we were defeated in the north and your brothers were killed. While they were fighting back the mongrels, you were breeding with one. Get her out of my sight. I never want to see her ugly face again.”
I curtsy before I turn and run. How was I expecting to be received? Parades and open arms for me also? I knew they hated me before I chose to return here. This was a mistake. I should have stayed at the church alone. I could have stayed with Neo until Christian came back for me. I am lifted off my feet when my husband scoops me into his arms.
“I am not hiding you like some whore, Maeve.” The Prince does not apologize for his father. “I want everyone to know the truth. You are their queen.”
“Highness.” A voice calls. Christian walks faster. “Damn it, Christian. Wait for me.”
“Not now, Aunt.”
“Is she the one that people are saying is a witch?”
“My wife is a Beaumont. Not a witch.”
“The Cardinal will not be pleased when he hears of this. I suspect his spies are informing him as we speak.”
“You could not wait to send for him, could you, bitch?” He accuses her angrily. “When I am King, the first thing I will do is send you back to my mother’s family. If you continue to insult my wife, it will be in a coffin.”
“You, wicked, wicked boy!” The woman cries. “This witch has cursed you. My favorite nephew would never speak to me with such contempt.”
“Because my favorite aunt started sucking my cock when I was a child.”
I heard about the incest and other foul deeds running rampant in the palace. It seems those stories are also true. This woman calls herself a lady. She is no lady. She is sick. I shake my head in disgust.
“Lies!” The woman flushes and begins fanning her face. “I never...”
Christian shakes his head in disappointment. “You know it is true.” He frowns. “Why would you deny it and call me a liar in front of my wife? Of all the things I can lie about if I choose to, why would I pick my cock?”
“You need prayer to be purged of this demon.” His aunt turns her evil blue eyes on me. “She is poisoning your mind.”
“The way you poisoned my mother to death to have my father?”
“Are you accusing me of murdering my own sister?”
“Mother mentioned the possibility and she was dead but a week later.”
“The king came to me after Mary died.” She insists. “We care about each other.”
“You wore your jealousy for all to see, Katherine.” The woman follows when he keeps walking. “You were the eldest daughter, and the king wanted mother, not you.”
“He wanted her because she was free with herself and I was more modest.”
“My mother was an angel.” He stops to glare at her. “Father wanted her because she was prettier and smarter than you. You ended up an old maid who moved into the palace to live in her sister’s shadow and fuck her son. The only reason I never told her what you did to me is because I did not want your whore blood tainting her fair hands when she killed you.”
“I helped raise you.”
“You helped make me into what I am!”
I flinch when he yells at her. The Aunt cringes and slinks backwards away from him.
“Stay away from me.” He warns her. “And stay away from Maeve.”
He kicks her in the middle sending her flying to the white tile floor in a heap of blue and gold silk. What a disgusting woman. My mother warned me about women like her. Women who will do anything for power and will sink to any depths of debauchery to satisfy their carnal needs. Women like her will come for your husband and steal his affection. I never imagined the woman coming for mine would be a blood relation.
“No woman will ever steal my affection from my wife.” Christian promises me. “I have given my heart to one woman and she is you, Maeve Beaumont. I am not some libertine, or rake who fucks every lush body or pretty face that I meet. My lust is famous on the battlefield, not in women’s boudoirs.” He smiles when he confesses this. “Though, I am gifted in both.” He speaks the truth. “I would rather feed my lust with my enemy’s blood than on top of some sad woman’s body.”
“Why pretend to be celibate when we know you have lovers, Prince.”
“I have mistresses, Aunt.” He corrects her. “I have women with whom I share lust, not love. Do not try to make my wife feel less than who she is.”
The servants standing outside his chamber door open it when they see their Prince coming. They kneel as he passes before rising to their feet and closing it quietly behind us. The chamber is empty aside for the silent servants in the corner blending with the wall.
“How many women do you have?”
My voice is light and airy so that I do not sound like a nagging wife. I am trying not to be angry about women who came before me, but my jealousy has a mind of its own. I have no right to question a Prince about anything at all. That he tolerates my blatant disrespect and bad temperament is a miracle.
“One.” Christian answers calmly. “I have only one and she is my nagging wife.”
“How many whores do you keep?” I change my question.
He sits me on the big bed that is canopied in heavy blue and gold silk. The luxurious coverlet has his family crest sewn carefully into it by proud and gifted hands.
“Not many compared to my brothers and father. Three here in the palace, one or two in our other keeps. None that I have not known for years.” He speaks openly. “They are not whores considering they were all virgins when I took them.”
That part stings. It is easy to believe that he does not care about castle whores who sleep with all the men. But to have intimate relationships with each one is worrisome. It means that he will never send them away depending on how long he has kept them. Christian is obligated to care for them until they marry or die. How will I ever live with that? My husband taking care of his mistresses forever?
“Those women are not your concern.” He snaps in irritation.
Christian rarely uses this tone with me. When he does it is because I am being disrespectful or putting myself in danger. His women are clearly a sensitive subject for him.
“I must insist that you do not bring them up again. It upsets you and annoys the hell out of me.” His voice is tight with displeasure. “I spoil you.” Christian frowns. “I let you have your way too often and you sometimes forget which of us is King. My silence about certain things go to your head and inflame your exaggerated self-importance and mediocre performance outside of our bed. By every standard you are a terrible wife. I am telling you that you overstep with this. You are the only woman in my bed. Leave this situation be.”
How can I deny what he spoke? I am a terrible wife. I prove him right when I ignore his direct order to be quiet about his women. I cannot help myself.
“And your Aunt?”
Christians eyes flash. I know I am pushing him. I know how dangerous it is. But not to me. The Butcher is no danger to me or our child.
“Katherina began kissing me on the lips when I was a boy. She was trying to put my cock inside her the day it first got hard. My brother Jeremiah caught me mounting her when I was five years and ten. I told him the truth. She started bringing me into her bed before I could get hard. It was the year I got her with child. He went into a fit and blackened both of her eyes. I had also discovered other girls. Kate was jealous. When I came home to visit, she forced me into her bed. The last time I touched her I was seven and ten.”
My blood is boiling, and I try hard to not think about killing her. The disgusting animal should not be walking around free to manipulate and confuse another child. If she had any decency, she would throw herself from a tower and rid the palace of her filth.
“The child?”
I hold my breath and hope like hell none of the little yellow haired boys running about were fathered by him. If he had a child with his aunt...
“She went to a midwife who rid her of it. I was angry and hurt when she killed my child.” He admits with sad eyes. “Because I was too young to understand what an abomination it was.”
The bitch took advantage of him. If she comes near Christian again, I will kill her myself. How dare she do that to him? He was just a boy. I cannot fight the urge to shed tears for the little boy that she broke so long ago. It hurts me to think about what that must have been like for him? To learn of sex and a woman’s body in the bed of his grown aunt?
“I had a hard time connecting with other women for a long time after her.” He diverts his gaze from me. “I thought I was in love with her.”
His shame makes me weep for him. I stand up and walk over to him. I wrap my arms around him and hold him.
“She cannot hurt you anymore, Christian.”
I shed my tears into his vest. How could she hurt him so?
“Hey.” He lifts my teary face. “What is this, my disobedient wife? Tears for the Butcher?”
“I love you.” My voice trembles with emotion. “Your pain is my own.”
“I do not want you to share my pain.”
The Prince covers his heart with my small hand. It thuds under my palm, beating a song that is only for me.
“I want you to share this love that I have to give, Maeve. A love that I never knew I could feel until I met you.”
“Christian.”
I dig my fingers into his feathery hair and bring his lips down on mine.
“My darling Prince.”
He lifts me so that we are face-to-face. His tongue penetrates my lips the way his cock penetrates my body when we make love. Only a man in love can hold me so tightly and kiss me with such passion. Only a man that is afraid of love would tremble in my arms like so. I whisper the ways that I love him and etch my words onto his tongue with mine. I love him harder to show him that there is nothing to fear here. My loyalty is to him in every way and nothing will change that. I am not an enemy to be disposed of. I am his wife. The churches worst nightmare is unfolding before them. Their golden boy has fallen for a Payne. One who carries his growing seed under her heart, and unwavering devotion to him inside it.
The knock on the door interrupts our thoughts of each other, but it does not break our connection.
“What is it?” He yells in irritation.
The double doors open at once and a woman strolls in flanked by two maids. Not a woman, a black queen. Her head is high, and her regal, green and silver gown drags several feet behind her. The lady is so ethereal that her dark skin shines like gold, and she floats across the floor. Her posture is so perfect that the golden crown resting on her head does not move an inch.
“Victoria.”
He puts me down to welcome his guest.
“Christian.” She says stiffly with her nose in the air and a shallow curtsy. They are of equal station and do not grovel. Not even to one another.
“You could have sent a calling card instead of showing up in my bed chamber.”
“Would you have answered it?”
The tall woman studies me as she circles the bed slowly.
“No.” The Prince admits with a smile. “As you can see, I am busy.”
“So, I see.” The woman finally turns to Christian. “Imagine my surprise when I heard you married without the Cardinal’s blessing, and that your wife is rumored to be a witch.”
“Rumors.” He assures her. “My wife is a Godly woman.”
“Where was she baptized?” Victoria asks him curiously. “Why does she not wear a cross over her heart? Why is her hair uncovered if she is a woman wed?”
“Who are you to question my wife?” He raises an amused eyebrow.
“The lucky woman spared of marrying you herself.” She smiles wickedly.
“Spared?” Christian laughs. “If anyone was spared, it was I.”
“I cried myself to sleep when father told me the church matched us.” She waves her slim, black hand. “I cried again today when I found you were married- for different reasons. They were tears of joy.”
“Funny.”
“Introduce us, please?” Victoria bids him.
“Of course.” He takes my hand. “Maeve, this is a family friend, Victoria Montgomery.”
“I am very pleased to meet you Mrs. Beaumont.” She is smiling when she takes my hand from his. “It is so nice to see a similar face. From where does your family hail?”
“My father is from the ancient land, but I know not where. He died fighting the er... Mongols.” I make up something and feel bad for lying.
“My ancestors fought the... Mongols also.” She laughs lightly. “I am sure we have much in common. When I heard Christian married a black woman, I had to meet you myself.”
“Now that you have met her, it will hold you until you see her at supper.” He takes her by the elbow and walks her across the chamber to the doors.
“You see her daily, Chris.” The Princess protests as she is forced from the room. “I want to speak with her. How did the two of you meet? How old is she—”
The doors close in her face. How old am I? Too old for a Prince with no heirs.
“You are young enough for me.”
His words offer little comfort. I am old. I am not in denial or pretending to be younger than I am. I should have a husband and five children by now.
“We started late, my darling.”
The Prince takes me into his arms like we are on a ballroom floor and dances me around his beautiful chamber with its high walls and mosaic ceiling.
“I can get five babes out of you if you are up for the task.”
My loins tremble in response. I think I can keep up. I smile and dance with my husband to the music of our laughter. The sun and these walls are our audience. We are dirty from riding for days and tired from not sleeping at night. Neither of us care. We will spend tonight in each other’s arms again. We will laugh and kiss each other all over. We will whisper, dream and make love until my eyes close. I will wake up to him reaching for me the moment they open again. This husband of mine has a voracious appetite for me. I look up into his sun-kissed face and think how lucky I am to have a man who loves me this much. And twice as lucky to have such a handsome Prince. His eyes are as green as green can be. So green that I smell the richness of earth and taste sweet, country air when I stare into them. This Beaumont has given me a child and the protection of his name. Most of all, he has given me himself. He is mine.
Christian pulls me behind him when the doors burst open and armed men pour inside the chamber. The war has reached us.
