But aloud all she said was, “I have to go. I don’t want to be away from Rafe so long. You make the rest of the arrangements as you see fit.” That wasn’t a lie. She didn’t want to be away from Rafe. At all.
“We’ll keep it simple,” Gabriella promised. She smiled wistfully. “
Although it would have been nice to throw a huge wedding for at least one of my daughters!”
Elizabeth laughed ruefully, thinking of the men who had claimed each of her sisters, the whirlwind weddings and the after-the-fact announcements. “Oh, Mother, I’m sorry. We spoiled your dreams, every single one of us.”
The Queen took her daughter’s face in her hands and kissed her forehead. “No, dear, you didn’t. In fact, you’ve all fulfilled the only dream your father and I have ever had for you. You’ve found love.”
Elizabeth looked over her shoulder at Rafe, talking with the King. “Is it that obvious?”
“What, that you adore each other?” Her mother smiled. “Only to eyes that know how to spot it.”
If only it were true, Elizabeth thought as they completed their good-byes and Rafe helped her into the car. He’d begun to treat her as if he truly did care for her. She’d started to hope that maybe her marriage would be more than a one-sided love affair for the rest of her life.
The trip back to Phoenix was tiring, if uneventful. She slept much of the way on both planes while Rafe read and watched movies. When they stepped out of the car into the brilliant winter sun outside his home, Elizabeth smiled and raised her face to its warmth. “I didn’t even realize I’d missed this until now. Oh, Rafe, I do love this town!”
He laughed as he walked around to the trunk to get their bags. “It’s a good thing. My business is firmly established here. I’d hate to have to move it now.”
Halfway up the sidewalk, she stopped and turned to him. “You’d actually consider moving if I asked you to?”
There was a moment of stillness in the dry air. Slowly Rafe set down the bags he carried. “Well,” he said, “I’d prefer not to move to Wynborough unless you can’t be happy anywhere else, but yes, if you really wanted me to, I’d move my business.” He reached down and took her hands, holding them in his much larger ones as he held her eyes with his intense blue gaze. “Don’t you know I’d do anything to make you happy?”
She felt her eyes filling with tears at his tender tone, and she swallowed. “All it takes to make me happy is you.”
Something wild and bright flared in his eyes for a moment, then he dropped her hands and gathered her into his arms. “I might have been too stubborn to admit it, but you’ve owned my heart since the first time I looked across a ballroom and saw those green cat-eyes watching me.” Dropping his head, he found her mouth with his, kissing her until she hung limp in his arms, gasping for breath with her body melded to his from breast to knee. “Let’s go inside,” he growled against her lips, “so I can make us both very happy.”
In the middle of the night he was awakened by an odd sensation.
Rafe came fully alert in an instant with Elizabeth still in his arms. Confused, he glanced around the shadows of the bedroom he’d soon be sharing with his wife—his wife!— and then he felt it again.
A tiny thudding right at the spot where the mound of Elizabeth’s full stomach was pressed against his side. Shifting himself fractionally, he placed his hand on the spot, then waited impatiently. There! Again, the same motion. And now that he was watching more closely, he could see by the full moonlight streaming in the window that there was a slight but definite movement beneath the surface of her skin. Someone in there wanting to come out, he thought whimsically.
“Hey, you in there,” he whispered. “It’s the middle of the night. This is when people sleep. You might as well get that concept down right now.”
A snuffling noise told him Elizabeth had awakened. Then she giggled more loudly. “Are you talking to the baby?”
“Yes. He’s keeping me awake.”
He could see her raised eyebrows in the dim light. “He? I’m hoping ‘he’ is a ‘she.”’
The words jogged a memory, and without really thinking about it, he said, “You and Roland. Am I the only one who wants a boy?”
She went still beneath his hand. So still that he’d swear she wasn’t breathing. Then, in an instant, she relaxed. “Maybe,” she said. But there was something in her voice that bothered him.
The memory came back more clearly now and he recalled the odd phrasing that he’d been too distracted to question that day. “Roland said it would be simpler if it was a girl. Why?”
The moment the words hit the quiet night air, he wished he could get them back. Erase them and go on, blissfully unaware. A chill crawled up his back, though he didn’t know why, and he felt a slow, inexorable change imbue the very air around them with dread. Moving deliberately, he sat up and looked down at her.
“Why?” he demanded again.
She hesitated. Pushing herself to a sitting position also, she scooted back a little, moving away from him. She linked her fingers together in her lap, looked down at them, and sighed. The sound carried a distinct note of resignation. “Your father started to tell you, but he was interrupted. There’s been a great deal of discussion in recent years, in light of Wynborough’s current lack of male heirs to the crown, as to how to proceed when the time comes.”
“That’s great. But it doesn’t affect us.”
“Well, actually, it might.” She moved back even farther as if she wanted to be out of his reach. “Two months ago a new proviso to the law was enacted.”
“What kind of proviso?” He had a sick feeling jittering around in his stomach, and abruptly he recalled the vehement tone in his father’s voice when they’d spoken of living in Phoenix. Unable to sit for another minute, he sprang from the bed, snatching a pair of sweatpants from the bedpost and stuffing his legs into them. “I’m waiting,” he barked when she didn’t respond.