Page 23 of The Prince’s Wallflower Wife (The Wallflower Academy #4)

‘I would like to take you to Niedernlein one day,’ Christoph said quietly.

Daphne squeezed his hand. ‘We could go in the new year, see the mountains covered with—’

‘No, we can’t.’ His words were curt—not cruel, but inviting no further conversation.

She swallowed. ‘Oh. Well. We don’t have to.’

Christoph continued to look at the painting for a few minutes, a wistful expression on his face that Daphne wished she could capture in a painting of her own. Then he shook his head, as though to rid his mind of thoughts that were unpleasant, and smiled. ‘Shall we continue?’

They spent a few more minutes in the room before stepping through a doorway into another. This room was filled with portraits.

Daphne giggled as they approached the first on their left. ‘Rascals, the pair of them.’

The painting, framed in gold gilt, was of two young boys, perhaps brothers. They were laughing together, as though one of them had told a hilarious joke.

When she looked at Christoph, however, he was not smiling. ‘Brothers, I suppose.’

Daphne’s stomach contracted painfully. ‘I suppose.’ She should have remembered . ‘Come, let’s look at another one.’

She tugged his hand to lead him further along the wall but, when they halted by a portrait of a woman looking imperiously down at them, Christoph still had a far-off look in his eyes.

‘You do not have to protect me, you know,’ he said quietly. ‘From the topic of brothers.’

Daphne’s throat spasmed. When she could speak again, she said, ‘I would protect you from anything that gave you pain.’

It was the sort of thing she would never have said before Christoph. Inside thoughts. But now…now she was here, with him, and he made her feel safe. It was the least she could do, to impart the same sensation to him.

When he spoke, it was quietly, though there were no other visitors in this part of the art gallery. ‘Anton and I…we were close. When we were young, I mean. I did not know then what he was. What he would become.’

Daphne said nothing. If there was one thing she knew how to do, it was how to be silent in a way that encouraged further confidences.

Christoph’s jaw tightened. ‘He’s two years older than me.

By the time I reached twenty, I had already decided that I would never be like him.

He was—he is—a cruel man. A man who knows only how to harm, not to help, or to heal.

He became King a few weeks ago. Our father died in…

well… Anton has stated they were not suspicious circumstances. ’

Daphne’s breathing was slow and steady, but that was only because she was doing a great deal of work to ensure it was so. ‘You think he…?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps he did. Perhaps he did not.’ Christoph blew out a long exhale and gave a bracing smile as he started to walk along the wall, pulling her along with him. ‘It’s why I am so grateful to have Laura. She is a sibling more after my sensibilities.’

‘I would have loved siblings,’ Daphne found herself saying, a truth that she had never shared with anyone. ‘But…but then I suppose, if I had done, my father would not have been able to give me such a quantity of money. We would not be married.’

For a heartbeat, she thought she had gone too far, said too much. Been vulgar. Miss Pike had always been most clear that money was not a suitable conversational topic for young ladies.

Christoph chuckled. ‘I suppose not. Had you thought much of marriage? Before your father wrote to…me, I mean?’

It was a strange hesitation, to be sure, but then this was hardly a regular topic of conversation. Daphne fought the instinct to drop his hand as she said, ‘No. Who would want me?’

He came to a halt. ‘You cannot be in earnest?’

She could not bring herself to meet his eye. Another couple had entered the room, exclaiming loudly at the elegance of the art, how clever the artist had been in their use of light, and she could not think of what to say.

How was one supposed to answer a question like that?

‘That one looks just like you.’

Daphne started and giggled in the almost-silence as she looked up at a devastatingly beautiful yet severe-looking woman holding a bouquet. ‘You cannot be serious.’

‘You have the same eyes!’ protested Christoph, though he was smiling too—a smile that became a raucous laugh as Daphne brought her hands together before her and adopted the rather haughty expression of the woman in the painting.

His laughter filled her with honey, with liquid gold, with sunshine. Daphne could not help but giggle herself as Christoph walked on to the next painting, of a general holding aloft a sword, and held up his hand in a similar way, puffing out his chest just as the portrait sitter had done.

‘The likeness is uncanny!’ Daphne whispered, still laughing as she grabbed Christoph’s hand and pulled him to the next painting. ‘Oh, look at this one, that could be you again!’

Her husband collapsed into chuckles at the astonishingly gruff-looking gentleman seated on a resplendent green arm-chair, holding what must have been a squirming puppy. ‘You cannot think I look that austere!’

‘I think it is the very same look you give Henderson when he does not bring through your post at breakfast!’ Daphne found herself teasing, half-astonished at her own bravery.

When had she ever spoken to a person like this?

‘Oh, and here you are,’ Christoph said, tugging on her hand.

Daphne almost snorted with laughter as they stood before a painting of an elderly woman who was either seriously constipated, or had been painted by her greatest enemy. ‘Cheek!’

‘Well, you never know, you might look like that when you’re old,’ Christoph retorted, his laughter fading but his smile broad. ‘I can’t wait.’

‘What? To see me look like—?’

‘To grow old with you.’

Daphne swallowed. Somehow the laughter had disappeared from their conversation yet the warmth remained. Christoph’s eyes were fixed on hers, warm, caring and…and something else.

‘To grow old together,’ added Christoph with a wry smile. ‘Maybe we shall have our portraits painted then, and be amazed at how old we are.’

‘I… I would like that,’ Daphne murmured, suddenly painfully conscious that there were other people in the art gallery.

They spent another ten minutes or so viewing paintings in a third room, but they did so in silence. It was not an awkward silence. It was one of warmth, of understanding, even if she did not quite understand it herself.

When they walked out into the autumn sunshine, Daphne said quietly, ‘Thank you. For the adventure.’

London had grown busier since they had entered the art gallery. There were many people bustling along the pavement, so Christoph was forced to step closer to her to continue their conversation.

At least, that was what Daphne told herself. It could not be for any other reason.

‘This is an arranged marriage,’ Christoph said heavily.

The warmth started to fade.

Of course it was—how could she have been so foolish as to think, as to hope, that it could be more?

‘But it is for the rest of our lives,’ continued Christoph in a gentle voice. ‘I want us—I want you—to be happy.’

It was a challenge not to become deflated at the reminder that theirs was no love match, but one of practicalities. She needed a home, a protector. He needed money. They each could provide what the other was lacking, but it was not a match made from passion.

You are clever, and beautiful, and wise, and brave, and I’ve never wanted anyone like I’ve wanted you.

Daphne swallowed, trying to forget the moment when they had become one, when the marriage had been consummated. It had happened only because they’d had to do it. He had not spoken of enjoying it—and she was selfish in the extreme for having enjoyed it so much.

‘Daphne. Daphne, look at me.’

Blinking back tears that had come from she knew not where, Daphne looked up. There was such an expression of tenderness on Christoph’s face that her cheeks burned in sympathy for him. Out here, on the streets of London!

‘Daphne, I planned this marriage to…to escape a family that did not care for me,’ Christoph said quietly. ‘A family that was destroying itself from the inside out. I… I was running from something, but now I have the chance to run towards something. Towards you.’

The burning in her cheeks grew rapidly in temperature but there was absolutely nothing Daphne could do about it. She could just as easily have wrenched her gaze from Christoph’s and hurled herself into the sun.

‘Now I have the chance to create a new family. A family with you.’ Christoph slipped his hand into hers and squeezed her fingers.

Daphne’s stomach lurched. A new family, with her. He could not mean…

Oh. Oh…now she knew what was wrong…

When she had awoken, it hadn’t been the flowers, lovely as they were, that had nudged the back of her mind. It was something quite different.

Her flux. It was late. Very late. Three weeks late.

‘And I know an arranged match is perhaps not what we would have expected,’ Christoph was saying, utterly oblivious to the realisation that was currently rocking through Daphne’s mind. ‘But I think—I hope—we can learn to be happy together. To be companions. To become good friends.’

Friends , Daphne thought weakly. Friends . But she was with child.

She needed to tell him. Daphne reached out a hand and placed it on Christoph’s shirt, not caring that they were in public, not caring that if the Pike had seen such a thing she would have been mortified on her behalf.

‘Christoph,’ she said urgently, interrupting him.

Christoph placed his free hand over hers on his chest. ‘Yes?’

‘Christoph, I’m—’

‘Of course, you would get to the Regent’s art gallery first!’ Gwen Devereux and her husband were pushing their way through the crowd on the pavement. Gwen was grinning, her hand being clutched by her little boy. ‘You clever thing, how on earth did you find out about it? I’ve only just heard!’

Daphne swallowed down her secret as Christoph greeted Gwen and Percy with words of welcome.

It was fine. It was fine—perhaps better this way. The streets of London were not the best place, after all, to tell a man that he was about to be a father. It was not as though they had ever discussed children. Did he want them? What did this mean for their arranged marriage?

She would tell him, another time. She would have to pick the perfect moment.