Page 38 of The Prince’s Wallflower Wife (The Wallflower Academy #4)

I t was a miracle, really, that Daphne could hear her own words, her pulse was thumping so wildly.

But perhaps, if it had not been so visceral, she would have supposed that the image before her eyes was merely a dream.

Because it could not be true. Christoph could not be here—at the Wallflower Academy.

What on earth was he doing here?

‘Daphne.’ He breathed her name, he did not say it, rising to his feet with a look of such hunger that she could not help but blush.

‘Daphne!’ Matthews greeted her with a smile, though it was one that contained a great deal of curiosity.

‘Daphne Smith!’ barked Miss Pike, striding over to her with pink cheeks. ‘What on earth are you doing here? I have been worried sick. Your maid wrote to me two days ago; she said you had disappeared.’

Daphne tried not to smile. ‘Well, it’s good to know there are two spies in our house.’

Christoph was staring between the two women, clearly perplexed. ‘Maid? Spy?’

‘Well, I… I thought it would be prescient to have someone in your household that I knew I could trust,’ Miss Pike said stiffly, drawing herself up as though she had not conducted a minor act of espionage. ‘Daphne is delicate. She deserves to be treated well. I had to ensure that she was.’

It was all Daphne could do not to stare with an open mouth.

Miss Pike cared about her? Cared enough to place a spy within her household?

That knowledge, if knowledge it was, certainly coloured the last few years in a very different hue.

‘You placed a spy—your maid?’ Christoph said weakly. ‘I believe I am lost.’

The instant his attention moved to her, however, it changed. It softened, yet hardened. There was a focus in his eyes that was all-consuming—consuming her.

Daphne shivered. It was astonishing, really; one could go most of one’s life without someone, and then they came into that life and one simply could not live without them. Not being in his presence for just a few days was enough to make her wonder how she could go on, not being a part of his world.

That was undoubtedly why her pulse had quickened, her lungs were tight and her skin tingled. Nothing to do with the fact that she wanted his fingers on hers.

‘It appears you have much to discuss,’ Miss Pike said haughtily. ‘Not that I don’t have an inkling what it could be about.’

Daphne blinked. That was unexpected. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I have eyes, Daphne Smith—I mean, Your Highness,’ said Miss Pike with an air of mystery that was ever so slightly tempered by her next clucking remark, at a gaggle of wallflowers that had collected at the top of the stairs to gawk at them.

‘I see the way you look at each other. It’s simply a case of…

Manners, girls, manners—have I taught you nothing?

Really, you simply must not stare at royalty. ’

In the wake of Miss Pike’s distraction, Christoph eagerly stepped towards Daphne—very eagerly. A part of her wanted him to do what it appeared he was about to do: rush towards her, pull her into his arms and kiss away all concerns and fears about the argument between them.

The part of her that wanted that…was strong. But not strong enough. Daphne put up a shaking hand to halt her approaching husband and he froze, brow furrowed and gaze unabashed in his delight at seeing her.

‘There have been too many secrets,’ she said quietly.

She expected him to deny it; to say that it had been necessary to have kept it hidden from her. As she watched the flickering tug of war across Christoph’s features, she resigned herself to a debate she knew he would win. Or, rather, neither of them would win.

Christoph’s face straightened. ‘I know. I am sorry.’

His delight in seeing her was evidently at odds with his confusion as to her appearance. Daphne tried not to focus on how greatly she adored him, how much she wanted him to say all the right things.

Tell me you love me again. I need to hear it from your own lips. But she had to be strong, even when she felt physically weak in his presence.

‘I need to know the truth,’ Daphne said, working hard to keep her voice level.

It did not work. There was a quaver within it that was due not merely to his presence, though that was a large factor, but because it was not in her nature to demand anything.

She was not a person who made demands. She was a person who submitted to them.

‘What are you doing here?’ Daphne added, confusion wrinkling her brow.

It was certainly not where she thought she would find him.

‘I was looking for you,’ Christoph said in a rush. ‘God, Daphne, I have been so worried. Your friends didn’t know where you were, neither did your father. I came here to the Wallflower Academy and you weren’t here.’

‘Girls, decorum, please!’

‘The Bow Street Runners said no crime had been committed and I paid a newspaper a king’s ransom to put out notices looking for you,’ he continued as Daphne stared up at him.

‘Well, a princess’s ransom, I suppose—your ransom.

I… I had to make sure you were safe. Even if you did not wish to be with me, I had to ensure no harm came to you. ’

I had to make sure you were safe.

Daphne swallowed hard. He had not attempted to order her to his side; he did not wish to possess her as an object. ‘You…you wanted me to be safe? Do you care about me that much?’

Christoph looked down at her, his expression simple. ‘I need you.’

Need you. Her breath caught in her throat at the intimacy of his words. Not wanted—needed. Somehow that was more potent. He relied on her, craved, perhaps in the same way she craved him.

‘And stop that whispering, girls, I’m trying to listen!’

Daphne smiled, her cheeks pinking with the embarrassment.

Miss Pike’s voice carried down the wide, sweeping staircase, and undoubtedly theirs carried up it.

The gaggle of wallflowers had not gone away, but evidently the proprietress of the Wallflower Academy was attempting to keep them quiet enough so that they could all eavesdrop on the Prince and Princess of Niedernlein.

Well, that couldn’t continue.

‘Come with me,’ Daphne said softly. She turned without waiting to see if he would follow her. She did not need to look to know he would.

Christoph’s presence warmed her side as they both walked to the front door. Matthews stood aside silently, though he smiled briefly at Daphne as they passed.

The fresh morning air was almost stifling in its coldness. A deep inhale only provoked her lungs to shock, and Daphne slowed both her breathing and pace as Christoph fell into step with her across the gravel drive.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked quietly.

‘Out,’ Daphne said simply. ‘Away from pricked ears.’

They walked in silence for a good ten minutes. Daphne knew the way; she would have known the way blindfolded, having meandered along these paths almost all her life. She knew a path for whenever she needed solitude, whenever she knew she needed time away from everyone else around her.

The parkland of the Wallflower Academy was mostly ignored by the wallflowers. It offered little in the way of obvious entertainment, and was too far from the house for Miss Pike’s liking. It was therefore her domain. It always had been.

Daphne glanced at the man by her side through lowered eyelashes and saw him gazing about the parkland with amazement at its ancient oaks and towering beeches.

‘It is beautiful out here,’ Christoph said quietly.

‘I have always liked it,’ Daphne agreed. ‘When I…when I needed to think, or merely have no noise around me, I would come here. No one ever thought to look for me here.’

In fact it was strange to bring someone else here at all. This was her place, one of her special places, and now Christoph was here. Yet it felt right. So right.

‘Daphne,’ said Christoph suddenly, halting in his tracks.

Daphne halted too, turning with a warily. ‘Yes?’

For a moment they just stood there, a few feet apart yet miles apart in understanding.

There was so much unsaid, so much misunderstood.

So much affection but unexpressed, poorly expressed and poorly received.

Daphne could feel every breath, every flutter of breeze, her skin somehow heightened.

And he was looking at her as though he wished to ravish her against a tree instead of talk.

‘You have to know… I must tell you how much you mean to me,’ Christoph said in a rush, more a growl than a statement. ‘Daphne, you are—’

‘No, Christoph—’ She tried to stop him.

‘But it is destroying me, the idea that you do not understand how I feel about you,’ he said desperately. ‘And I understand if you cannot love me in return—Lord knows I do not deserve you—but you must know… Daphne, you must know that you are the centre of my world.’

It was flattering, hearing such things. It was wonderful, hearing them from Christoph’s lips. Daphne swallowed; but it wasn’t enough. Or at least, it wasn’t the right time. There would be time for that, later, should all go well. But they couldn’t start there, tempting as it was.

‘I need to know other things first,’ she said quietly, hating once again that her skin betrayed her, a deep blush rising. ‘Things about…about your past. About your family. About how this marriage truly occurred.’

She had gone round and round in her mind on these topics, desperately attempting to understand, hoping to guess the truth.

Gwen had had her own theories, of course, and the instant Sylvia and Rilla had visited the three of them had suggested a wide variety of ideas, most of them hilarious, a few of them deeply sad and none of them particularly right.

There was only one person who knew the truth. The whole truth. There needed to be two.

Christoph hesitated, then sighed heavily with a wry smile. ‘You deserve the truth. But I am not sure… I do not think I come out of the story particularly well, in hindsight.’

It took a great deal for him to admit that, she could see. But it wasn’t enough. ‘I need to hear it.’