Page 41 of The Prince’s Wallflower Wife (The Wallflower Academy #4)

D aphne couldn’t help it. She meandered to the large bay window that overlooked the sweeping lawn. Again.

‘Daphne von Auberheiser!’

‘I can’t help it, I’m so excited!’ she said, the words spilling from her lips. For a moment, just a moment, she tried to catch them. Tried to hold back her excitement. Tried not to allow her voice to thrum with anticipation.

Then she looked into the grinning face of her husband and the hackles on the back of her neck subsided.

‘I know you are,’ Christoph said with a laugh, turning the page of his newspaper as he spoke. ‘But you looking out of the window every five minutes is not going to make them arrive any sooner.’

‘It might do,’ she shot back with a giggle. ‘You never know. And they were due here an hour ago!’

The longcase clock just to the right of the mantlepiece did indeed show the time was past two o’clock, and the letter from Gwen that had arrived that morning had been most clear: one o’clock was when they expected to arrive.

Yet here they were, waiting.

Her husband turned another page. ‘It’s Niedernlein at Christmas, Daphne. What did you expect? I would bet they’ve been caught by the weather.’

‘The weather?’ Daphne looked up into the sky. It was blue, a dark blue she had never seen in England. She had not been able to stop marvelling at the sky since they had arrived here two weeks ago. ‘But the sun is—’

‘The weather could be entirely different three miles down the road, and I would bet good money that it is,’ said Christoph vaguely, his attention drifting away from their discussion and back to the newspaper he was examining. ‘They say here I’m an absent monarch!’

‘Well, you did clandestinely leave your nation for England to marry me, dear,’ Daphne pointed out, trying not to smile.

‘I wasn’t the monarch then!’

‘I suppose not,’ she said, her stomach twisting at the very thought. ‘But you are now.’

It had come as a shock to all of them. The news had arrived by royal courier who had travelled all the way from Niedernlein. He’d been half-dead with cold, exhausted, and yet desperate to bow low to the man who was now King of Niedernlein.

The sudden disappearance of the heir to the throne had apparently caused quite some consternation.

Even more consternation had followed when King Anton had been charged with murder by his own soldiers—the murder of his wife.

Before he could be arrested, however, a duel had been fought with the lady’s brother and the King of Niedernlein had been killed.

And that meant…

‘They’re full of praise for their new queen, however,’ Christoph said with a grin over the top of his newspaper. ‘Quite right too.’

‘Christoph!’

‘Well, with my brother gone, they didn’t have any choice but to accept me,’ he continued, just a hint of tension in his jaw as he spoke. ‘But they’ve embraced you.’

Heat splattered over Daphne’s cheeks, but she did not argue with him. It was impossible to do so. It had all been a whirlwind, the news of Anton’s rather disgraceful death accompanied by the startling news that Christoph was the new King of Niedernlein. And that made her a queen—Queen Daphne.

It had all been a little ridiculous. Her father had been thrilled.

‘We don’t have to live here all year, you know.’

Daphne looked up. Christoph had laid aside the newspaper with a most serious expression on his face.

‘Don’t you want to stay here?’ asked Daphne quietly. ‘I thought you missed it when you were in England—Niedernlein, I mean, not…not him.’

Him . They didn’t need to say his name.

Christoph sighed. ‘I did miss it, far more than I had predicted. But this is not your home.’

He still didn’t understand. Perhaps he never would. Daphne could hardly articulate it, which would explain why he didn’t comprehend.

‘You are my home,’ she said softly, stepping over to sit on the sofa beside him. ‘Wherever you are, that’s where my home is. We could travel all over the world: Persia, China—’

‘I don’t think our subjects would want to lose you for that long,’ he quipped with a grin.

Daphne blushed. ‘I suppose not. My point is, we could live anywhere, in a box for all I cared, and it would be home. As long as I could share it with you.’

Christoph placed a hand on her cheek. ‘My beautiful, clever wife. I don’t deserve you.’

‘Probably not.’

Christoph laughed and Daphne’s cheeks burned—not with shyness, but exhilaration. ‘And I love you more and more with the more I learn of you. I suppose there’s still more.’

‘I suppose so. I hardly know myself,’ she confessed. ‘But I know that I love you. And that’s all that matters.’

She couldn’t help it. Really, Daphne thought, she should be congratulated for holding back for so long.

Pressing a kiss against his cheek, she was not surprised when Christoph turned and met her lips with his own. His ardent kiss parted her lips and Daphne squirmed, trying to get into his lap without falling off the sofa as his hands pulled her closer.

‘Presenting Her Highness, Princess Laura to Their Majesties… Oh. Oh, dear.’

Daphne sprang apart from Christoph with flaming cheeks and downcast eyes. Still, she couldn’t quite ignore the scarlet-faced footman and the laughing young woman beside him.

‘You two really have got to learn to keep your hands off each other,’ said Laura with a grin as she strode into the room. ‘Are they here yet?’

‘This is our palace, Laura,’ muttered Christoph as Daphne surreptitiously attempted to check that her gown was straight. As straight as it could be over the growing swelling. ‘You could knock.’

‘I brought a herald, what more do you require?’ chuckled Laura, peering out of the window. ‘Where are they?’

‘Late. Sylvia’s with them so I suppose they got into an adventure,’ Daphne said, her cheeks still pink as the footman, or herald, or whatever he was—she really had to learn the different liveries—backed out of the room with a deep bow.

‘And Rilla, of course. And the children,’ Christoph reminded them. ‘Perhaps they had to stop for them.’

Excitement flooded back into Daphne’s chest at the thought of her three closest friends arriving for their visit, and with their children: little Perce and baby Florence. And Sylvia must be edging towards her time by now! And Daphne was almost certain the husbands were coming.

‘They were meant to be here over an hour ago,’ said Laura, stepping away from the bay window and sighing as she dropped into a chair by the fire. ‘Where are they?’

Then came a noise. A clatter. Hoofbeats.

Daphne rushed to the window. ‘They’re here. They’re here!’

Laura launched to her side and squealed with delight, grabbing Daphne’s arm. ‘They’re here!’

Turning, Daphne said excitedly, ‘Christoph, they’re—’

‘Yes, they’re here, I heard,’ Christoph said, rolling his eyes dramatically. ‘I would imagine half the kingdom knows they’re here.’

Daphne grinned. ‘Don’t pretend you’re not excited to show off Niedernlein.’

Laura had swept off into the hallway in eager anticipation to renew the acquaintance of the ladies she had first met in London, leaving her brother and sister-in-law momentarily alone.

Christoph rose and walked over to Daphne, pulling her into a tight embrace. ‘I am looking forward to “showing off Niedernlein”, as you put it. But their visit does have a distinct downside.’

Pulling back so she could look into his eyes, but not so far as to step out of his arms, Daphne frowned. ‘Downside?’

There was a quirk on her husband’s lips. ‘I have to share you. I’d much rather keep you to myself.’

Daphne kissed him hard and swiftly on the mouth. ‘I’m yours, Christoph. No one else’s.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘And we’ll find plenty of time just for the two of us,’ Daphne said, pressing on. ‘I can hardly imagine any of my friends not wishing for a little…well…alone time with their husbands.’

In the past, the mere suggestion of such a thing would have had her cheeks aflame. They were boiling, to tell the truth, but she had said the words directly, without stuttering or hesitating, all while keeping her gaze fixed on his.

Christoph smiled. ‘The woman I first married would never have been able to say that.’

‘The woman you first married would have thought it, very hard,’ Daphne said with a dry laugh. ‘And it’s thanks to you that I can… I mean, without your love, your support…’

He stopped her words with a kiss.

Daphne almost melted in his arms as the sound of delighted people alighting from several carriages rang out from the front of the house. ‘Let’s send them away.’

Christoph snorted. ‘Daphne von Auberheiser! You’ve been waiting for days for your friends to arrive!’

‘I know, I changed my mind,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I just want you here! I want—’

‘Come on, you two, aren’t you going to welcome everyone?’ Laura poked her head round the door, but it disappeared almost as soon as it appeared.

Christoph blew out a long breath and, though he did not say anything, Daphne could read his expression.

He was nervous. Nervous, for he was still growing accustomed to the crown.

To the weight of responsibility. To the knowledge that he was the representative of a nation.

To the certainty that he would be plagued with questions from all three of her friends, Daphne thought ruefully.

‘I love you,’ she said suddenly.

And all the tension melted away from her husband’s face. ‘I love you.’

‘There they are!’

The screech was one of delight and Daphne could not help but smile as she turned to welcome them. ‘Sylvia!’

‘Give me a hug, this minute, then order me the largest hot chocolate this kingdom of yours can procure,’ said Sylvia, rushing from the doorway to pull Daphne into a hearty embrace that knocked the wind out of her. ‘The weather in this country!’

‘I didn’t think it was too bad,’ her husband Theodore said with a wink at Daphne, holding out his hand to shake Christoph’s. ‘A great many thanks for the invitation.’

‘No, this way… Careful, Perce!’