Page 42 of The Prince’s Wallflower Wife (The Wallflower Academy #4)

Daphne grinned. Gwen wasn’t yelling at her husband, though it easily could have been. Instead it was the tiny version of him who was toddled towards Daphne with hands outstretched. Very sticky hands.

‘Someone clean this child!’ The elder Percy managed to scoop up his son before he laid his sticky hands all over the silk furnishings. ‘Does anyone have a cloth? Or a mop?’

‘I need to sit down,’ muttered Rilla, walking into the room on the arm of her husband Finlay, their baby Florence in her arms. ‘That carriage is not designed for comfort.’

‘Here,’ Daphne said hurriedly, pulling forward an armchair.

Rilla groaned as she sank into it, closing her unseeing eyes. ‘Is that a fire before me? I need to be defrosted.’

‘Let me take Florence,’ Daphne offered, stepping forward.

Her friend pulled her baby closer to her and snorted with laughter. ‘Absolutely not, she’s like a hot brick! Where’s that husband of mine?’

‘Still here,’ Finlay said with a smile. ‘Hot chocolate for you too, my love?’

‘Hot chocolate for everyone,’ Christoph called out over the chatter. ‘I’m sure someone can arrange it?’

‘I’m not sure how I feel about a king waiting on me,’ Sylvia said with a laugh, throwing herself onto the sofa. ‘Laura! How the devil are you?’

Daphne moved through the room, not part of any of the conversations but revelling in the laughter and joy. Laura and Sylvia were seated together, the former placing a reverential hand on the latter’s swelling belly.

‘A few more weeks, they tell me,’ Sylvia was saying. ‘Are there any special perks from being born in Niedernlein? What sort of names do you have for girls, or boys?’

Rilla was slowly rocking a babbling Florence while stretching her toes towards the fire. Without her saying a word, Finlay moved a footstool under her. His wife groaned. ‘Oh, Finlay, I don’t deserve you.’

‘Yes, you do,’ he said softly, his eyes so full of adoration that Daphne felt awkward for noticing. ‘Now, let me see if I can find you that hot chocolate… Oh, thank you.’

‘Not at all,’ said Gwen with a smile. ‘A footman brought it over. Goodness, that last valley! I thought we might lose one of the coaches down the ravine!’

‘You tell me this now!’ Rilla rolled her eyes as she sipped her hot chocolate. ‘Perhaps it was better that I didn’t know.’

‘Trust me, it was bad enough for those of us who did,’ Percy said dryly. ‘Now, carefully, Perce!’

Daphne smiled as she watched the little boy reach out delicately to the babe in Rilla’s arms.

‘Gentle,’ Finlay said, though he nodded encouragingly at the little boy who peered curiously into the bundle.

‘You never know, they could wed some day,’ Rilla said with a grin. Daphne laughed as she watched Gwen and Rilla immediately coo.

Percy moved away. ‘I can’t hear it! I don’t want to think of little Perce all grown up!’

‘It can’t be that bad,’ scoffed Theodore as he stood by the bay window, accepting a mug of hot chocolate from the footman and clinking with Percy as he joined him.

Percy sighed. ‘Trust me, when your little one arrives, it’ll be just as terrifying.’

Daphne smiled as she moved over to Christoph, who was standing in a corner and watching the rabble. ‘Ready for three weeks of this?’

‘Not in the slightest.’

She grinned. ‘They’re not that bad.’

‘Oh, they’re wonderful,’ her husband said hastily. ‘They would have eventually won my affections, I believe, by who they are. They gained them immediately when I realised what good friends they were, are, to you.’

Daphne looked around the room. Her eyes fell on Gwen and Percy, their little boy dancing around everyone’s feet.

On Rilla and Finlay, their faces so clearly showing their love, the evidence of that love dozing in her mother’s arms. On Sylvia and Theodore, their own child due in about a month.

And on Laura, her confidence growing with each passing day.

‘They are not my friends. They are my family,’ Daphne said, not realising how true it was until she’d said it. ‘I’m glad they’re here.’

Christoph was chuckling as he shook his head. ‘I suppose there will be more of them soon. Sylvia looks like her child could come at any time!’

Daphne’s smile faded, but only slightly. It was difficult to tell whether Christoph’s tone was positive or negative. It was more…marvelling.

Was this the time?

‘Besides, there’ll definitely be more of us soon. Won’t there?’

Daphne’s lips parted in astonishment as she met her husband’s gaze. ‘What did you just—?’

‘Well, won’t there?’ Christoph said in a low voice. His smile was steady. ‘Daphne, the royal doctor has had a word with me, out of concern for you, of course.’

‘He promised me he would keep it to himself!’ Daphne blurted out, cheeks flushing. ‘How dare he?’

‘I mean, I am a fool, but not that much of a fool. I’d known something was different, beyond the child you carry.

You’d completely gone off eggs, and you love eggs for breakfast,’ Christoph said with a teasing grin, lifting a hand to start counting off fingers.

‘You suddenly must have strawberries upon waking—and that is a tall order in an English autumn, you know. And don’t get me started on the sickness. It’s two, isn’t it? Twins.’

Twins. She had hardly believed it when the doctor had finished palpating her stomach last week and had told her, with a rather shocked expression, that he believed there was not one child growing within her, but two.

Two. Twins.

‘Twins,’ Christoph said with a delightful smile. ‘Doubling our family in one go!’

It warmed her hear to see him so delighted. ‘You are not afeared?’

‘For you. But not for them. Not at all.’ There was a faraway expression in her husband’s eyes that Daphne knew would take her a lifetime truly to understand. ‘A fresh start. A chance for siblings to care for each other, not compete. To support each other, not suffer through their childhood.’

Daphne placed a hand on her stomach. ‘Well, at least the sickness is well and truly over.’

‘Oh, Gwen had terrible sickness too,’ said Percy with a knowing nod. ‘Just awful. It passes, though.’

‘It was the cravings that did me in,’ said Theodore with a sigh. ‘I ask you, where was I supposed to find asparagus in September? Even with all the money and will in the world!’

‘What are you…? You’re not…are you?’ Sylvia called loudly across the room.

Ah. Yes, only Gwen knew. Trust Sylvia to make a scene.

Daphne tried to smile. ‘I… Well, I was going to tell Christoph today that the doctor believes we will be having twins so that we could all celebrate.’

There was a rush of screaming and arms flailing. Rilla thrust her child into her husband’s hands and was moving swiftly towards her, and Daphne was pinned against the wall by a combination of embraces from Sylvia, Gwen, Rilla and Laura.

‘Put my wife down!’

‘Oh, Daphne, that’s such wonderful news!’

‘I can’t believe it, all four of us!’

‘You must have at least a daughter if Sylvia has a son, then we can marry them off and—’

‘Help!’ laughed Daphne, cheeks flushed with delight at her friends’ responses, but rather uncomfortable against the wall.

Christoph came to her rescue. Politely pulling her friends away from her—Sylvia put up the most fight, but as she was near her confinement and there was not much she could do about it—he cupped Daphne’s face and beamed. ‘Twins! Two of them!’

‘That is what the doctors tell me,’ said Daphne with a brave smile. ‘It is going to be an interesting confinement.’

‘Two new members of the family,’ Christoph said softly. ‘New life, my love. New life.’

‘A new life,’ Daphne breathed. ‘For both of us.’

He kissed her, and the sound of her friends’ delighted chatter, and their husbands chattering about names, faded into the background as Daphne clung to her husband.

Her Christoph. Her prince, now her king, and she his wallflower wife.

* * * * *

Read on for an extract from COURTING SCANDAL WITH THE DUKE by Ann Lethbridge