Chapter 2
ERIN
Erin had forgotten how quiet snow could be, even with three small children screaming in it.
Or maybe it wasn’t quiet at all. Maybe her brain had just short-circuited somewhere between London and Scotland and was now selectively editing out stimuli in a desperate attempt at survival.
Either way, as soon as they were through the front doors and coats were shrugged off and staff had scattered to take luggage and boxes and an alarming number of stuffed animals upstairs, the triplets broke formation and made a coordinated dash back out into the courtyard.
It was like watching a security exercise go spectacularly wrong in slow motion.
“Matilda—Frank—Florence—”
The heavy oak door hadn’t even swung shut behind them. One second they were clustered around Vic’s legs, clamouring for biscuits and stories about glitter, the next they were streaks of colour against the white, boots slipping, hats askew.
Erin didn’t think so much as move.
“Doors!” she snapped over her shoulder, the word pure reflex, and then she was after them, boots biting into packed snow, the cold hitting her cheeks like a slap.
Someone obediently shoved the door wider instead of closed; she registered the mistake and let it go. Her priorities were out there.
Triplets first. Correct the staff later.
Matilda was in the lead, obviously. She had been the biggest of the three since they were babies and she had a nose for trouble and a reckless disregard for traction.
She’d already found the one patch of uncleared, powdery snow and hurled herself into it with a delighted shriek.
Frank barreled after her, less coordinated but twice as enthusiastic.
Florence hung back by half a pace, which was good, because it meant Erin reached her first.
“Uh-uh,” Erin said, catching the back of her coat just as Florence’s boot hit the treacherous powder. “Slow and careful, Flo.”
Florence glanced up at her, cheeks flushed from the cold, nose pink, blonde curls escaping from under her hat. “But it’s fluffy,” she protested.
“It’s also slippery,” Erin said. “You can go in it. We’re just not going to break our necks getting there. Deal?”
Florence considered this. “Deal,” she said solemnly.
Erin set her down more firmly and let her go, hovering a half-step behind as Florence trudged toward her siblings. Matilda and Frank were already rolling about, shoving snow at each other with mittened hands.
Frank scooped up a handful and threw it straight up. It went into his own face. He roared with laughter anyway.
For a long moment, Erin just stood there and watched their beautiful children play.
Snow fell softly, thick flakes catching in eyelashes and hair, clinging to the stone edges of Balmoral like someone had dusted the entire estate with icing sugar.
The air smelled of pine and smoke and cold, clean nothingness.
No London fumes. No crowds. No chanting, no placards, no undercurrent of threat humming at the back of her skull.
Just… winter. And kids. And Vic yelling something about cranberries from somewhere behind her.
Erin felt her shoulders drop a fraction of an inch.
Almost peaceful.
She hooked her thumbs into her pockets and tilted her head back, letting one of the flakes land on her nose. It melted immediately, a tiny cold kiss.
This, she thought, should be easy. A few days.
One massive castle. No public engagements except the obligatory church walk on Christmas morning and a pre-recorded television message Alex had already nailed.
No aggressive schedules—well, apart from whatever Vic was attempting.
No emergency Privy Council meetings, no last-minute crises in the Home Office or Defence or Health.
Just them.
Her, Alex, their kids, their friends.
She’d spent the last six months feeling like life had become an endless relay she was always half a stride behind on—pass the kids to the nanny, catch the briefing, hand Alex her notes, dodge a protest, sign off on new security procedures for the palace, pick up the kids before bed, fall into bed beside a wife who fell asleep mid-sentence.
All the real conversations they needed to have had been shoved into the future like a pile of unopened post. Later. After this. When things calmed down.
Except things never calmed down. They just… changed shape.
Here, though… here she could maybe get ahead of it all for once.
Here she could look at Alex without also watching doorways and rooftops and unknown faces. She could touch her without wondering if the CCTV angle was unfortunate. She could—
Fuck it.
She wanted to have sex with her wife.
Properly. Not the hurried, half-clothed sort of fumble that usually ended in someone crying in the next room or a staff member tapping apologetically on the door with a file that tragically could not wait.
Real sex. The kind where she could take her time, and Alex could take hers, and no one asked for apple juice in the middle of it.
Erin dug the toe of her boot into the snow and made herself a promise.
Before Boxing Day, Kennedy. Bare minimum. Before the Boxing Day walk. You are a grown woman with tactical training and the Queen of the United Kingdom for a wife. You can manage one bloody uninterrupted shag.
Matilda chose that exact moment to fall over laughing into Frank, knocking them both flat on their backs. Florence, who had been about to sit down more carefully, ended up tumbling over their tangled limbs.
All three giggled and flailed like overturned beetles.
Erin sighed, love and terror and bone-deep fatigue folding together in one complicated exhale.
“You all right?” Alex’s voice came from behind her, warm and amused.
Erin turned. Alex was standing in the doorway, framed by tall stone and spilling lamplight, cloak falling open to show the dark green jumper underneath.
Snowflakes sparkled in her golden hair. Her cheeks were pink from the cold too, lips curved in that small, real smile that belonged only to family, not cameras.
Even wrapped in three layers of wool, she still moved like royalty—like someone who had never been told to make herself smaller or quieter or less.
It did something to Erin every single time. She was still more beautiful than anyone Erin had ever seen.
“They’re fine,” Erin said, jerking her thumb toward the writhing heap of children. “The snow cushioned their inevitable self-destruction.”
“You say that very calmly,” Alex said, stepping out onto the front step, pulling the door mostly closed behind her. “Given that they’re lying very close to what I’m fairly sure is ice.”
“You have to project calm,” Erin replied. “If they smell fear, they multiply.”
“We only have three,” Alex said, sounding genuinely scandalised.
“For now,” Erin muttered. They had discussed trying for another baby. And maybe they would soon. They had both just been so busy and their schedules already so full.
Florence had managed to extricate herself and was now patting snow onto Matilda’s head. Frank was trying to make a snow angel and, in the process, kicking both his sisters in the shins.
“Boots off before they come in,” Alex said. “If they trail half the Highlands through the hall, Mrs. MacLeod will resign on the spot and I am not doing Christmas without her mince pies.”
“Copy that, Ma’am,” Erin said automatically. It slipped out before she could stop it, the drilled responses from years earlier surfacing.
Alex’s sharp blue eyes flickered at the title. Just a tiny tightening of something around her mouth, there and gone.
Erin felt a small, sharp pang.
She’d been trying to stop with the Ma’ams for years.
At least at home. The boundaries had saved them once, clearly defining where Queen ended and wife began.
Lately it felt like they’d drifted too far back toward formal, like two magnets turned the wrong way, repelling each other with all the wrong words.
She rubbed a gloved hand over the back of her neck, as if she could smooth the awkwardness away.
“Lex,” she corrected herself quietly.
Her wife’s expression eased. “Yes, Sergeant?”
Erin’s lips twitched. Fair enough.
She stepped closer, drawn like she always was, even under the thin layer of embarrassment.
The cold made Alex’s eyes look impossibly blue, snow clinging to her golden lashes.
There were faint lines at her brow now too, deeper than the last time they’d been here together.
A little more weight on her shoulders. A little more steel in the way she held herself.
Six years ago, Erin had slept outside Alex’s door on tour and dreamed about touching her like this—to be able to reach out without checking for cameras or adjusting her stance because of optics.
Now she could. Now that was the easy part, and somehow… she still hesitated.
She made herself take the last step anyway.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey yourself,” Alex replied, voice softer.
Up close, she could smell Alex’s perfume under the cold and wool, something subtle and expensive and utterly her. It hit Erin’s nervous system like a drug.
There. That heat was still there, humming just under her skin.
It had been so long since she’d allowed herself to really feel it. There hadn’t been time. There was always someone awake, someone needing, someone watching.
How many nights had she lain next to Alex, muscles humming with want, and not reached out because she knew her wife was exhausted? Because a child would cry any minute? Because the idea of being interrupted mid-kiss, mid-touch, mid-fuck had become more frustrating than never starting?
Too many. Far too many.
Snow pattered softly around them, making a small, private sound bubble in the space between.
Erin leaned in, stopping just close enough that she could feel Alex’s breath against her mouth. “So,” she said. “We are… actually here. No one’s throwing anything at you, no one’s shouting, no one’s leaked anything horrifying in the last three hours.”
Alex’s mouth crooked. “That we know of.”