Chapter Four
CAIUS STOOD AT the altar in his ceremonial wedding suit complete with royal sash and medals. He felt all the eyes on him, avidly watching this prince who’d fallen from grace. Cameras strategically positioned were the portals for God knew how many more around the world.
Of some comfort was his sister, Cassie, in one of the first pews.
She’d been crowned Queen of Sadat Sur Mer some weeks ago but familiar guilt and shame rose up within Caius—even though he knew rationally he wasn’t to blame for his mother’s reckless affair, he couldn’t help but feel responsible for the accident of his birth, that he wasn’t a full-blooded Mansur.
The old wound of feeling as though he had nothing of substance to offer because he’d been born purely to fulfil a role had been compounded by helplessly having to watch Cassie take on a burden she shouldn’t have ever had to face.
Caius pushed his introspection aside.
Of course no one believed this union was a real match. And they’d believe it even less when the press annoucement was made about the pregnancy. They’d mutually agreed to do that after the wedding.
The stiff engagement photo that had been taken in Central Park the day after Poppy had dropped her pregnancy bombshell had spoken multitudes. For once Caius had been unable to get over the shock of the pregnancy for long enough to appear charming, his go-to response to pretty much everything.
Even his sister had commented dryly, ‘You look like a deer in the headlights. Maybe it’s because you’re not used to being photographed with women in bright daylight, sober and fully dressed.’
The fact that Caius had still wanted Poppy after exposing himself spectacularly by telling her he wanted to pick up where they’d left off when clearly she’d had no intention of that had contributed to his overall lack of ability to find his usual level of charm.
He gritted his jaw. Not the memory he needed right now as he waited for this farce to begin. He felt as if he’d been standing at the top of the aisle for aeons. Was Princess Poppy going to stand him up? For a moment, his first reaction wasn’t one of relief and that irritated him intensely.
Because he truly resented being in this situation.
He’d been born to fulfil a role, born to two parents who’d barely tolerated each other.
Then he’d been spat out as soon as it had become apparent his blood wasn’t pure, only to now be pulled back into that orbit.
An orbit that had deemed him unsuitable.
His friend and best man—Ares Drakos, Cassie’s fiancé—bent his head towards Caius now and said, ‘She’s here.’
A little electric tremor went up Caius’s spine as the crowd hushed and the organ started to play. He felt an overwhelming urge to turn but fought it.
They hadn’t seen each other since that morning in Central Park and their respective teams had organised everything in the meantime. Maybe when he saw her now he would feel nothing?
But he couldn’t deny the sense of anticipation, a prickling under his skin.
Fatefully, the fact that no other women had appealed to him since that night in Paris pointed towards her still having an effect on him, and, for a man who’d never expected to actually want his bride beyond doing his royal duty, it was a terrifying prospect.
He scowled at himself. Was he so institutionalised that he’d instinctively sought out a royal mate by sleeping with Poppy that night?
The back of his neck prickled now. He found it was impossible to keep looking away.
He slowly turned around to see Poppy moving slowly down the aisle, on her own.
He hated the fact that he found her coming to him alone was somehow significant.
And made him feel something uncomfortable. Empathy. Sympathy.
He sucked in a breath as she came closer. She was encased in white lace, no, not white, a kind of off-white. With a high neck and voluminous satin skirts. The sleeves ended at her elbows.
She wore a sparkling tiara, peeping out from under the veil that obscured her face at the front and trailed behind her at the back.
Her waist looked tiny. He imagined spanning it with his hand.
The red of her hair was vibrant enough to be visible under the veil.
And as she drew closer, he saw only the faintest indication of her pregnancy, the faintest bulge of her belly under the lace and satin.
Bizarrely, Caius felt an urge to reach out and put his hand to her there and curled his hand to a fist to negate it.
Did he imagine it or did he see Poppy’s green eyes flicker down to that movement before looking up again?
She held a bouquet of surprisingly humble wild flowers and something about that caught at him. He realised it reminded him of the flowers from Sadat Sur Mer.
And then she was beside him and her distinctive scent mixed with the flowers made him want to breathe deep. She handed her flowers to someone and then went to lift the veil but Caius found himself reaching out so he could do it, pulling up the fine lace to reveal her face, tilted up towards him.
He was so used to seeing women primp and preen and smile for him, but he realised now that, from the moment they’d met, Poppy had always regarded him with a kind of wariness.
Had she even smiled that night when they’d combusted?
She certainly hadn’t flirted. He suddenly wondered what it would be like if she was to smile up at him.
Wide and unrestrained. It made his breath catch in his chest.
Her eyes were huge and very green. Mouth full and sheened with the faintest colour.
He wanted to skip all of this pomp and crush that mouth under his, slaking his lust and his anger at her for bringing him here, but he knew he couldn’t even blame her when he’d been the one falling on her like a lust-crazed teen, and then she was saying something and he had to focus.
‘Thank you for coming.’ Was there the slightest hint of sarcasm? Her voice was low enough for just his ears. Why did that feel intimate when they were in a cathedral surrounded by hundreds of people?
Caius’s conscience pricked. He had planned on travelling sooner but he’d been distracted by a financial crisis in the last ten days—but for some reason he didn’t say that now. As if it would expose him in some way. ‘I’m here for one reason and one reason only—my child.’
‘You’ve made that crystal clear.’
Caius felt off-centre. He usually found it so easy to charm women because he never went any deeper than the most superficial level, but he wasn’t charming around Poppy.
He was gnarly and prickly. Defensive. But now it was too late to say anything more anyway.
The priest was clearing his throat and they had to turn to face him.
Two hours later, Poppy was still reeling.
The wedding ceremony had passed in a blur, as had the open-top carriage ride back to the palace through the pretty streets of Valdere thronged with locals and tourists.
Whenever she’d snuck glimpses at Caius he’d had a fixed smile on his face as he’d waved.
She could at least give thanks he wasn’t scowling into the crowds of well-wishers.
And then they’d had the coronation, a swearing-in with her highest-level staff and signing the legal documents decreeing Poppy to be queen, and Caius her king consort.
It had always been tradition in the royal house of Valdun to conduct the coronations behind closed doors.
Something that had its origins in medieval times when they’d been under threat from neighbouring countries, in case anyone tried to disrupt the process.
And now, they were standing before closed French doors, waiting for them to be opened out onto a balcony. Poppy could hear the crowd outside, people thronging the palace grounds to get their first glimpse of their queen and new king. For a second she felt a spurt of anger at her late father.
If he hadn’t made it so hard for her to become queen without a husband she never would have gone to Paris to see Caius up close.
She would be here on her own and not with someone by her side who didn’t want to be here.
She could have chosen her consort at her leisure and picked someone who didn’t resent her or make her feel so self-aware.
At that very moment Poppy felt something like a butterfly movement in her abdomen. The baby. She put her hand there reflexively and Caius turned his head and looked down. He frowned. ‘Are you OK?’
Those were practically the first words he’d spoken to her since the vows they’d exchanged in the cathedral. Poppy nodded, suddenly caught unawares by the rush of emotion she felt at this first tangible evidence of her baby. Apart from the thickening of her waist and the tenderness of her breasts.
She forgot that she’d just been feeling angry to be in this situation with someone who could hardly bring himself to touch her. Their kiss in the cathedral had been a dry peck, so quick that Poppy wasn’t even sure it had happened.
But the crowd would expect something more than a peck now. She looked up at Caius beside her. ‘You know…the people, they don’t know that this isn’t a real union.’
He looked at her. ‘They’re all romantics?’
Poppy could feel her face get warm. ‘No, I mean, they’re not naive, they’ll know it’s an arrangement of sorts, but they’ll hope that it’s real. Even though my father married numerous times they always greeted every new queen like she was the first.’
That had been particularly stinging for Poppy to witness—the way her father had jettisoned her mother and just moved on again, and again and again.
She’d given up trying to bond with her new stepmothers when it had become apparent they’d seen her as some kind of a threat.
She’d got used to being sidelined. Sent to schools far away.