Page 41 of Awakened On Her Royal Wedding Night
“Would you excuse us?” Claudine asked the attendant who looked surprised, but stepped from the room and closed the door behind her.
Astrid looked up from the clutch she had opened.
“I could never call myself your friend unless I told you something you deserve to know,” Claudine began.
They flew back to Sentinella for the night.
It was Claudine’s first arrival back here since they had left for Paris and New York. As she stepped inside the high walls of the fortress, she felt as though a valve released and she could finally breathe.
She didn’t realize it came out as a long sigh until Felipe said, “I feel the same way whenever I return.”
Claudine had thought she was the only one to find the royal palace a nonstop pressure cooker of tension. It had been oppressive before she’d told Astrid what Francois had done to her. From that point on, the rest of the evening had been one of sick dread while she waited for the fallout.
She would have to tell Felipe she’d spoken to Astrid, she knew that, but she dreaded that, too.
Ippolita had been on the same helicopter and was following them through the snaking path toward Felipe’s bedchamber.
“Thank you, Ippolita,” Claudine paused to say in Italian. “I can manage. Have a good night.”
“Nothing to eat?” Felipe asked. “You barely touched your plate at dinner.”
“No.Grazie.”
The maid murmured good-night and turned toward the stairs into the servants’ quarters.
“Are you feeling ill?” Felipe asked as they entered the parlor next to his bedchamber.
“A little, but don’t get your hopes up.” She waited until he closed the door and glanced around to be sure they were alone. “I get this headache and backache every month.”
“Ah. I thought you were gone from the ballroom an inordinately long time.” He set aside the drink he’d been about to pour. “How bad is it? Shall I get you a pain pill?”
“I took one. You’re not disappointed?”
“A little, but it’s not something we can control, is it? What are you feeling? You’re usually easier to read, but you seem...” He searched her expression. “I don’t know. Are you upset?”
“I always get the blues on my first day. And the timing was wrong, so I didn’t really expect it to work, but...” She was disappointed. Very. Which didn’t make much sense except that she was excited for the idea of having a baby now that it had become a possibility. At the same time, having been subjected to all that coldness at the palace, she had to wonder if it wasn’t a blessing that she wasn’t pregnant. Did she really want to bring a baby into such a hostile environment?
“I don’t know what to feel,” she admitted.
“Look. Claudine.” Felipe came to warm her upper arms with the light skim of his hands. “I know I’ve been pushing you where this marriage is concerned, but I am not a medieval monster. Please do not feel pressured to achieve something that is completely out of our hands. Aside from the obvious,” he added dryly.
She nodded, appreciating him saying that since she did feel that conceiving a future king or queen was her primary purpose. Would he still want to marry her, though, after she told him what she’d done?
He had drawn her closer and she leaned into him, absorbing his strength, enjoying the warm hand that made soothing circles against her lower back.
“If you don’t feel like making love, I completely understand,” he said in a rumble. “I will even call Ippolita myself to run you a bath, if you’d like that.”
She drew back and admonished him with an eye roll, since they were both perfectly capable of turning a tap, but his lips were twitching. He was teasing her. And cradling her very tenderly. She could have cuddled into him for the rest of the night.
“On the other hand, if youwouldlike to make love, I am more than willing,” he said with a light trace of his fingertip along her cheek. “No pressure. It’s simply information I want you to have.”
Why was he being so nice? It made what she had to say so much harder. She drooped her head against his shoulder, then made herself step out of his arms.
“I told Astrid.”
“Told—? Ah.” His whole demeanor changed, but she didn’t get a chance to read his expression. He went to the bottle of brandy he had started to pour. “How did she react?”
“With suspicion and disbelief.” Claudine hugged herself, trying to quell a grim sense of scorn and failure. Possibly the worst part was that she had known this was how it would go, yet she was profoundly stung it had gone that way anyway. “I told her I would never forgive myself if he hurt her in the future and I hadn’t warned her, but Francois had already told her I would likely make trouble on your behalf, that I would throw out false accusations against him, so that’s what she assumed I was doing.”
