Unmasking His Pregnant Queen
Abby Green
Chapter One
Wedding Day
IT WASPOPPY’Swedding day and she felt a self-indulgent moment of wishing she knew what it felt like to be ecstatic like most normal brides. But she wasn’t a normal bride. She was a royal bride, a crown princess, of the House of Valdun, of Valdere. So, for her, the norms had been subverted from birth, in more ways than one.
For one thing, her marriage had always been destined to be arranged, or strategic, and for another, because she’d been born a girl and not a boy, she had no choice but to marry in order to become queen of her small but stunning Alpine monarchy, Valdere.
Her father had set that in stone, and it had become more and more set in stone when he’d failed to sire any more children than Poppy, or, more crucially, have a much coveted son. When his first wife, Poppy’s mother—a glamorous American actress and model—hadn’t obliged, he’d divorced her and married again. And again. And again. Each marriage ending in acrimony and no more children.
It had been the most egregious of double standards because a boy would’ve been crowned king on the death of the late king, a year ago, but because Poppy was a woman, the law had decreed she must marry before being crowned queen.
It had been a final insult and humiliation from a father who had never seen her as anything but a sign of his failure to have the right heir. His last words to her had been,You will not be queen until you have a king by your side.Poppy had begged him to reconsider but he’d refused.
And so, on his death, Poppy had hidden her humiliation and hurt, grieved publicly for a man who had never really loved her and she’d spent the last year preparing herself for a role she would’ve been infinitely better prepared for if she’d been a man.
Thankfully the work of phasing out her father’s old counsel had proved relatively seamless as they were of retirement age and happy to step aside—maybe they’d been worn out by her father’s intransigence too.
Part of her father’s legacy had been his reluctance to give Poppy too much exposure, not wanting to admit defeat that she was his only heir. And so, unlike most royals who were trotted out at every opportunity, she’d managed to stay a relatively obscure figure on the world’s stage.
One source of solace was the people of Valdere who, in the past year, had come to know their crown princess in a way her father had never encouraged while he was alive and they’d taken her to their hearts, because she was intent on ushering in change and breathing new life into a country with a young population who were eager to move on from the old-fashioned ways of people like her father.
But one thing she’d had no control over was the fact that she still had to marry to become queen. So here she was. Not ecstatic. The lavish wedding ceremony today would also incorporate the necessary rites for her coronation.
And that of her husband-to-be, Prince Caius of Sadat Sur Mer, a small island monarchy in the Mediterranean. He was to become her king consort.
If he could be bothered to turn up. To say he was a reluctant participant in this wedding was the understatement of the year.
There was a discreet knock on the door to her bedroom and she said, ‘Come in.’
Poppy fought back the rising sense of panic when she saw one of her most trusted aides enter. She’d gone to university in America with Stephen and he’d generously agreed to work with her, helping her haul her beloved country into the modern age. He and his partner, Joel, were close friends.
In answer to the question she hadn’t even asked, he just shook his head but said quickly, ‘Heisin the air, but not landed yet.’
Poppy looked back at her reflection in the mirror, barely taking in the high-necked antique cream lace dress, and asked, ‘Are we even sure he’s on the plane?’
The wedding was to take place in an hour. Even if Caius was on the plane, he’d barely make it to the cathedral on time. The old wound of rejection stung. It tugged on the deepest, most secret part of Poppy where she yearned to have a real relationship—she’d never be so naive as to ask for love, but was it too much to hope for companionship, respect, kindness? Maybe even passion?
She had a flashback to a night many weeks before when she’d learnt what passion was for the first time. She’d never expected it to be so earthy, heart-thumpingly exciting or transcendent. The fact that it had happened so unexpectedly and with the worst possible man had taught her a valuable lesson that good sex had nothing to do with emotion.
She looked at Stephen. ‘This is all my fault. If I hadn’t gone to Paris to see what he was really like, we wouldn’t be in this situation now.’
‘You’d still be in this situation,’ Stephen pointed out softly. ‘Just with someone else and maybe the devil you know is not such a bad thing.’
Poppy shivered at that.Devil.Caius had certainly appealed to the most devilish part of her when she’d met him in Paris sixteen weeks ago. He’d still been king of his own monarchy at that point. It hadn’t yet become public knowledge that his father, the late king of Sadat Sur Mer, hadn’t actually been Caius’s biological father.
But before Paris and then the abdication, there had been the talks to dicusss a marriage. They’d had a conference phone call and before Caius had known she was connected and waiting to talk to him, she’d heard him speaking with his aides. ‘She’s a social hermit, I’ve never once met her at an event. In the formal photo we were sent she looks about ten years older than she is and in need of a serious makeover. Any other picture we unearthed isn’t much better. And what kind of a name is Poppy for a queen? She’s not an art student.’
Another male voice, sounding amused, had said, ‘So if she’s not your type, why bother?’
Caius had sounded grim. ‘Because she doesn’t need to be my type. Valdere is strategically important, positioned as it is in the centre of Europe. It has great potential to become a financial banking hub, on a par with Switzerland. And we just need each other to provide heirs and spares for both our monarchies to keep the royal bloodlines intact. If we marry, I’ll be discreet but I won’t give up my freedom.’
‘What about her?’
‘She can do as she pleases, as long as she’s discreet too.’
