Connor awoke to the sound of retching. A yawn escaping his jaw, he rolled out of bed and padded towards the lavatory, to find Natasha kneeling before the chamber pot. He joined her, holding back the hair that had escaped her braid and rubbing her back in what he hoped was a soothing manner. It must have worked; in a moment she was well enough to glare at him.

"I hardly require your comfort, Connor White." A roll of her eyes, a twist of her mouth into a sneer. She was so very irritable in the morning—yet he was foolish enough to adore it, to adore every spark of passion or annoyance in her, every blazing ember of emotion because they were what he provoked in her. And oddly, it gave him a sense of warmth, love and pride mingling in his chest. "That is the reason I did not wake you."

He shifted, the tiled floor hard against his knees. "You woke me anyways, because you forgot to close the door."

She stood, shooting him a glare with no real venom in it, and he kept his hand on her back as she did so, guiding her to the washbasin. Natasha cupped handfuls of water, bringing them to her mouth to rinse it. This routine was familiar to both of them now, in the month that had passed since the revelation of her pregnancy. They had decided to keep the secret between the two of them only—not trusting that this child may not have been as lucky as Grace. Any courtier might be cunning enough, cruel enough, to poison either one of them. The thought alone was enough to make him shudder, even in the warm room.

"I did not forget," she snapped back, splashing the rose petal-covered water onto her face for her daily ablutions. "I merely... merely wanted..."

"Thus, you intended to wake me, because you desired my presence beside you," Connor teased, taking his wife's robe and helping her into it as they returned to the colder bedchamber. She pressed a kiss to his cheek in thanks and then returned to her state of annoyance with him.

"What woman wants her husband to see her in the worst of states, before she has dressed and when she is vomiting?" Natasha retorted, her elbow nudging his ribs in contrast to her earlier gesture of affection.

"You are no ordinary woman, darling." Connor stripped down to his underclothes by himself, the both of them having dismissed their attendants for the day. For this day, the day that Natasha's parents' ship arrived in Arlea. "You are a queen."

"That I am." Her grin was smooth, easy, the tension deflating from her shoulders in a sight that buoyed his spirits. She shrugged out of her shift, shivering in the sudden onslaught of cold air. "Are you prepared to meet my parents, my king?"

"Somehow, I would prefer to face down another murderer—no offense to your parents, of course." He slipped his trousers on and buttoned his shirt to his throat, tying his blue silk cravat tightly.

Natasha tutted at him, dropping her overskirt onto a bench and crossing the room to open his wardrobe. "I beseech you husband, do not wear that one. It makes you look positively green and bordering on seasick."

She fetched his grey one instead, knotting it for him. It was such an ordinary, domestic gesture, that he smiled down at her, pressing his lips to her forehead. "Thank you, darling."

"Although that does not mean I have forgotten that you would rather risk being killed than meet your in-laws, Connor!" She yanked her cream overskirt on top of layers of petticoats, tying it at the back. "Do assist me with my stays, would you?"

He crossed the room, shrugging on his jacket, and then helped his wife with her own garments. "You ought to take it as a compliment that my nerves are wrought."

"And why is that?" She stiffened as he tugged on the laces of the corset, but made no noise.

Connor finished lacing her up, and tied a neat bow. She spun around to face him. "Any man would be nervous, meeting the former king and queen of Arlea. But not only do I have to contend with that, I also require the approval of the two people who raised the woman and ruler whom I am proud to call my wife."

"Do not flatter me," she said, though her face was turned downwards, face pressed against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, and her body was as warm as her voice was cold, a thousand paradoxes that formed a perfect whole. "I respond badly to flattery."

"Oh?" He pried her away from his chest. "And how is it that you respond to flattery?"

"I—is that the sound of Grace crying?" He was about to berate her for escaping by making excuses, but followed her into the nursery anyways, where Grace, indeed, was bawling. At that moment, there was the sound of knocking at the door.

Natasha picked up Grace, gently cooing to and rocking her. "Could you get the door, Connor? I'll see to her." 

With a heavy sigh, he left the two of them to see to things. Upon opening the door, he found a servant with a brassy salver. "Good morning, Cummings."

"Your Majesty." The maid curtsied deeply. "The former king and queen have arrived."

"I see." his throat bobbed as he swallowed."Thank you for informing me, Cummings. You are dismissed."

He shut the door firmly, his actions crisp and controlled and precise to keep himself from falling apart at the mere thought of meeting his wife's parents. "Tasha! Your parents are here!"

"Will you go greet them?" She called back through the nursery's closed door. "I need to deal with Grace!"

He sighed heavily, resting his head against the solid wood of the door. "Must I, darling?"

"Calling me darling does not grant you leave to evade situations you do not wish to be in, Connor!" A wailing noise that must have been Grace. Her voice softened with her next words. "It will not be so bad, love. Trust me."

Trust her. He could do that, had been doing that. And he would continue to do so, hopefully, for as long as they both lived.

"Very well," he said at last. "I shall go greet them."

After all, what sort of a man would he be if he shied from difficult things?

• • •

A very busy man, he decided moments later when he was greeted by a stack of correspondence on his way to the receiving hall. After a few minutes of sorting, he deduced that half of them were useless invitations from oleaginous courtiers, a quarter of the other half were dull, but important, matters of state, and the final section was interesting and vital information. A familiar blue and red seal caught his eye, the letter R stamped over a blue cross, the latter two being superimposed on a red heart. Victoria.

He tore the letter open, nearly ripping the parchment in his haste. Connor skimmed over the message—and found that it was coded, so cryptic he could barely make sense of it. Finally, he picked out the few lines that did make sense and gradually managed to piece together the passage once his sleep-scrambled mind recalled the code they had agreed upon. She was informing them that Filipian rebels against Arlean colonization of the Sleeping Island has set fire to the governor's residence and possibly ransacked her bedchambers to scare her, as well as telling them of the fact that Matthew was still resistant to Blake's attempts at convincing him to return to Arlea. That was far too much bad news for one morning that was meant to be a joyous reunion. He set the letter aside after memorizing its key contents, and threw it into the fire.

Sunlight, incongruously cheerful, spilled through the stained-glass windows in an array of bright hues as he moved hurriedly through the corridors, trying to shake off the too-familiar sensation that danger was following him once again. Finally, he stepped into the foyer, and saw two figures, a curvy woman and a taller man, silhouetted in the doorway. He quickened his steps, and was standing before them in a matter of seconds.

"Good morning to you, Queen Lillian. King Andrew." Connor dipped his head slightly out of respect, unsure of how to speak to them. How, exactly, did a man address their wife's allegedly-deceased-but-currently-alive royal parents? "I am Connor White, the former Duke of Winchester and your—"

"Oh, of course we know who you are!" And the next thing he knew, he was engulfed in a cloud of perfume and a pair of warm arms. Natasha's mother, Lillian, had embraced him, he realized vaguely. It had been years since his own mother had done the same, and in her last years she had been more of a distant, icy figure than playing any real maternal role in his life. "You're our son-in-law. We were terribly sad to hear about your mother. We were friends, at one time, and I know it has been a year since her passing, but we only heard about it so recently! Oh... I apologize, Connor. Have I overwhelmed you with too much chatter? My husband does tell me that I do that when nervous..."

"You—you are nervous?" He chuckled involuntarily. "I find myself in a similar state—but what reason would you have to be in it?"

"Well, Natasha must think very highly of you to have married you," Andrew explained with a small smile. "Obviously. And... we do value her opinions and taste just as highly, so any man she courted, we would assume to be of the highest quality—Oh, now I sound as though I am speaking of cattle or linen. Do pardon me, Connor. It has been so many years away from home, from court, from speaking around intrigue and pleasantries..."

"I despise both of those things—you're in no danger of any intrigue or pleasantries from me." He relaxed, knowing that they were more or less likeminded spirits, just as he heard heels clicking down the hallway. The three of them turned to see Natasha, holding the baby. Her gown was fitted enough that he could see the subtle outline of her swelling stomach, even with the corset he had helped her lace this morning—likely so that her parents would know of the second child to come.

"Mother!" Natasha gasped, holding Grace to rest against her hip, their daughter's small head lolling on her shoulder. She ran, as fast as she could, and threw herself into her mother's arms—both of the women crying, which caused the smaller female to sob as well. Connor gently extricated his child from Natasha's arms, cradling her against his chest and humming to her under his breath. Her cries subsided after a moment, and Andrew looked cautiously at the both of them.

"Is that—is that my granddaughter?" The former king asked, looking at the tiny girl with her cap of dark hair and steel grey eyes, squirming about in a blue dress and tugging on the buttons of her father's shirt with a happy squeal.

"Yes," Natasha answered for both of them. "Mother, Father, meet your grandchild—Grace Carys White."