It would make her a princess, who would one day be Queen, and an extremely worrying thought occurred.
‘Kedah, there’s going to be the most terrible scandal...’ Even if they married this week there would always be a question over the dates. ‘I’m pregnant...’
She was starting to panic, for no spin doctor could fix this—no dates could be changed—and it would be she, Felicia, who brought discredit to his name.
Yet Kedah smiled. ‘Really?’
‘I took a test. They’re going to know that we...’
‘Felicia.’ Kedah still smiled. ‘If my people are going to be shocked that we have slept together, that I am not a virgin, then they don’t know me at all.’
He made her laugh through her tears.
‘But they do know me, and they care for me—just as they will care for you.’
‘You’re not cross?’
‘Cross? I am stunned, I am thrilled and I am scared that you might not have told me.’
‘I was trying to work out how.’
‘Together we will sort out our problems,’ he said. ‘And right now I can’t see that we have any. Can you?’
Felicia thought for a moment, but not long and hard.
Oh, there would surely be problems, but they would deal with them together.
She could cope with anything.
After all, she had Kedah’s love.
EPILOGUE
SHE WOULD ALWAYS express her opinion.
Though occasionally, Felicia conceded, only to herself, she did get it wrong.
His work was stunning, and nowhere more so than here in the palace.
There were now no offices in the Crown Prince’s wing. Kedah had indeed had them torn down. They had been replaced by walls of soft stone from the quarries, and a trickling noise lined them, coming from the soft fountains from a deep spring the diviner had found.
The sound soothed both Felicia and the baby she sat with this dawn. It felt as if she was sitting in a blissful sanctuary.
‘You’ve got a big day today,’ Felicia said to her daughter.
Yes, they had been gifted with a little girl.
She had been born eight months ago, and her public appearances since then had been brief. She had been tiny enough to sleep through them, but she was bigger now—a bit more dramatic and clingy. Felicia was worried about how she would react to the crowds.
Kaina.
It meant both female and leader, and her name spoke of another of the changes that had been made.
She would one day be Queen of this magnificent land. But for now she was just a baby who really needed to sleep—except she had other ideas.
Kaina’s long eyelashes were just closing when the gap in the half-open door widened, and Felicia watched as her daughter’s little head turned.
‘She was nearly asleep,’ Felicia said as the baby smiled and wriggled and held out her arms.
‘Go back to bed,’ Kedah said as he took their daughter from her, for Felicia had been up for ages and he knew that she was worried about today.
‘She’s been fed,’ Felicia said. ‘She just won’t settle.’
‘Go back to bed,’ he said again. ‘I’ll get her to sleep.’
He didn’t suggest calling the royal nanny. Felicia was having none of that. And neither did their daughter sleep in a separate wing from her parents.
Times had finally changed, she thought as she climbed into their magnificent bed and closed her eyes.
And the landscape had changed also.
Kedah held his daughter and watched as the sun started to rise over Zazinia. A hotel had already been built and it was the most stunning building—his proudest work. No windows looked to the palace. Instead there was a beautiful mural that told some of the history of Zazinia. And close to the hotel in the modern city he was creating were the beginnings of a hospital, built with stone from the quarries of Zazinia but gleaming and modern inside. It was already functioning, but it would be a couple more years until it was complete.
‘Today,’ Kedah said, and he spoke in a low voice to his daughter, ‘there are going to be a lot of people cheering and making noise...’
He didn’t tell her that she was to behave and not cry. Of course Kaina was too young to understand, but there were other rules he had changed. Kaina would be herself, and go to school with her peers.
He looked down at his precious daughter, who was finally asleep, and walked out of the dark sanctuary and placed her in her crib.
There were no portraits on the wall as he walked back to his suite.
They were for the formal corridors now.
Here was home.
And home was a palace, and today the people would gather to see their beloved royals.
* * *
‘You’re going to be fine,’ Kedah said to Felicia, who was very nervous.
Oh, she had faced angry press many times in her past, but facing these people was different. The men she had represented in the past had meant absolutely nothing to her.