Royal Duchess | BRF Story

Peaceful

"Bee..." His fingers brush and the Duchess pulls her arm closer to her, slightly turning to face her husband. If she needed to ask this, and she knew she did, she wanted to look at her husband when he answered. 

"Are the rumours true, George? Did you or did you not go after her?" 

"Why... Why would you think that, Amelia? I haven't talked to her since uni and barely remembered her until I saw her face on the news." He gentyly takes his wife's hands into his own, slightly caressing her delicate hands. "I love you, Bee, and maybe I don't tell you this enough, but there isn't and there won't ever be anyone in this world that I love more." 

"With the exception of our children." She wasn't jealous, on the contrary, she was more than happy to know that he loved their children above all else. 

"I'm not talking about a father's love, Bee, I am talking a partner's love, a husband's love, a lover's love." The Duke puts a stubborn lock of red hair back behind his wife's ear, taking time to caress his wife's cheek with his fingers. "I love you, Bee, and I messed up, I know I did. And that is why I am here right now, because turns out I was right to ask you to marry me."

"Do you really think so?" She was careful with her words, but she had to know, she knew her answer, now she needed to know his's.

"I am completely in love with you, Bee, and these days I've spent apart from you have been nothing far from he*l." He closes the space that separated the couple, resting his forehead on his wife's. "I can't spend a day apart from you, I need you Bee, like a human needs air to survive. I need you."  

- - -

The Duchess felt the early morning sun on her face and she couldn't contain a smile from arrving. It had been a while since she was this happy, but she suspected it had something to do with her husband and her first night of full sleep in a while. 

The Duke had been up since five in the morning, getting everything ready for when his wife and children would be up. 

They had agreed that two nights out of the week Nanny Harriet would be taking care of James, who still was not sleeping much during the night, and on those two nights they would be able to spend it with their daughter and have time for themselves, as well as a quiet time for the couple. 

The Duchess left the couple's bedroom and headed to the kitchen, the first place the family could be found after getting up. 

"Good morning." Amelia smiles at her husband, who is serving her a cup of tea while also drinking his own. 

"Good morning Bee." 

He kisses her tample and goes back behind the counter, serving himself another cup of tea while his wife analyses her husband. 

"How much tea have you drank?" She asks playfully, looking at her husband almost hopping from one side of the kitchen to the other. 

"This is my fifth cup."

"Georgie! How long have you been up?"

"Since five." He answers with a smile, again drinking his tea.

"And why didn't you wake me up?" 

"You looked so peaceful, I didn't want to disturb you."   

- - -

The summer went by while the family were hidden away in their country home. But when they got back, at the beginning of September, it seemed like they had left and the work had just accumulated on their desk. The Royal Family may have been on holiday but Her Majesty's office was not.

George was having meetings either with the Queen's Private Secretary and Lord Chamberlain or his father's Private Secretary almost weekly since January, and a meeting with his grandmother and father at least once every two weeks.

Amelia was back working, which meant Nanny Harriet was now taking care of both children during most of the day when Victoria wasn't in school. Baby James, now almost four months, was nowhere close to calming down since after confirming his colics his paediatrician said it only goes away when the baby is six months old.

The couple was once again trying to spend as much time with their children as they could and also keeping up their engagement numbers, since, at least for the Duchess, she wanted to come back as strong as before she had James.