The Queen's Wife (girlxgirl)

31. Blissful homecoming

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When Maud catches Adelio changing for the first time, all she can think about is how crazy it is that it hasn't happened earlier.

The two of them have been married for about ten months now, they have a child together that was born two weeks ago. Yes, born, and yes she feels completely fine. The servants were surprised at how fine she felt, actually. She can walk around and talk and laugh and have fun with her husband and fuss over her new baby boy, almost as if she didn't give birth just fourteen days ago. It's funny how easy it is. Together with her husband, Maud has spent the last two weeks of their trip in a private bliss, moving closer and closer to the capital and the Red Lion palace. In the mornings she checks up on the baby, during the day she takes care of him and in the evenings when the child is miraculously asleep she goes on cute little walks with Adelio outside their tent or inn, having long talks about everything from politics to their past lives.

The latter is perhaps something which she has struggled with the most. It seems like Adelio is catching onto her white lie, one conversation at the time. Sometimes he asks odd follow up questions, or squints when she answers in a weird way. Maud can't help it, it's not like she can get better at lying. Yesterday they sat together on the beach, a big round lake in front of them, as the moon shone from above and the stars sparkled in the sky. Adelio laid back in the sand and just relaxed, something which he rarely does, and Maud found the moment quite peaceful. But his question was voiced soon afterwards, something along the lines of: 'It's odd that you don't know very much about the four sworded wars, you'd think they'd teach that to a princess'. And Maud only laughed and nodded, wondering if it really would hurt to voice the truth. Would he hate her if he knew that she had lied about her background during all of these really nice conversations? Maud doesn't want to take the risk, not when the two of them are in such a blissful state.

Alas, lies are always the cracks in one's sturdy wall. Not just her lies, but his lies too. Maud had completely forgotten the things that plagued her mind so many months ago, at the beginning of their trip. It's been so long since then, over half a year, so whatever thoughts that remain are small and scarce. However, the idea of Adelio lying to her about something came back to her quite recently, on their last night together before entering the capital city gates. Maud thinks about it as the carriage moves up the bumpy main road, men and women crowding the vehicle from all sides. She had just put the baby to sleep, which wasn't very hard considering that Alaric is not only a very sweet and tired newborn, but also quite an old newborn. She walked from the baby's room, which is off limits to everyone except her, Adelio and the nanny, to their shared room at the inn, letting the guards bow to her as she passed. Their door stood half ajar, so really she saw no point in knocking when it was just so easy to-

And that's it, there he stood. It wasn't anything that was wrong with his position, it was just the shape of his body that somehow stood out. Maud has never seen Adelio naked before, as odd as that sounds. He has surely seen her naked before, on a few occasions, but the prince always insists on keeping his clothes on. Maud has never understood why, and to this day she doesn't know. But now something irks her mind, as the memory from yesterday of Adelio rushing to cover himself up when she walked inside the room replays. What was odd with his body, Maud couldn't see properly, nor can she remember. But the panicked look on Adelio's face, which slowly morphed into an annoyed expression, remains burned into her brain. What could be so important that he had to hide himself, and then later get mad at her for almost seeing? Maud could only find one answer to her question. Whatever he is hiding, whatever he is lying about, the truth lies in his actions the other night.

That is why right now, as the royal caravan consisting of dozens of guards and servants together with the crown princess and prince move up towards the city gates, Maud rests her head against the wall of the carriage and really tries to think. She has always had quite a bad photogenic memory, pictures are blurred and faces are hard to remember. Adelio's expression is still clear in her head but she is beginning to think that she imagined that something was off about his body. Perhaps it was only the strangeness of the situation that made her feel that way? No, that can't be it. Something is wrong and Maud knows that it's true. She just has to figure out what that something is.