"You won't believe the conversation I had with your mother today." She asks him as soon as he comes through the door, eager to share what might be the most mortifying moment of her life yet.
"What do you mean?" He asks her, shrugging of his coat and draping it over a chair, getting ready for bed. They decided to use her bedchambers as their shared rooms, and even for their first night back at the chateau, her room feels more homely to her than it's ever been. His shaving mirror next to her jewelry box, his boots underneath their bed. It just seems right.
"She asked to see me earlier…wanted to talk about me "fulfilling my duty" as she so deftly put it." She tells him offhandedly, continuing to run the brush down her long dark hair as if it didn't matter, but waiting for his inevitable inquiry.
"As in…?" He leaves the sentence hanging, looking up at her as he removes his boots, sitting on their bed.
"Making babies." She enunciates, putting the brush down. His eyes look like two blue buttons as they open comically wide.
"She didn't." He stops to stare at her, a slightly horrified expression on his face that makes her want to laugh.
"She did." Her cheeks blush slightly at the memory and her hand goes to cover her face.
"Meddling…well, that definitely sounds like her." He shakes his head, pulling his shirt over his shoulders. He notices the red that now tints her cheeks and how she hides behind her hands. "That bad?"
"You have no idea." She tells him, biting her lip to keep her embarrassment at bay. She stands up, her nightly ritual now finished and her hand brushes over his naked shoulders before she climbs into bed, a silent plea for him to hurry so he can join her.
"What did she say?" He asks her, finding some breeches and a shirt to sleep in, but he doesn't get an answer as she bursts into quiet little laughs, hiding her face against her pillow to muffle them. He hurries getting dressed, and then walks to their bed. He finds himself witness to the truly amazing sight of his wife giggling like a little girl.
He climbs on to the bed, eager to hear the whole story that prompts her blushing cheek and her laughter. He lays down on his side, and she curls into his side right away, her laughter subsiding. Her forehead comes to rest on his chest, her fingers grasping his white linen shirt.
"She wanted me to rub something on your…" She nods towards the body part in question and his eyes pop out.
"Good Lord." He says, his fingers rubbing the nape of her neck as he imagines his own mother uttering those directions to his wife.
"She wanted to give me all sorts of potions and creams!" She tells him, and he can't help but laugh at her mortified expression, as she raises herself to look at him, coming out of hiding against his chest.
"What did you tell her?" He questions, half embarrassed at what his mother has been up to and half truly regretful that as a woman, all the pressure to become pregnant falls on her.
"Nothing, your father came in and saved the day for once." She tells him, moving to rest on her side of the bed. He rubs her shoulder comfortingly, chuckling, and leans forward to press a kiss to her forehead.
"Do you want me to talk to her? Ask her to leave you...us, well alone?" Even if it's customary for his Lady Mother to intervene, and as embarrassing and to be quite honest, amusing as it may be, these matters should stay between husband and wife.
"Don't bother, she means well." She tells him, wanting to spare him from that conversation. But then doubt starts to creep in to her. "Do you think we should listen to her though? I mean…it's been two months since the wedding…and even before that we'd been together, but..." Her voice quiets down, uncertainty painting her features. She looks away from him. "I'm still not preg-"
"Hey." He cups her cheek, making her look at him. "Don't let my mother get into your head. She might mean well but this doesn't concern her." He pushes a few rebel curls away from her face. "We'll be blessed with a child soon enough, it's in God's hands." He tries to comfort her as best as he knows how, his thumb trying and failing to brush away her frown.
"She's right though, it is my duty. Even my mother told me to make heirs as quick as possible before our wedding." She confides in him, knowing he is her husband in every sense of the word. Her family. He opens his arms to her, and she returns to his embrace as thoughtless as breathing, his arm pulling her closer to his side.
"Do you want to know what I believe?" He asks her, and she just nods against his shoulder. "I think this bed is our little sanctuary. Here we're not the future King and Queen but husband and wife. Just Mary..." he tells her, a playful twinkle in his eyes, and she smiles fondly at the memory that seems a hundred years away now. "and just Francis. I don't want our intimacy to turn into duty as well. I just want to focus on loving you." He tells her, his fingers running up and down her arm. "On us loving each other…" He presses a kiss on her forehead as she relaxes against him. "...our pleasure." His voice drops down with the words and it makes chills run down her back.
"We'll have a little prince or princess in the nursery soon enough. Don't let those thoughts worry you and take away from our union." He tells her as she nods against his shoulder again, letting herself be calmed by his words. She can feel his face break out in a smile then. "and, for God's sake, don't ever take my mother's potions!"