I woke up at about half eight thanks to Maxon's eyes watching me. He was half sat up in bed, staring at me with a smile on his face. I pulled the duvet over my head and grumbled at him.
"Morning, Darling." He whispered, pulling back the covers and kissing me on the forehead. I grumbled again.
"Do I have to get up?" I asked, Maxon chuckled and nodded.
"It's not even that early! Come on, we have a meeting after breakfast and I want to make sure you're ready." I gulped, it was my first meeting with the advisors and I needed to make a good first impression as Queen and joint ruler with Maxon. I sat up, exhaled, and looked at him.
"What should I wear?" I asked. I was being completely serious but that didn't stop Maxon from falling back from laughing. "What? I'm being serious!" I hit him with one of the pillows that had been behind my head which made him laugh more, before hitting me with one of his own pillows.
"As punishment for hitting the King, I sentence you to spending the entire day glued to the side of the next handsome man you see."
"Well, if it was ordered by the King then I suppose I'll have to. But you'll have to deal with my fiancé when he finds out about this. And he's a scary man."
"Deal." He said quickly, kissing me deeply and forcing me to lie back on the bed. Suddenly there was a knock on the door and we both sat up. I pulled the covers up and Maxon put his dressing gown on and answered the door.
"Your Highness." A guard I vaguely recognised greeted and bowed. "It has been requested that your meeting today can be moved up by an hour. What would you like me to say?"
"Well, I suppose that should be fine. Thank you Officer…"
"Mason, Sir."
"Thank you officer Mason." The guard bowed and walked off again, Maxon turned to me. "Come on, get up and get ready as quick as possible, please. You heard the man, we only have half an hour and I'd like to be able to talk you through it for at least ten minutes. Meet back in here as soon as possible." He pressed his button to call his butler and I went through to my room where my maids were readily waiting for me.
When I was dressed in a straight blue dress with a high neckline and a white pearl necklace, I put on blue heels and knocked at Maxon's door and walked through.
"Wow, you look great, and it only took you fifteen minutes? I thought that it took you lot a lot longer than that to get ready."
"Not too bad yourself, and you are talking to the girl who loves sleep so much that my maids have had to figure out how to get me ready in record time." I smiled. "Now what do you need to tell me about these meetings?" I sat down in a chair at the foot of Maxon's bed and he sat in the one opposite.
"They are absolutely terrifying. I still remember my first meeting because everything's just so real, and the advisors are always out to intimidate me and probably you as well. Just to warn you of that. Also, just remember that they are not in charge. Since you are essentially Queen already because of…" He chocked a bit at the thought of his mother, I reached over and squeezed his hand, he smiled and then continued. "Remember the hierarchy is us and then them, not the other way round. No matter what they'd like to think." Maxon then talked me through the structure of the meetings, we'll enter, they bow, we all seat and the start by proposing the first issue which we then discuss in an orderly and polite manor before coming to a resolution. Then the next issue is proposed, discussed, resolved and so on. "Say what you think we should do and how you think we should do it, but no dissolving the castes straight away, try to not be too brash with what you want to do." I rolled my eyes at the memory of one of my biggest mistakes. "Remember that I am with you and that I support you, we're a team. A team that they cannot break up, though they will probably try."
And try they did. After we entered and we all sat in the meeting room they immediately proposed a topic that neither of us were comfortable with, and definitely hadn't discussed.
"Our first topic: Heirs." Just the chair of the meeting, an advisor named Miles, saying the name of this topic made me blush slightly, I prayed they couldn't see because I didn't want them to think they were succeeding in intimidating me.
"Surely that's more of a private issue?" I hoped it was, I really didn't want to continue this conversation.
"Hardly, Lady America, your heirs will be the future of the country; no heirs, no monarchs." Miles turned back to Maxon. "So, we think that you should have a few heirs and we'd like to get you both checked after all the trouble your parents had. If it's ok with you then we can have you done later this week?" I looked at Maxon who nodded so I copied him. "Good. So we'll get that booked in." He scribbled something down on a piece of paper. "Ok, carrying on from that. The royal family has not been blessed with a daughter in a long time. If that should happen, how would you like to continue with the alliances of Illèa, who should be offered your daughter's hand in marriage?"
"No one." I quickly replied. "No one will get my daughter's hand unless she chooses them as her partner. I don't want her being forced from her home for the sake of an alliance." The looks on the advisors faces proved that this was not what they were expecting.
"I agree." I looked at Maxon who was staring at them, he clearly had been expecting my reaction. "We have made more progress with becoming allies with Italy in the past month just by America than we have by promising them Princesses if they came. Anyway, many countries have female heirs and it may help us if we have the same view towards our female heirs." I smiled, I liked the fact that Maxon seemed to see things the same as me.
"Well, we can look into changing the law and it can be discussed in our next meeting." Miles concluded, I could tell he wasn't happy and it was only because Maxon was king and technically in charge that it was even being considered by him. "Now for some more imminent matters." I sat up straight in my seat feeling that this was going to be important. However, Miles didn't continue. Instead he just stared at me. After a few moments I had to speak.
"What?"
"Oh, are you staying? I thought that you might need to do some work on the Wedding or other such things."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Oh, well. I just thought that you were here for the part that concerned you and then you had other things to do." I looked at Maxon who appeared to have just as much knowledge of this as me. I could feel my anger rising and I stood to leave before I said something I'd regret.
"She stays. America will be just as much of a leader as me, I'd like her opinions on the issues; she sees things differently to us." He motioned for me to sit, so I did and he took my hand off my lap. "We're a team."
The meeting continued, it wasn't particularly interesting but I made sure to say my piece on subjects, generally backing Maxon up (especially when they disagreed). I think I managed to prove that I was an asset to the team. After the meeting Maxon and I walked hand in hand down for lunch.
"I think the meeting went well. However, I would like to discuss the first topic with you again." I laughed at the formality that clearly stemmed from a little bit of awkwardness about the subject.
"Is that the royal way of saying that you want to talk about starting a family?" He nodded. "Ok, but we can't get started until at least after the Wedding. Just because you're the King doesn't mean that I'm above the law." He laughed and led me into the garden.
We walked round to our bench where there was a blanket on the floor and a small basket on top. We sat and opened the basket that was filled with sandwiches and a flask of tea, I poured tea into two small cups and gave one to Maxon.
"So…children." I started.
"Yeah." There was some awkwardness between us as it wasn't a discussion that either of us felt ready for, but we both knew it was necessary. "I want lots, I want to fill our home with children."
"I think I can do that. I always thought I'd have a big family, I have a big family. Lots of children wouldn't be ridiculously hard to look after when you're not working to the bone as well."
"We still won't be a normal family, we won't have loads of time to just play with the kids, we'll have things to do."
"I know, but…no one does. Not really. I mean, the people out there, at the bottom, they work so hard just to buy food that they barely have time to eat it. We'll struggle just like anyone else, just in a different way to them. I think being a big family would be good, we could show that we are just like anyone else."
"So, lots of kids then?" I nodded. "Ok, when?" There was a very awkward silence as neither of us were sure what the other would say.
"Maybe a few months to a year after the wedding?"
"Ok, that sounds reasonable." He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me into him. "As long as I can have my way with you on our wedding night." He pulled me on top of him and kissed me hard.
"Ahem. Your Majesty?" I quickly moved off him and we both sat up.
"How can we help?" Maxon seemed calm and composed whilst I was desperately hoping my face wasn't too red. He was definitely more used to all this than me.
"There are visitors wanting to speak to the two of you in the downstairs parlour, August Illèa is his name."
"Thank you, we'll be along shortly." The guard bowed and left. As soon as he turned a corner we both stood and almost ran down to the parlour.
Inside sat August and Georgia on two chairs and another two chairs facing them. When we entered, they both stood and I walked straight up to Georgia and hugged her, while Maxon shook August's hand.
"We offer our condolences for your parents, we both wanted to come to the memorial but thought that it might be slightly inappropriate since neither of them liked us in the slightest." August said before he sat down, Maxon sat opposite and I released Georgia so that we could both sit as well.
"Thank you. But we really need to get you to a better line into the palace rather than just barging in and demanding to see us. One day the guards might realise that you're rebels!" Maxon laughed.
"But breaking into the palace is fun!" Georgia complained.
"We're here, also, to discuss the Southern rebels. After the thing with America…"
"Ok, does the entire country know about that?" I interrupted, it was annoying that no matter how much I tried to forget it everyone kept bringing it up.
"America, I heard about it a few days ago from my spy in the Southern rebel camp. I swear that neither of us had anything to do with it." I nodded my head and August continued. "I think they're planning another large scale attack on the palace, probably at the time of your Wedding, congratulations by the way. How do you think we should proceed?"
"Cancel the Wedding." I immediately answered, I looked over at Maxon who looked seriously upset by this, I looked at him and grabbed his hand. "I love you Maxon, but I don't want to put people at risk. No one should go through what you did. I want to marry you, desperately, but…"
"I know, I understand. It's just hard to think about cancelling the Wedding. Surely that shows that we're scared of the rebels." There was a moment of silence between the four of us.
"What if you eloped?" Georgia asked, quietly. We all turned to look at her. "I mean, you could say you were visiting someone and then stop off, get married and announce it afterwards. Visit the selected girls or something. There would be no threat to the people and the country would see it as romantic rather than fearful, and no one would be angry for not being invited. Maybe you could then do a tour of the country and go and see our allies."
"Works for me. I'd like to see the girls again. Maybe we could end it in Carolina and get married then. Not elope really, just have a small impromptu Wedding."
"Ok, we could greet the girl and the mayor, have a quick tour of the city and then move on, maybe doing three provinces in a day?" Maxon seemed to like this deal just as much as I did.
"Now, we can't tell anyone about it until the day. No one, not the maids, guards or anyone. It must stay between the four of us." August gave me a stern look. "I mean it, there's no telling who might be a rebel and who isn't so, for now, we tell no one. We can't risk them finding out." He stood and Maxon quickly followed. "Thank you for meeting with us but I won't keep you away from your work any longer." They shook hands, I hugged Georgia again, quickly, and then we led the two of them to the main door.
We said our goodbyes and then Maxon and I headed back up to his study, we shut the door and locked it so that no one would be able to come in. Maxon wrapped his arms around me tightly and I threw mine around his neck. He kissed me softly and then held me for a few moments.
"I'm sorry about the Wedding, I know that you've been planning it, and I'm sure it would have been great." He whispered.
"It would have been great, but think of it this way, we'll be married quicker and we can do it without worrying about rebel attacks." I paused. "This is the price for all this isn't it, constant worry and fear."
"Yep." He laughed. "But we can do it, together." I smiled at the thought, Maxon and I were together and now the people to worry about could not pull us apart, no matter what they did.