Chapter 500) Royal Renaissance

Ren·ais·sance
[ˈrenəˌsäns]
NOUN
a revival of or renewed interest in something:

Henford-on-Bagley
Cromwell Castle

So, just before Christmas I married the prince of my dreams. Again. Well, actually, I married a king this time.

I was definitely very obviously showing by now, but mom, Addy, Bianca and I had gone to Leeora Levesque’s Boutique and that woman hooked us up with a gown that may not be 100% my style normally, but nothing was currently normal and my wedding dress was definitely royal and fancy and gorgeous – and hid my baby bump excellently. It also wasn’t stark white, as in my current state and with all things considered, that would have been very ironic. Two kids and another bun in my oven plus preceding ‘who’s my baby daddy?’ drama said I was most definitely not pure and innocent enough for bright white. Used to be, but that ship had sailed now.

Truth be told, Max and I both came REALLY close to just eloping. No joke. He felt the same way as I did, we clearly loved each other, belonged with each other, had forgiven each other, and in a way eloping would have been just backspacing in a way. Back into a marriage we both wanted.

Alas, we felt too guilty to go through with it, knowing my parents were actually pretty excited to see us back in love and Bianca would have ripped me a new one if after talking her into moving to Brindleton Bay after my divorce, then ditching her there, only to run off and get married without her. No, we needed a ceremony and a celebration. If not for us, then for our friends and family.
So, back to the drawing board, one step up from eloping, so low-key nuptials was our next idea. When we had just decided on a nice semi-casual outdoor wedding location in the Henford hills, winter chose to come early that year and with a vengeance and while the wedding coordinator had been very supportive of an outdoor fall wedding, as heaters could be strategically placed, she downright refused to even attempt that in the snow. Not like we were keen on that.

So, since we couldn’t do it our way, we decided to do it the proper and expected way and we ended up with the same gigantic wedding we had the first time, just this time in deep snow, but it was inside the huge St. Michael’s Cathedral, so the weather didn’t really matter too much.
I married my King in the same place I married him as a Crown Prince before. Just the crowd was somewhat different this time around.
The snow was actually knee-deep on our wedding day.
Have you ever tried walking through snow up to your knees in a wedding gown at 6+ months pregnant while trying to look royal, or at the very least graceful? Yeah, I don’t recommend that! Think of your vision of a blushing princess bride floating to and from the waiting car – and it’s the exact OPPOSITE of that. Nobody looked graceful going in or coming out of the cathedral. Grandpa Blaine captioned it best, when he laughed and said we all looked like a bunch of sloths at an ice-skating rink. Well, he’s a vamp and doesn’t have to walk.

Oh, I forgot to explain that a few weeks before the wedding Max had been reinstated as royalty. There was no big ceremony as you might expect, he didn’t receive an official coronation, neither had Tartosa’s freshly-baked King Gaetano Rinaldi, since only a king or a queen from that same kingdom can officially crown anyone. It was just some closed-door ceremony, the politicians who had tried to run the respective countries shaking hands after each party signed the documents to officially reinstate royalty and hand the power – and the birthright – back to the rightful kings.

Marrying Max now officially had made me a queen consort, even though I would be referred to simply as queen. But that wasn’t enough for Max, he just really wanted this to be very special. Immediately after the wedding, once we arrived back at the castle, me still in my wedding gown, I was pulled into the throne room, my parents, Nick & Adrianna, plus Rohan and his husband, and of course my best friend Bianca and her hubby Gavin were in on it, before a small crowd of family, friends and a select few of the ‘who is who’ of nobility, plus in the background was also a large crowd of reporters, video- and photographers, along with the usual and ever-present horde of security personnel and royal guards, as an extremely long and very heavy robe was draped over my shoulders.
I was told to go to Max, who was standing, smiling, in front of the thrones and when I almost reached the throne podium, I was asked to stop, while Max was handed a pillow with a huge crown on it, which he took and placed on my head, while reciting some old words used during coronations. All that was filmed and photographed in great detail to be shown to the entire world.

I was shocked, surprised at what was happening, but also at how heavy that barely balanceable structure on my head was, making me scared to even breathe, when it started to sink in what was going on and I was afraid to move at all! Max had crowned me a queen. As the reigning king, he had the right to do that. Wow. I am still flabbergasted at it. Max told me that while he meant it, it was mostly symbolism, nothing would really change for me, since officially and legally only one royal could reign at a time and as his wife I was already his second in command, but he wanted to demonstrate to the world that he considered us fully equal.

I was shocked, impressed, moved, emotional, and all that, but so glad when someone came and took the crown off my head again so it and Max’ could be returned to the secure vault. How Max had managed to keep his on his head during the entire wedding is far beyond me. Luckily, we never will wear those again until the next coronation, which would be our son in many, many years from now, whenever Max decided to abdicate and hand the reigns to William.
My parents were in seventh heaven, seeing me rise to the top like that.

Queen Aria-Grace Cromwell of Henfordshire, wife of His Royal Majesty, King Maximilian Edward Henry Cromwell, and their children His Royal Highness Crown Prince William, princess Victoria Rose and soon to be another little Princess.

Max had always been a Grade A guy, a good man, kind, gentle, even an excellent husband, the best father a woman can wish for her kids for, one reason why he and I remained friends and saw each other often even after the divorce. What had broken us was his extreme dependency on the Cromwell traditions and royal ties from long before our times and I am so thrilled to confirm that has changed for the better, and with him changed those binding, paralyzing, suffocating rules at court. He was the king now, like he was always meant to be, and he was determined to make it worth his and everyone else’s while, he applied his sweet, kind, calm but firm just ways to the way he wanted his country run. Some rules unfortunately will always have to remain, understandable, but it doesn’t feel so shackled anymore as it had before. Had things been like this from the beginning, … no, no AG you will not go down that mental rabbithole. That was then and now is now.

Now, nobody ever tried to take my kids from me when I wanted to hold them or read to them or play with them. Staff would come in and politely remind me of appointments or such, but it was always my choice if and when I would go. I was now the one to hand them off to caretakers when I was otherwise engaged. And my relationship with my children has improved so much. I do feel motherly now and they do come to me with booboos and dreams and worries, and all those other little things that just had been missing. We were finally becoming a real family, in every aspect, just like I had always wanted, the royal part was now more like a … profession, in a way. Family first. At long last.

Well, maybe the way things went for me with Max and our family gave me the courage to try for another happy ending. After a heart-to-heart with my cousin Connor during one of my visits back home, I decided to go with him to see Jack. I had originally planned to go alone, but knowing what a good influence Connor was on Jack, I thought there was a chance he’d run me off his property were I to go alone, but he wouldn’t dare try that with Connor there.

Chestnut Ridge
Kershaw Ranch

The moment we arrived I was shocked at the warm welcome Connor received, Jack’s son dropped whatever he had been doing to come running over and greet Connor, hugging him as if he were a relative and Jackson even managed to be polite to me, same was true for Jack. At least as long as everyone was around us.

After the polite ‘hellos’ and ‘how are yous’ around the group, I seized a moment when Jack’s wife, son and Connor were talking and asked Jack for a talk under four eyes, he probably knew that was coming and why I was there in the first place, so he agreed without any ado. We walked off away from the cabin a little to talk. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, not with a man like Jack, but I just couldn’t leave it where he and I ended, I had to at least apologize and make clear to him that I genuinely cared about him, then and still, and that I never meant to hurt him or make him feel like he probably did.

Part of me kinda still cared so deeply about him, maybe even loved him in a way. Not like I loved my husband, and not how I loved my parents or brother. But still, some form of genuine deep feeling.
He was married now too, to Taynee, and going to be a daddy again come summer.
Jack was still learning how to be a dad to Jackson, the boy’s mother had died many years ago, so Jackson had spent a lot of time in the system, a presumed orphan, since nobody knew Jack was the biological father, which was probably why the kid had been so stand-offish with me. Finding out he actually still had a father and then there was me with a baby thinking it was Jack’s, my baby and I had to have seemed threatening and like competition to the confused teen. Connor liked the teen boy and never had anything bad to say about Jackson.
Jack was clearly overwhelmed, yet excited and happy. But it soon became clear that underneath it all he was still chewing on our unhappy ending, just as I was.

It took a lot of words and reassurances from me, and it was probably the fact that Connor was there as well, even though he kept in the background to give Jack and me some privacy, but Connor had urged Jack to try and be open-minded about what I had to say and Jack had understood and agreed. Well, in their own way anyway. I remember their conversation going a little bit like this.

“Hey, I am gonna be over there with your son and wife, so play nice, I don’t wanna have to come over to remind you that your last name is Kershaw, not ‘Ass’, got it Jack?”

“Argh, fuck off already, Cameron! I don’t need parenting from someone who still was a horny glance in his daddy’s eyes when I was already training horses!” Jack finally chuckled, after wearing a grim expression the minute I had gotten out of Connor’s car.

So, with Connor looming in the distance, throwing us occasional looks, I talked and talked.

And eventually Jack let down his defenses enough to really listen to me, eventually he took my hand and linked it with his arm to stabilize me when I slid around on icy patches beneath the snow a few times, then suddenly out of the blue he began to talk, freely, honestly and openly, so I even finally got his side and his feelings about it all. He was receptive to my honesty. We both bared all, both vulnerable, honest, sharing the pain and reasoning that got us to where we were today. I never would have dreamed that would have even been possible with a guy like Jack, but thought it was probably the therapy Connor still insisted on him attending that helped him verbalize things he’d normally swallow and keep inside until they festered into something very bad and unfixable.

We didn’t really solve anything, as there was nothing to solve, but we did clear the air between us. I felt so much better by the time we returned to the cabin, my heart was lighter, and Jack even managed a hug for me by the time Connor and I left again.

Maybe there was hope Jack and I could be friends one day, I mean, truly friends, not just friendly and polite, civil really. Until then, at least he was close with Connor and I knew could always ask my cousin for occasional Jack-updates.

The rest remains to be seen …