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Silvio Ricci is not a man known for his patience. And while many claim his time with you has helped to tame the crude beast, you know better. He is just as impatient today as he was when you met him. Now he is simply quieter about it. His rough porcupine quills are still there, just not quite as sharp, rounded by years of peace and domestic tranquility both in his country and in his home.
You glance up from the book in your lap.
“Pacing will not speed things up, love”
He pauses, his gaze settling on you. No matter how many times he looks at you, no matter how often you have gazed into those blue depths, a small part of you is always pressed to believe that if heaven exists, the light it shines would be the exact blue of your husband's eyes.
“How can you be so calm?” His voice snaps like a sail in the wind.
Sighing, you set aside your book and reach out, taking his hand in yours. It only takes one little tug and through grumbled words, he allows you to pull him down onto the settee next to you. You keep his hand in yours, your thumb rubbing a soothing rhythm over his skin. His fingers are adorned with gold and jewels the color of the Benitoite sea. You wear only one ring. Your fussy, more elaborate diamond and sapphire engagement ring is home, nestled safely in its blue velvet box, allowed out for state functions and parties, but it is this plain band of gold, your wedding ring, that means the most to you.
“It takes as long as it takes.”
He snorts in derision at your platitude, but the energy running through his lean frame is firing down, his muscles relaxing into the rhythm of your touch. You reach up with your free hand, brushing back the soft strands of his light hair.
“There we go.”
He sighs now, leaning into your touch, allowing your hand to cup his cheek. He softens for you in a way he does for no other, allows you in to the places few can enter. Even now.
You begin humming as you stroke his hair, a simple childhood song, repetitive and soothing. His nervous colt energy continues to fade and you smile, pleased with yourself.
The door to the salon opens. Immediately he is on his feet and you can only shake your head at how quickly the tides turned. Calm Silvio vanishes in the spray of an ocean wave.
“And?”
The physician smiles, motioning for you both to come along. “This way, your majesties.”
You walk alongside your husband, anticipation coiling itself around the pit in your stomach. Together you pass through the blue double doors, hurry across the white tiled floor, towards the massive bed with its soft, gauzy canopy the color of gardenias.
Your jewel is there. She is sitting up in bed, hair damp with sweat, cerulean eyes ringed with exhaustion but burning with a new light that you know so well.
“Mama, Papa.....meet Silvana.”
You lean over your daughter, pressing a kiss to her forehead. You run a soothing hand over her hair, mirroring the gesture you had used on her father moments ago.
“Well done, my love,” you murmur, your voice cobwebbed with emotion.
She looks to Silvio, her smile as bright as sunlight on water.
“Would you like to hold her, Papa?”
He is so very still as he takes in the scene, his gaze traveling from you, to his daughter, to the small bundle swaddled in a blanket of the softest teal-colored cotton.
He leans down, almost reverent as he lifts the baby up into his arms.
“Mind her head," your daughter says. You smile at how the maternal instinct to protect is immediate and fierce.
He arches a brow at her words. “I have done this four times myself, cucciola.”
He walks away from the bed, turning from the others in the room, you, his daughter, his relieved son-in-law, the physician. He makes his way to the balcony, stepping outside into the warm light of the rising sun.
The tiny girl in his arms is sleeping, having conquered the hard business of being born and deserving of rest.
He lifts one finger, touching the angel-soft skin of her plump cheek.
“Hello Silvana,” he says softly. “It’s me. Your grandfather.” He raises his gaze to the water in the distance, to the wide and wild sky bursting with a pink and orange sunrise.
His voice is soft as the waves kissing the sand, tremulous with a joy that billows within his heart. A heart that no longer belongs to him. She has stolen it completely.
The king bends down, bestowing the tiny thief with a kiss on her forehead.
“Welcome to the world, piccola mia. There is so much I cannot wait to show you.”