You Are My Light Part II

280 - Union *Modern*

"Francis, are you sure this is right?" Mary asks softly, as the black cars come into vision. Nerves bite her belly, in a way that has nothing to do with the fact she delivered a baby two weeks previous. She holds his hand as the two of them near the impressive Cathedral meant to bid a proper farewell to Grandpere Francois. Francis' paternal grandfather was a good man, a strong man, but a complicated man. Mary hadn't really known him, but Francis looked up to him, as a symbol of what a man should be, even if he didn't agree with everything the man did or thought.

He looks at her from his perch on the drivers seat.

"I-I mean, I'm not sure I should be there. It might cause a commotion, attention, when it all should be on your grandfather and Grandmere Claude right know. And especially with your history and the fact nobody knows about us and the baby-"

He cuts her babbling off. "I need you there, Mary. I need to have you by my side when I say goodbye to him. People will talk anyway  even more if I'm not there. Everybody knows what happened between my family and I years ago, today won't change that. Besides, you're not cleared to drive, and James shouldn't be kept in a stuffy car for an hour, and neither should you sit down for such a long time after having him not that long ago."

Mary looked down as his hand tightened around hers, and takes a quick glance at the display of gold and diamonds upon her ring finger on the other side.

"Alright." Her voice is thick.

The story between the Valois family and Francis' estrangement was complicated and exhausting to say the least. It hadn't even been that long ago, and the full details were dizzying and sickening.

Kenna and Sebastian, along with their two daughters -Amia and Ameliè- had been living with the Valois clan while renovations were being made to their fire damaged home. At that time, Mary and Francis were not together, and he was in the beginning stages of a relationship with Lola. She had been staying there for a while with her mother, and had been given permission to move in once it came out that she was pregnant with Francis' child. As it came out a few months later, Lola and Sebastian had been having an affair under Kenna and Francis' noses. Humiliated, Francis had demanded that Lola be thrown out of the family estate, as well as Sebastian. Alas, Henry had forbidden it, fearing for the safety of his unborn grandchild. Hours of arguing insued, until Francis found himself soaking wet from the storm at Mary's door. She took him in and one thing lead to another, until he revealed that he had stormed out when Kenna had taken the children and left Sebastian with his little girlfriend, and Francis no longer had a place to stay.

Almost two years had passed with the almost complete disownment from the Valois family, hardly any contact from or to the scorned, eldest son of the Medici-Valois marriage, Francis had found himself contented with this new life with Mary, she'd just given birth to their first child, and the two had been engaged since she found out she was pregnant. Nobody from the Valois knew about the engagement or even the baby, because when Henry picked his favourite son over his scorned heir, the ties had been severed and the alliances were chosen. Even Catherine had turned her back on her favourite son, although there had to be more than meets the eye with that one.

The packed church gets closer, and Mary kisses his knuckles when he stops the car.

"No matter what, I'm here for you." She says. Francis kisses her own, before helping her out the car once the procession began to saunter into the cathedral.

He helps her out of the car, before strapping the sleeping, dark haired newborn baby boy with his eyes into the pushchair. Mary took the handles, while he wrapped an arm around her waist, guiding her inside.

"Francis!"

Her fiancee tenses next to her. He stops in his steps, and Mary looks over to see Henry and Catherine de Valois-Angulème heading straight for them.

"Is it really you?" Catherine whispers to her firstborn son.

He eyed them both slowly. "It is."

"And the child, is it-"

"Don't bother looking, or getting attached, because you'll never get to know him." Francis hisses. "You made sure of that two years ago when you picked Bash over me, when I was the wronged one!"

"It isn't about choosing anybody, or favourites, Francis. I did what I did then to keep the family together, safe. A scandal like that may have killed us."

"Hoe could you have kept this from us, Francis? That you have a child? That you proposed with my aunt's ring?"

"It was left to me, mother. And you have no right to know a damn thing that's happening in my life."
"Letting Sebastian sleep with the girl I was seeing, get her pregnant and let her pass the baby off as mine for four months, then throwing me out into the rain to cuddle Bash and his new daughter is your idea of keeping the family together? Really? The family is fractured beyond repair! You stole custody from Kenna of the girls by using her spending habits against her to turn her into some vain, irresponsible siren to the courts, and coddled Bash and Lola's precious little daughter and precious little family unit, while being none the wiser of my life and my future wife and my son!" he snaps back. "Don't you dare try and pull the custody trick on me that you did on that poor girl who's lost everything, because if you even look at my son for too long, I'll spread the word to every tabloid, newspaper, internet article and radio station in the entire damn world, to tell them what a monster Henry Valois truly is." Francis steps back, pulling Mary and the baby with him. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to pay my respects to my grandfather, and then we'll be on our way."

I have no need for you anymore, Henry, Catherine. For I have Mary, James, Leith, Remy, Julien, Greer and Kenna. A family, one you will deny me no longer.