Chapter Eleven
It goes on like this. The way that we want each other is almost like torture.
The passage of time does nothing to stop it.
If he’s with me, he’s inside me, which is why it’s an incredible shock when I start bleeding.
My cramps are terrible, and I can’t get out of bed.
I would’ve thought that a man working so hard to produce an heir would surely be rewarded with one.
Particularly because it seems like even biology wouldn’t dare defy Lucian.
But mine has.
For the first time, a strange new fear winds through me. He chose me to be his bride—well, he allowed me to trade places with my sister—and we never established whether or not I was actually fertile. There are options, I know that, but I don’t know what he considers to be an option.
And yet again, I’m left with the wrenching push and pull of my own desires.
In some ways I’m relieved that I’m not pregnant.
I can’t imagine being a mother in nine months’ time.
I can’t imagine being a mother. It just wasn’t part of my plans, and it’s going to take some time for me to wrap my head around the fact that my whole future is going to be different.
Knowing it, and truly being able to imagine it, to accept it, are different things.
But I also feel strangely sad. Worried. Anxious. That could also be my hormones.
My PMS tends to take the form of anxiety. It chews at me, makes me want to plan things, set things into motion, something to protect me from the relentless crush of time, and all of the things that I can’t control.
I take breakfast and lunch in bed, and by the afternoon, Lucian comes for me. “Are you quite well?”
I can see the tension on his face. Is he hoping that I have morning sickness?
I’ll spare him the anticipation.
“I’m not pregnant,” I say. “I’m on my period. My cramps are particularly vile today is all.”
Except that’s not all. Because how could it be? He doesn’t say anything; he disappears from the room. Of course. I’m no use to him as long as I’m bleeding. He can’t even get satisfaction, and I’m not carrying his baby.
What a useless wife.
My thoughts are such a dark, grumpy cloud, and unfair besides. He didn’t say any of that.
But I’m in a terrible mood. When he reappears with a tray containing two large pieces of cake—one strawberry, one chocolate—a heating pad tucked underneath his arm, I don’t even know what to say.
He sets the cake on the bed beside me, drags a chair to the side of the bed and places the heating pad on my stomach. I look at him, lower it just slightly to where I need it. “That… Thank you.”
“Have you not realized by now that I’m not a monster?”
He has been content to let everyone else think so. But never me.
Not from the first, and I don’t understand why.
I can’t speak, because I’m afraid I’ll cry, which is a horror I don’t even know how to cope with, because I’m not a crier. Though, I’ve cried more times since coming to this palace than at any other time in recent memory. Twice. Which still isn’t a lot, but is notable.
“I know you aren’t,” I say.
“You’re upset,” he says.
“Yes. I am upset.”
“Why? Is it something that I did?”
“It’s everything,” I say, ready to lash out.
Ready to be mean because everything inside of me feels jagged.
“I’m not pregnant. And thank God. Because I’m too young to have a baby.
But here I am, married to you, expected to have a baby.
We never had protected sex, and we have sex all the time.
I think that we have sex more than anybody in the whole world. It might actually be a problem.”
His expression remains measured. “Do you find my attentions unwanted?”
I shake my head. “No. Ours is a mutual sickness.”
I can’t lie to him about that.
“I see. You are…infected as I am?”
“Yes,” I say. There’s a lump in my throat, and I’m furious. “But having a baby would really mean giving up on all my dreams.”
“I can see how that would be.”
“You’ve taken all my dreams anyway,” I say.
He says nothing, his jaw tenses, his mouth flat.
“What if I can’t get pregnant, Lucian?” Because perversely, that is my other deep and terrible fear.
Because then he might get rid of me. He’s already had three wives.
Why not four? What if he has taken me, shown me all of this, upended my life, and he’ll just put me back out if I can’t produce his heir?
Then you’ll go on like it never happened. That won’t be so bad. It won’t be. You have had this time where you learned all about sex, and experienced living in a castle, and then you could just…go on.
I want him to say something, and he doesn’t. He doesn’t leave either. He sits there with me, saying nothing. His expression grave.
He leaves eventually, and returns with a fresh heating pad later. I’m served dinner in the room after that.
He doesn’t come and visit me over the next couple of days, and I’m furious.
Even though what he did was kind, I’ve decided to internalize being angry that he was more distant when he couldn’t have sex with me because it does something to feed my insecurities.
My hormones are monstrous and I want to embrace it.
After five days of that, I have some clarity. My hormone fog has cleared slightly, and I don’t feel as unreasonable. It’s also interesting, because the reprieve of sex, not being around him, has made me feel a little bit more like myself too.
The feelings inside of me are unfamiliar.
But I am still me. Going back to reading textbooks, to reading new studies, that makes me feel a little bit more centered.
Just because I’m not going to school doesn’t mean I can keep learning.
I have my classes that I’ll be starting soon online.
I don’t have everything, and I want everything, and that’s difficult. So much for being practical, I suppose.
I’m just not.
With some trepidation, I go down after dinner and move into the library, where I know I’ll find Lucian.
I’m not disappointed.
“Good evening,” he says, looking up at me.
“I’m not bleeding anymore,” I say.
“Glad to hear it. Is it always particularly tough on you?”
“I admit I do get quite emotional. Though I think there were some contributing factors.”
“I can see that,” he says.
I’m annoyed, because I think he sounds a little bit amused, and nothing was funny about the way that I felt.
He smiles, and I’m enraged. “Do not look at me that way,” he says. “Sit down.”
I do, but seriously.
“Why are you angry with me?”
“Because I… I don’t know.”
“You are upset. About the strictures of royal life. About…the heir.”
“Yes,” I say.
“I want you to get on the pill.”
I jolt. “What?”
“You’re not ready to have a child.”
“But that’s part of the deal.”
“It was. When I was choosing a wife. And not you. You are not ready to have a child. You were obviously very unhappy about it, and the fallout of the emotions over you finding out that you weren’t pregnant were very intense.”
It wasn’t that simple, but I decide to allow him that. “Yes,” I say.
“We can wait. One of the deeply unfair things about life and biology—and I should not have to tell you about biology—is that men can have babies for a much longer period of time than women can. You’re young. You can afford to wait. I’m not young, but I can certainly wait.”
“But—”
“And now you argue with me. When I offer you what you want.” He sounds baffled.
“I… I don’t know what to do with you. Because sometimes you make all these commands, and tell me how things are going to be, and even when it’s you giving me what you think I want, you’re not asking me.”
He’s silent, and looks chastised. Which is about as shocking as anything could be. “Would you like to go on the pill?”
It will be a reprieve for some of my worries.
It will give me time to adjust to my life.
And will give us more time as a couple. A couple?
Is that what we are? Obviously. Except…it isn’t like that really.
We aren’t bonded by romance. By love. He does things that are romantic.
He is my lover. And yet couples bring to mind something domestic; we aren’t that.
But we are two people trying to figure out how to live with one another, I suppose.
Which really isn’t something I thought would happen with him.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “If I’m being honest with you, I imagined that you would be my adversary.
That I would hate you. That you would take your husbandly rights, and leave me.
I didn’t imagine that you would talk to me.
Or buy me books.” I didn’t imagine he would be so complicated.
Controlling and giving, rigid, but caring.
It would’ve been easier if he hadn’t engaged my emotions.
But he has. That’s the difficult piece. If he had only ever remained a figure, something I was fighting against, then all of this would be much easier.
I could resist him, and not all of these things in myself.
“I’m sorry that I fall short,” he says.
“I would like to go on the pill,” I say. I press my hands against my forehead. “Thank you for giving me a choice.”
He nods slowly. “I have been thinking. I have to go on a diplomatic trip. To Europe. I’m wondering if you would like to come with me.”
“You said that I was never going to leave the palace.”
He nods again. “I did say that. But you’re unhappy.”
That he’s concerned about my lack of happiness is astonishing to me. I would not have thought that it would matter to him at all. “I have no investment in your misery,” he says. “But you…you have heard my story. My reason for not allowing flights into the country other than my own.”
“You’re afraid,” I say.
“With good reason. I don’t want for anything to happen to you.”