Chapter 42
My parents took care of me throughout the night.
For the first time in a while, things felt…
normal. Mother gave me tea and bread, checking me over for fluctuations in temperature.
My father read to me as if I was a child incapable of taking that book into my own hands, and I let him.
This might never happen again. It was a good-bye I never got from them, and though they lived among us in court now, I was not the daughter who had left them in the woods.
For only that moment, she was alive within me once more.
I managed to eat a large breakfast and keep it down. That left me with enough energy to roam the estate for some insight as to Duke Minnick’s person, and when that became tedious, I sought out my husband.
He was in his own guest chamber, standing on the balcony and enjoying the breeze with a chilled glass of tea. Sieur Eldridge had announced my arrival, but Nicolas was too relaxed to properly greet me. I approached him and gripped the iron railing on the opposite end of the tea table.
His eyes were closed. The wind tousled our hair, a pleasant gust in perfect weather, and at last my husband looked at me with evident sadness. Whatever troubled him, I knew he’d come outside to escape it.
“It seems you’ve come into your position at precisely the worst time to do so,” he said. “At least Greene feels like it used to.”
“Hard times don’t last forever.” I moved around the table, seeking comfort beside him. His arm brushed mine, fingers grazing down my laced sleeves. “The people will come to love us as we help them through their darkest hour.”
“You’re an idealist.” Nicolas smiled. “Are you feeling better? I came to check on you a few times yesterday, but you were sleeping. I held you for a while, worried that I might wake you, and you were so still that I kept checking your pulse.”
I chuckled…but really, I was touched by the realization he’d come for me at all. I wished I’d felt his presence, though it was better that he’d let me rest. There was still concern in his gaze as he studied me for any further signs of sickness.
I got on my toes and kissed him. Nicolas made a soft sound against my lips, his hands rising up to my face. The kiss deepened quickly, his breath quickening as his body angled toward mine. One of his hands found my waist, pulling me closer.
He murmured my name with heat and walked us away from the balcony’s edge, back through the open doors of his chamber.
His fingers moved along my sides, tracing the boning of my bodice, reacquainting themselves with my shape.
The touch sent me back to that first week of bliss between us, to our marriage chamber where all was discovery and hunger, and every caress was blessed like magic.
His lips found my throat. I tilted my head back, tangling my fingers in his blond hair. He slid a hand beneath my breast while the other pressed me flush against him.
He was erect. Painfully so, I imagined, from the growls that left him when he pressed against my waist. My blood sang for him and I quickly began unlacing my gown, unable to stand another second of this wicked dry spell between us.
Then he stopped.
His hands stilled, then withdrew entirely as he stepped back. That loss was…jarring.
“I-I’m sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair, not meeting my eyes. “I just remembered. I have a meeting with Duke Minnick. I really shouldn’t keep him waiting.”
I stared at him, my body still humming with interrupted desire. “A meeting?”
“Perhaps later, when I return?” He was already straightening his clothes, smoothing away the evidence of our embrace. “You should rest a little more.”
My nails bit into my palms. He tried to move past me, but I stepped in the way. “Are you upset with me?”
“What?” asked Nicolas.
“Every time I’ve tried to kiss you lately, you become skittish and leave me,” I said, though I wanted to scream it. “We have to communicate. You owe me that, as your wife. What’s going on?”
Nicolas flushed. His hand returned to his hair, further disheveling it. “Alana…”
“Nicolas.”
His eyes looked pained, but he sat down on an empty seat and touched his fingers together. “I just don’t want to hurt the child.”
I blinked, unsure I’d heard him correctly. There was no lie written in his expression; he truly believed having sex with me would somehow bring complications. “What?”
“My mother says—”
“Your mother’s not fucking you, Nicolas. I’m fucking you,” I spat, and the lid was completely off on my fury. I put my arms on either side of him. “That’s completely preposterous. You’re an idiot, a royal fucking idiot.”
“The royal physician had the same concern,” Nicolas replied, and my expression must have contorted into something quite fearsome by the way he sank into the seat.
“The royal physician was wrong before, and he’s wrong again now. I’m telling you—”
“Alana, we have to wait.” Nicolas’ brow furrowed. He raised a hand to touch my chin, and I could have bit his fingers off. “But it will make our reunion all the sweeter. Now, may I go? I really do have a meeting.”
I tore away from him, crossing my arms. “You astound me, Nicolas Callan.”
His lips parted, then shut, and off he went. I stood alone in his room, fists balled so tight they shook. We hadn’t even known one another for nine months before we were wed; how were either of us supposed to be chaste for nine months now?
I stormed off to find a woman with some gods-damned sense, bumping into a vase on my way out of the room. It crashed, and I wished there were a thousand more for me to break.
“I think you’re being too hard on him, Your Majesty.”
“Yes, my husband and I also chose celibacy during the pregnancy. We’ve done that for all of our children.”
I hit a snag, mouth still opened from the fit of rage I’d unleashed the moment I entered the safety of the Lady’s Chamber. I’d told the women about Nicolas’ refusals, but not once had I mentioned my condition. “You know I’m pregnant?”
A petite cousin of the duke’s laughed behind her fan.
From how quickly she joined in on our antics, I had to assume that Lady’s Chambers were universally dissolute.
Maybe it was the Hadrian merger compromising our nation’s former stoicism.
“Your Majesty, you’ve been ill at nearly every meal since your arrival. ”
“Yes, and the king has been hovering like a sheepdog,” another Greene woman spoke. A chorus of agreements followed, and I couldn’t help but notice that Angharad might’ve been the only one taken by surprise. Her fan paused mid-flutter, concealing all but her rounded eyes behind its silken designs.
“How wonderful for the kingdom,” she contributed, resuming her fanning.
I sank back in my chair. Of course they knew. They’d seen pregnant women before. “Well…yes, then. I am with child. And my darling husband has declared that we must remain chaste for the duration because his mother insists that sex may harm the baby.”
Now they had the whole story, but that didn’t change their answers. They nodded with understanding and murmured their sympathy, but we were right back on the same trail.
“Oh, that’s quite common, Your Majesty.”
“They say the female orgasm can trigger contractions—”
“—and a man’s release can cause the cervix to open prematurely.” By the Lady’s holy tits, I was surrounded by fools!
Every one of them watched me with bovine stares, more taken aback by my outrage than by the idiotic decision my husband had made. No, they sided with him!
Angharad huffed. “I don’t know, ladies. In my pregnancies, Trefor and I were rather like rabbits. There’s something about a pregnant woman that sends a man wild.”
That set them all tittering. I didn’t know if I wanted to kiss Angharad for agreeing with me, or scowl because her husband actually wanted her. I slouched in my seat.
“If I may?” came a small voice, quieting the room.
Everyone turned to Sahra, whose presence in the Greene Lady’s Chamber would have gone unnoticed if she hadn’t spoken up.
She cleared her throat. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.
In Aduran, a husband and wife seek each other’s pleasure throughout the pregnancy.
We actually believe it benefits the birthing process by keeping those muscles strong. ”
“Hear, hear,” Angharad said, raising her glass.
“I believe you can break this spell, Your Majesty. You merely need to make him so mad with desire that he forgets his mother ever existed.”
I met her gaze. “What exactly are you proposing, Sahra?”
“You should go down on him,” she said plainly. “Take him into your mouth.”
A unified gasp spilled from every lady in the room…again, with the exception of Angharad, who clapped with approval. “I might like you after all, Adurani!”
Sahra narrowed one eye, then turned to face me. She spoke in an intimate way, though she was certainly aware that the entire salon was giving their rapt attention. “Do you know how, Your Majesty?”
I slowly shook my head. “Is it not…simple?”
“There are methods that distinguish a lover from an amateur,” Sahra replied.
She braced herself on her fist. “First, you’ll need to tantalize him.
Over dinner, perhaps—keep your eyes trained on his.
Good sex begins with the eyes, and yours are quite pretty.
You’ll know when you have him where you want him.
“Find him alone. Kiss him, and put your hand on his leg. Move it up, outside of his clothes, and softly, slowly massage him. Keep your eyes on his. Hypnotize him as you bend the knee, but don’t pause.
You should get him to the point where by the time those trousers come off, he all but springs out of them.
And then…” The other ladies leaned in, fascinated. Maybe I did, too.
“Kiss a path up his thigh. Don’t just take him in all at once. Measure his responses. Graze your teeth along him—gently—and wrap your hand around the base of his length. This will give you control so that when you do put your lips around him, you can take him as deep as you like.”
Sahra put a finger in the air, and that finger had our rapt attention as she brought it to her mouth.
She kissed her fingertip, trailing down to the base of her knuckles; then she rolled out her tongue, alternating between motions that had some girls burying their eyes in their hands.
At last she put her lips around it, slowly moving down, fluttering her eyes right at me in a way that would once have made me faint.
But now I saw it for what it was: education.
“Lord’s bollocks.” Angharad shivered. “I must find my husband.”