Page 57 of Stolen Princess's Secret

‘Yes! Baby or no baby. Whether you love me or not. Regular as sunrise. Yes! How can you not know this?’

‘You never said.’

‘I told you on our wedding day. Do you think I’m in the habit of making false vows? Don’t answer that. You thought that. And you thought wrong. I’ve been trying to show you how much I love you ever since. You want to hope you haven’t been poisoned,’ he added next.

‘I do hope that,’ she told him earnestly.

‘Because my vengeance will not be kind,’ he added. ‘I’m a lovelorn man on the edge.’

Her smile broke through his emotional frenzy, but only because it was blinding. ‘I love you, you know that, right? I’ve only ever wanted to make your life better, never worse. I want...’ The temptation to tell him she wanted whatever he wanted was so strong. She was fighting to stay awake—surely that wasn’t normal after a full night’s sleep and a morning spent lazing around. ‘Tomas?’ She reached for his hand and it was warm and big, with pleasing callouses. Not as overheated as she was and surely that couldn’t be good for the baby. ‘If something really is wrong and you have to choose betw—’

‘I choose you,’ he interrupted. ‘No debate and no apology. I will always choose you. Please don’t make me prove it.’

His answer was... ‘Acceptable.’ Enlightening. ‘For now. We may have to have this conversation again once our baby is on the ground and the light of our lives.’

‘We are never having this conversation again. You’re not miscarrying, you’ve not been poisoned and you’re not dying on my watch. Never again, without me going with you. There’s nothing else to discuss.’

She sighed and couldn’t tell where sorrow ended and delight began. ‘I suppose we could consider that settled.’ Feverish she might be, but there would be no forgetting that promise. Tomas was perfect in every way and she was a bad wife for not trusting him to be rock-solid there for her, no matter what.

‘No more protecting you from pregnancy worries.’

‘No more.’

‘We can share the panic.’

‘We can.’

‘I’m really glad you hung around this morning.’

‘I’m not a mind-reader. Next time say, Tomas, would you mind staying with me this morning? I’m not feeling great. That is all it’s ever going to take!’

‘Yes, but not feeling great is fairly common for me these days. How do I tell the difference between morning sickness, a bad scallop and a right royal assassination attempt?’

‘I’ll ask around. Maybe Ildris will know.’

‘You’re bonding with Ildris now?’

‘No way, nohow and never. But I’m not above instilling overwhelming concern for you in his heart. He deserves it.’

‘I didn’t realise I’d married a comic genius masquerading as a madman,’ she murmured.

‘Didn’t you?’ he grumbled, right on cue. ‘Well, now you know. Claudia?’

‘Mmm?’ So weary.

‘You can’t die again. I won’t let you. You’re going to beat this. Whatever it is.’

‘I’ll do my very best.’

‘And I will ever be with you.’

There was no poison in her blood. The bath oil had been declared safe and Lady Ester had been indignant. The spotting had stopped but a piece of Claudia’s placenta was flapping. It was all very manageable for a man of reason capable of exerting great control when needed.

And if that no longer described him in full, Tomas was altogether on board with fudging it.

He’d called on Casimir and told him to stop using Claudia as his personal scapegoat.

He’d cornered Ildris and requested, on Claudia’s behalf, more support from the northerners during her complicated pregnancy. Alya lived with them at Aergoveny now, alongside two other young women from the north, and three young men from Aergoveny, the younger ones duly added to the apprenticeship roster, and staying in the west wing of the manor house.

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