Page 33 of Wicked Queen

“Oh! What story?” Belle leaned forward, her pregnancy not yet making such things impossible, and I felt a little jealous. I would need both of them to help me out of the showroom’s squat chair.

“Apparently”—Edward waggled an eyebrow mischievously— “she saw our lovebirds fornicating.”

“Fornicating?” Belle repeated. “What are you? Eighty?”

Edward pushed his glasses up. “It’s how well-bred people say she caught them shagging.”

“Thanks for the translation.” Belle’s eyes were bright with excitement at this news. “I guess you two made up. I mean, if Pepper is catching you in the act.”

“A long time ago!” I couldn’t keep from laughing. If Pepper had caught us in the act yesterday, I couldn’t imagine what she would think. Then again, I had Pepper to thank for snapping a photo of my first kiss with Alexander. That picture had wound up in the tabloids. It was a good thing there was usually a safe distance between us.

Belle’s mouth turned down in disappointment. “Then you two haven’t made up?”

“I thought you were mad at him, too.” When I looked at her, I realized the joke was a mistake.

“Yes,” she said, her lower lip quivering, “but the pregnancy is making me all moody. I just want everyone to be happy.”

“Wait for it,” Edward muttered, and I gave him a questioning look.

A moment later, I understood what he meant. Her eyes rounded, filling with tears and she began to dig in her purse frantically. “Bollocks! I don’t have any more tissue.”

Edward produced a handkerchief from his suit jacket and handed it to her. “That’s because you keep going through them.”

“A handkerchief? You are eighty,” she said between sobs.

He pretended to snatch it back, but she held it away.

“You try growing a human life inside you and see how easy it is.” She dabbed her eyes and blew her nose. “I’m having a baby, remember?”

“Don’t remind me,” Edward said sullenly, “or I’ll drown myself in champagne.”

“Hey!”

“No,” he said quickly, pulling off his glasses and wiping the lenses. “You aren’t the only ones preoccupied with how I can’t have a baby.”

“David is still talking about it?”

Edward’s husband had made no secret of how much he wanted a child of his own. Now that they were married, his interest seemed to have skyrocketed. He’d even volunteered to be an emergency nanny if we needed one.

“More than ever. Now just doesn’t seem like a good time,” Edward admitted.

“What? With all the Royal fuckupedness?” I guessed.

Edward downed the rest of his champagne. “Between my sister coming home and this Anders business—it never seems to let up. There was enough drama surrounding our marriage. You know how it is. My children will be photographed every time they go into public. Every mistake they make will be put on the cover of a magazine. Combine that with half the country thinking gay marriage is immoral, and I don’t think I can do it. David doesn’t see it that way, though. How can he think it’s a good idea?”

“It is not half the country,” Belle corrected him. “More like a third. The majority don’t care at all who you married. Most cared more about the actual wedding. Half were mad you didn’t have one to obsess over and the other half are glad they didn’t have to pay for it.”

“I did save the monarchy a pound or two,” Edward said dryly.

I was still stuck on the other things he’d said. I cradled my bump, recalling all the times Alexander had said he would never have children. Edward was right. There would always be scrutiny and people judging every move our family made. I hated that my child would have to deal with that. Part of me wanted to keep him right here where I could shield him from all of it.

“Oh no,” Belle said, taking me from my thoughts, “you’ve got her thinking now.”

“Christ. I’m sorry, Clara. I wasn’t thinking.”

I waved off the apology. “It’s not anything I haven’t thought about before. Alexander felt the same way you do, and then Elizabeth came along. I don’t know if we’d have had children if…”

In reality, I couldn’t imagine a world in which we didn’t have a family, even knowing what our kids would have to go through.