I nod.
“Can you get ready for travel?” he asks me.
“Yes. I think I have what I need here.”
“Maeve made sure you had the essentials,” he agrees. “I’ll get your clothes from the closet while you get ready.”
“Okay.”
I stay wrapped in my warm towel before exchanging it for a fluffy robe while I handle my skin care and dry my hair with a big round brush. You’d be correct if you guessed that old country manor homes are cold and drafty. When the loud hum of the dryer is no longer whirring, I hear a weird plopping and move back toward the shower and commode to see what’s dripping only to find Rhys popping my birth control pills into the toilet. I hadn’t been on them long but after discovering that pregnancy before the wedding would end in my head no longer attached to my body, I had Maeve arrange for some as quickly as possible. Why Rhys chooses to throw them out now, when everyone is trying to kill me—especially without discussing it with me—is an interesting decision. One I’m going to question right now, well, after I lose my bloody fucking mind.
“What are you doing?” I ask as carefully as I can without screaming at the top of my lungs that he’s lost his fucking mind.
“Getting rid of these,” he says, eyeing me as if I’m a snake that might strike but also a complete idiot. “Why do you have them?”
“Uh, maybe because I like my head where it is,” I tell him like he’s the idiot. “Firmly attached to my body.”
“Huh?” he asks with a confused look on his face.
“Did you miss the life altering dinner where you declared we were getting married the same week and the Queen—”
“Dowager Queen,” he corrects. “You’re the bloody Queen now.”
“Where Saoirse casually announced to everyone that if I got pregnant before we were married that it would be treason and I’d be executed?”
“Aye, so?” he asks and I swear my head explodes.
When the red haze clears, I do my best to reply. “Well, you weren’t so keen on no sex.”
“Aye and I’m still no’.”
“You also weren’t doing anything to protect against pregnancy,” I remind him and he smiles a huge stupid smile.
“No, I wasn’t.”
“So, you weren’t protectingme,” I emphasize.
“Wrong,” he growls. “I will always protect you.”
“You weren’t then.”
“Wrong again, hen,” he says as he tosses the last of my pills in the toilet and flushes, throwing the blister pack in the trash before stalking toward me. “I have never no’ protected you. I knew I was marrying you so quickly there was no way, even if you were carrying my babe, that they could prove it wasn’t awedding night baby. But the thought of you with your belly swollen with my child, your breasts heavy, I couldn’t bear the thought of not having it. I want it as much as I want you.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense,” I protest. “Besides, I would have chosen to be part of the conversation.”
“As I would have chosen to know about those,” he says as he tips his head in the direction of the discarded pills.
“That’s not the same,” I tell him. “You’re still not protecting me. You’re only thinking of what you want and it hurts to know that I’m no better than a brood mare.”
“One,” he says as he pulls the knot on my robe. “You are no’ my brood mare, you’re my fucking wife. Two, I am still protecting you. I do want to see you pregnant, heavy with my heir, but I also know the laws of our country and protecting against an heir after marriage is treason,” he says as he pushes the robe from my shoulder, exposing my breast, which he gently brushes with the back of his hand. “And three…”
“There’s a three after finding out there’s more treason?” I gasp as he flicks my nipple.
“Aye, hen,” he says as he knocks my robe to the floor, pulling me into his arms.
“Then what is it? Lay it on me.”
“Three,” he says, lifting me up onto the porcelain counter. “We’re going to be late.”