Page 191 of New Storm Rising
“Well, there’s one thing,” I piped up, curious about something I’d been wanting to ask for a while. “You’ve been gallivanting around as a travelling salesman all this time, right? What exactly would you have done if anyone had actually bought any of those concoctions of yours? Wouldn’t have looked very good on your curriculum vitae if a US marshal had been arrested for poisoning, would it?”
“Ah, that?” He grinned. “All of those ‘concoctions’ as you call them, Ma’am, are actually real medicines. All I did was stick new labels on the stuff to make it seem more ridiculous.”
“Huh.” I blinked. “That’s…pretty smart, actually.”
“Thank you very much, Ma’am.” The marshal bowed. “As long as we are on the subject of my providing medicine to the masses, can I interest you in some Fizzlewizz Fantastic Fertility Water? It would be great for your pregnancy.”
In the ensuing silence, you could have heard an atom-sized pin drop.
Wait…what?
Angleton cleared his throat. “Um…did I say something wrong?”
Bun in the Oven
Great for your pregnancy.The words echoed in my mind, getting louder and louder every time they resounded.Great. For. Your. Pregnancy!
There was only one way to react in a situation like this. As much as I preferred traditional British expletives to those crass American ones, at a time like this, there was only one thing to say:
What. The. Fuck?!
Well,my dear inner voice chose that moment to pipe up,many fucks, consecutively. That’s how things like this usually work. When a boy likes a girl and sticks his—
Fortunately, at this point, my good sense jumped my inner voice and started to strangle her. This left the interior of my head a cavernous, empty hole. Except for the large, blinking word that, every now and again, lit up my mind with bright lights.
Pregnant.
Pregnant.
PREGNANT.
Oh my God. It couldn’t be true, could it? I couldn’t really be pregnant, right?
Of course you are, my good sense spoke up, its hands still wrapped around my inner voice’s throat.Are you bloody stupid? How the heck haven’t you noticed it before?
Images flashed through my mind. Me, vomiting over the side of a ship. Me, puking out of the window of a coach. A tasty toast with ice cream and mustard, and my craving for the supreme deliciousness that was a tree dripping with fresh tree sap.
That should probably have tipped me off.
Heck, yes, I was pregnant! As in swelling up with a little terror in my belly that I would have to squeeze out through my…
Gnrx. Argh. Grg.
It was really true. I was pregnant. Expectant. In the family way. How had I not seen it before?
And immediately, the answer presented itself: I hadn’t seen it because I hadn’t reallywantedto see it. My whole life, I had wanted to be strong and independent, to stand on my own two feet. Finding myself married to the richest business mogul of the British Empire, who just so happened to also be the most stubborn, hard-headed, domineering man in said Empire, was definitelynotwhat I had expected from my life. But expecting a child on top of that?
No wonder my mind had shied away from it instinctively.
I had no idea how to be a mother! Crap, I didn’t even know the first thing about being pregnant! How many months did that kind of stuff take again? Seven? Twelve? And, more importantly, what the heck happened at theendof those months? I just didn’t know! And…and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.[39]
And then, suddenly, something occurred to my frazzled mind. I might not have been aware of my current state. But there was one person who most certainlyhadbeen. A person whohad not told me.
Slowly, dangerously slowly, I turned my gaze on my victim.
“Mister. Rikkard. Ambrose.”
When my vengeful eyes landed on my dear husband, he wasn’t looking at me. Oh no, he was currently sending an icy death-stare at Marshal Angus Angleton, who currently looked more like a panicked deer than a brave defender of the law.
