“How soon will you know if the application took?” he asked while fondling the underside of her breast.
“Missed monthly courses are a very good indication, but we won’t truly know until quickening, when the baby moves inside of me,” she said, “but that’s months off.”
“So you’re left to wonder for months?” he asked in horror.
“Some women say they can tell sooner,” she said. “They feel unwell in the mornings or their nipples become suddenly tender.”
“It sounds like an inexact process,” he complained.
“Alchemy seems clearer to me,” Molly whispered in agreement.
Bonnie placed his hand back on her lower stomach. “It seems only fair that you should be sure of success before releasing me from my obligation to help,” he said quietly.
“I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” she said, her hand creeping closer to his.
“I have discovered only just this night that I rather enjoy releasing my seed inside of a fertile young woman,” he said, making an attempt at lighthearted humor. “Why, I could do this every night!”
“Could you?” asked Molly, her face vulnerable.
“Yes,” he answered before kissing her swollen lips.
Chapter 3
He’d taken her onevery surface of the bedroom, living quarters, and shop, but on the twelfth day after their deal was struck, Molly’s monthly courses arrived.
She’d paused while working, a look of stricken horror on her face, and she ran for the living quarters upstairs. Bonnie had been offering fashion advice to a young blade, and quickly followed her up to the bedroom.
He held her, smoothed her hair, applied compresses, and slept beside her as the pressure and years of grief at her unrealized hopes of motherhood reduced her to staring at the wall.
Drastic action was needed. They had no time to waste.
“Molly, look at me, darling, I’m going to fix this,” he said.
“We tried,” she said. “Thank you, truly. I won’t hold you to an unfair agreement.”
“You’re not holding me to anything I’m not fully committed to,” he said, feeling determined to do something that wasn’t whoring for the first time in his life.
“I’m the problem,” she said. “If I’d have married Henry VIII, he’d have sent me to the blade by now. I suppose that’s one reason to enjoy living in modern times: no execution for infertility.”
“We haven’t tried everything,” said Bonnie, wiggling her limp arm.
“Over the past two weeks, I really think we did,” she said.
“And did I ever enjoy it,” said Bonnie. “But we haven’t called in an ace.”
“I hardly think cards will be the solution to my woes,” she said.
“Our woes. And I mean a stud. A man who is known to produce babies without fail,” he said.
“Such men exist?” she asked.
“Darling, when dynasties and fortunes hinge on producing babies, there’s always a secret solution,” he said.
“If this man is fathering half of theton’s babies, what happens when they all marry each other?” she asked in dawning horror.
“He’s very selective, and we aristocrats are inbred anyway,” said Bonnie. “Besides, our child won’t be looking so high when they go to marry.”
“So the stud would…”
