I tore away from him, crossing my arms. “You astound me, Nicolas Callan.”
His lips parted, then shut, and off he went. I stood alone in his room, fists balled so tight they shook. We hadn’t even known one another for nine months before we were wed; how were either of us supposed to be chaste for nine months now?
I stormed off to find a woman with some gods-damned sense, bumping into a vase on my way out of the room. It crashed, and I wished there were a thousand more for me to break.
“I think you’re being too hard on him, Your Majesty.”
“Yes, my husband and I also chose celibacy during the pregnancy. We’ve done that for all of our children.”
I hit a snag, mouth still opened from the fit of rage I’d unleashed the moment I entered the safety of the Lady’s Chamber. I’d told the women about Nicolas’ refusals, but not once had I mentioned my condition. “You know I’m pregnant?”
A petite cousin of the duke’s laughed behind her fan. From how quickly she joined in on our antics, I had to assume that Lady’s Chambers were universally dissolute. Maybe it was the Hadrian merger compromising our nation’s former stoicism. “Your Majesty, you’ve been ill at nearly every meal since your arrival.”
“Yes, and the king has been hovering like a sheepdog,” another Greene woman spoke. A chorus of agreements followed, and I couldn’t help but notice that Angharad might’ve been the only one taken by surprise. Her fan paused mid-flutter, concealing all but her rounded eyes behind its silken designs.
“How wonderful for the kingdom,” she contributed, resuming her fanning.
I sank back in my chair. Of course they knew. They’d seen pregnant women before. “Well…yes, then. I am with child. And my darling husband has declared that we must remain chaste for the duration because his mother insists that sex may harm the baby.”
Now they had the whole story, but that didn’t change their answers. They nodded with understanding and murmured their sympathy, but we were right back on the same trail.
“Oh, that’s quite common, Your Majesty.”
“They say the female orgasm can trigger contractions—”
“—and a man’s release can cause the cervix to open prematurely.” By the Lady’s holy tits, I was surrounded by fools!
Every one of them watched me with bovine stares, more taken aback by my outrage than by the idiotic decision my husband had made. No, they sidedwithhim!
Angharad huffed. “I don’t know, ladies. Inmypregnancies, Trefor and I were rather like rabbits. There’s something about a pregnant woman that sends a man wild.”
That set them all tittering. I didn’t know if I wanted to kiss Angharad for agreeing with me, or scowl because her husband actually wanted her. I slouched in my seat.
“If I may?” came a small voice, quieting the room. Everyone turned to Sahra, whose presence in the Greene Lady’s Chamber would have gone unnoticed if she hadn’t spoken up. She cleared her throat. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. In Aduran, a husband and wife seek each other’s pleasure throughout the pregnancy. We actually believe it benefits the birthing process by keeping those muscles strong.”
“Hear, hear,” Angharad said, raising her glass.
“I believe you can break this spell, Your Majesty. You merely need to make him so mad with desire that he forgets his mother ever existed.”
I met her gaze. “What exactly are you proposing, Sahra?”
“You should go down on him,” she said plainly. “Take him into your mouth.”
A unified gasp spilled from every lady in the room…again, with the exception of Angharad, who clapped with approval. “I might like you after all, Adurani!”
Sahra narrowed one eye, then turned to face me. She spoke in an intimate way, though she was certainly aware that the entire salon was giving their rapt attention. “Do you know how, Your Majesty?”
I slowly shook my head. “Is it not…simple?”
“There are methods that distinguish a lover from an amateur,” Sahra replied. She braced herself on her fist. “First, you’ll need to tantalize him. Over dinner, perhaps—keep your eyes trained on his. Good sex begins with the eyes, and yours are quite pretty. You’ll know when you have him where you want him.
“Find him alone. Kiss him, and put your hand on his leg. Move it up, outside of his clothes, and softly, slowly massage him. Keep your eyes on his. Hypnotize him as you bend the knee, but don’t pause. You should get him to the point where by the time those trousers come off, he all but springs out of them. And then…” The other ladies leaned in, fascinated. Maybe I did, too.
“Kiss a path up his thigh. Don’t just take him in all at once. Measure his responses. Graze your teeth along him—gently—and wrap your hand around the base of his length. This will give youcontrol so that when you do put your lips around him, you can take him as deep as you like.”
Sahra put a finger in the air, and that finger had our rapt attention as she brought it to her mouth. She kissed her fingertip, trailing down to the base of her knuckles; then she rolled out her tongue, alternating between motions that had some girls burying their eyes in their hands. At last she put her lips around it, slowly moving down, fluttering her eyes right at me in a way that would once have made me faint.
But now I saw it for what it was: education.
