The Consort, Chapter 10
two nights later
Cain lay next to DG, catching his breath. It was their sixth time trying for a baby. He’d been on board with this endeavor all along, but suddenly his heart just wasn’t in it. He was still brooding internally about what the Earl of Lambia had said to him.
He heard quiet sniffling to his left and turned just in time to see DG turn her head away. Her shoulders shook a little, and he realized she was crying. “Hey,” he said, reaching out to touch her arm. “Are you all right?”
She looked at him, swiping at her eyes. “Yes. I’m just…being stupid.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
She shook her head. “This just gets harder and harder. Well, I mean…not this,” she said, motioning between them. “I’ve gotten pretty used to it. Just the feeling it gives me, sometimes it’s…” She sighed. “Sometimes I feel like I’m being bred like a prize Schnauzer.”
Cain winced inside, remembering saying something very similar to Ambrose months ago. “I know what you mean.”
“It’s not you. Not your fault.”
“This is ridiculous,” he said, rubbing a hand over his face. “We don’t have to do this like this. It’s too strange to have sex when we’re not romantically involved.”
“How else would we…”
“Come on, DG. There are ways.”
“No,” she said, vehemently. “I want to do this the natural way if at all possible. We’ve talked about this.”
“We wouldn’t have to have these…encounters, if they’re upsetting you.”
“I didn’t say they were upsetting me, exactly.”
“It’s clearly making you feel bad! I never wanted that.” She held his gaze for a moment, then suddenly rolled close and buried her head in his chest. Cain put his arms around her, surprised and a little discomfited by this unusually intimate embrace. He’d never held her like this when they were both…semi-unclothed. “DG, I…I’ve been thinking,” he said.
“About what?”
“It’s been my honor and pleasure to help you and support you, but…”
He felt her frown. “What the hell is that? We’re in bed. This is not the Rotary Club.”
He sighed, impatient, letting yet another of her incomprehensible references slide on by. “I still wish you could have the kind of marriage you deserve. The kind I had with Adora,” he added, more quietly.
“I’m the Queen. We don’t always get what we want.”
“There wasn’t time before you took the throne. But…there’s still time. You could still have that.”
She lifted her head and looked at him, a quizzical expression on her face. “What are you talking about?”
He looked away. “I know that you, uh…that you got on well with the Earl of Lambia.”
“Well, yes, but…” Her eyes widened. “Oh,” she breathed. “I see.”
“DG, I just want you to be happy.”
“Who says I’m not?”
He grasped her arms and looked into her eyes. “You deserve a husband you can share a bed with every night, someone you can make love to and have children with!” he said. “Not someone you’re just tolerating.”
“I’m not tolerating you. I don’t regret marrying you.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to stay married to me.”
She gaped at him. “Are you leaving me?”
“I’m saying that I was…a last resort. Maybe I was just a stopgap measure. But if you’ve met someone you could be happy with, and love, you shouldn’t let it get away. I’ll…” His voice got caught up a bit in his throat. “I’ll step aside. We can get an annulment, or whatever, and…”
“Cain, I barely know Lord Umbrey! And now you want me to divorce you and marry him?” she exclaimed, incredulous.
“This isn’t about what I want!”
“What do you want? We’re forever talking about me, and what’ll make me happy, and what’s best for me, but what about you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me! Are we going to find some nice woman for you before we marry me off to Gerald Umbrey?”
“Maybe I just want to be alone!” he said, meeting her eyes.
“Alone with your memories?” DG said. “Alone to mourn what you’ve lost and disappear into work and shut your heart away in that little tin suit you’ve built for it? I’m sorry I’ve kept you from all that, Cain.”
“Just because you got me out of that suit doesn’t mean you have to keep trying to save me, DG,” he said, tightly. “I can save myself now, thanks.”
“You’re doing a pretty piss-poor job of it,” she said, pulling away.
“How did we get off track, here? I just wanted you to know that if you were to meet somebody, then…”
“Right now I feel like I’d rather be a spinster than be married to Gerald Umbrey or you.”
Cain sat up, drew on his pajama pants and got out of bed. “I only want what’s best for you,” he said.
She looked up at him. “It’s not up to you to decide what that is.”
He held her eyes for a long moment, then left the bedroom.
God. You sure fucked that up, Cain.
two weeks later
Most mornings, Cain and DG took breakfast together in their shared sitting room. Frequently, this was their only chance for private conversation the entire day, and the whole palace knew not to interrupt them unless the world was coming to an end.
Ever since The Umbrey Incident, things had been a little…strained. Cain had been treading lightly, and he could tell that she had been, too. Nothing direct had been said, their quarrel had not been alluded to, but he couldn’t help but feel that something had shifted between them.
To Cain’s surprise, the Earl of Lambia had not visited again. He had overheard DG’s social secretary suggest that he be invited to Receiving again, but DG had rejected the idea, quite emphatically. He didn’t know whether to be pleased or dismayed by this.
Today, she was quite late emerging from her bedroom. Usually she came out as soon as she was up, around seven o’clock, and then retired to her room after she’d eaten to bathe and dress. He liked that. It was a reminder of the real DG to see her with bed-head, wearing flannel pants and a t-shirt; she laughed more easily, sat in awkward, unladylike poses and argued with him about which of the several dozen events they’d been invited to they ought to grace with their presence. In those morning moments he could almost pretend that they were just themselves again, as they’d been when they first met. That was the DG he knew and…that he knew.
It was almost eight now and there was no sign of her. Cain had eaten his breakfast, drunk two cups of coffee and read the entire morning journal while her eggs turned rubbery and her tea grew cold.
Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore. He got up and went to her bedroom door. He knocked twice, then opened it a little. “DG?” No answer. He opened the door all the way and stepped inside. “DG, are you okay?”
The bed was empty, but slept-in. He didn’t see her.
“DG, where are you? Are you in here?”
Then he heard it…a small, quiet shuffling, and a sniffle. Cain went to the bathroom door, which was standing wide open.
DG was sitting against the wall, her arms wrapped around her knees, her head thrown back against the marble tiles. She was crying quietly, undramatically, slow tears leaking from her eyes and her chest quivering. She looked up at him as he entered, and he knew immediately.
No baby again this month.
She shook her head and her chin trembled a little. Cain didn’t hesitate. He crossed the large bathroom and sat down next to her, reaching out to gather her up. He pulled her onto his lap and she came with a grateful sigh, linking her arms around his neck. She drew her knees up and he found that his arms could wrap all the way around her. She felt so small, in a way that she never did when she was standing straight and forthright. Then, she was the biggest person in the room.
He held her and felt her tears wetting his neck, her form trembling like a tree trunk in a strong wind.
“There’s something wrong with me,” she finally murmured.
“Nothing’s wrong with you.” He sighed. “If it’s anybody it’s me.”
“Why?”
“I can’t help wonder what it might have done to me being in that suit for eight years.”
“The doctors said you were fine.”
“Oh, what do they know?”
She sighed. “They sure don’t know why I’m not pregnant.” She burrowed a little closer. “I’m glad you’re here.”
He hesitated. “DG…”
“No, shush. I know things have been a little weird with us lately.”
“A little.”
“I’m sorry. About all of it. Although I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that you want me to marry Lord Umbrey.”
“It’s not that I want…”
“I know, I know.” She drew back a little and looked him in the face. “Cain, there may be tradeoffs, but…there’s nobody who can give me what you do. My mother told me once that my job as Queen was to make sure my subjects always feel protected, and safe, and that I’m always here for them, keeping an eye on things.” She smiled. “Well, if I have to do that for everybody else, than you’re the one doing it for me. I can stretch and I can push myself and go out on a limb and put myself out there for the rest of the O.Z. only because I know you’re here. You’re my rock, Wyatt. You’re what I lean against when it’s all just too heavy.”
Cain felt his heart swell a little at that. “Well, I’m…glad.”
“I just worry sometimes that I’m not doing that for you in return.”
“Don’t worry. You do enough.”