“For what, milady?”
“For your kindness before, when I was doused with the witch’s brew.” An aphrodisiac that had set me on fire. “The other rogues with you would have raped me had you allowed it, I saw it in their eyes. But you…all I saw in your eyes was compassion. Not lust.”
“I do not enjoy seeing a woman abused, much less a Queen,” he said in a sad voice. How tough it must have been for him, then, because Sandoor’s outlaw group of rogues had used and abused a Queen for ten long years—Sandoor’s former Queen, who everyone had thought dead. It struck me now, as it had then, how different Aquila was from the rest of the bandits. Even dressed in rags, he had been a gentleman.
“I have to thank you for now, as well. For managing all the business details for me.”
“That truly has been a pleasure for me,” he answered, smiling. “And your brother has been wonderful assistance. Young Master Thaddeus has a natural flair for commerce.”
“A gift I don’t seem to have inherited,” I said ruefully. That part of my responsibility was quite daunting, actually, since I knew next to nothing about money—vast amounts of it, anyway. Or how to manage it profitably. “Do you have time tomorrow to go over the financial records with me? I’ve shirked this part of my duty long enough. I need to familiarize myself better with my holdings.”
“Of course, milady.”
“Call me Mona Lisa, please. I like that better.”
He dipped his head. “Mona Lisa, then. Do you have any time tomorrow, after dinner?”
“All night. Though I hope it doesn’t take us that long to go over everything.”
“It might be better if we pace ourselves, spread it out over several days,” he said seriously.
“Several days?” I squeaked. “I only expected it to take one night. Cripes. How detailed are those records?”
Amusement shone briefly in his eyes, but his voice was his normal serious tone when he spoke. “I was thinking that we could look over the books of a few businesses, then go visit them. You will get a much better understanding of each place that way.”
It was a smart suggestion. I nodded my agreement as we pulled into Safeway’s parking lot. Pushing aside the duties of tomorrow, I concentrated on my quest for tonight.
I found my answer not in one of the aisles as I had initially thought, but from the pharmacist I happened to stop and seek advice from. It was one of those stores that had a full pharmacy, open until eight o’clock at night, according to their posted sign. Twenty minutes until closing time, I saw, glancing at the clock, with no one in line. The pharmacist was a kindly looking older man, a grand-fatherly type. One you found easy to approach and ask questions of. Even difficult ones like the one I hit him with.
“Excuse me,” I said, feeling my face flame with embarrassment. “Could you tell me which pregnancy test would be the best one to get here? One that’s good in early detection.”
He rattled off a few brands, mentioned how early they could detect pregnancy—“As early as eight days after conception”—and threw in something complicated about things called Human Chorionic Gonadotropin and false negative tests, which went completely over my head. All I retained were the brand names he recommended.
“Which aisle?” I asked.
“Aisle eighteen.”
I thanked him and headed there. A quick glance at Aquila showed his face to be carefully free of all expression. He considerately stayed at the end of the empty aisle, keeping me in sight, but affording me a small measure of privacy as I looked over the home pregnancy kits. The store carried four different brands. The ones the pharmacist had recommended did indeed have the earliest detection capacity. With the others tests, you needed to be further along, at least two weeks into your pregnancy. I was already freaking out after a few days. Forget waiting two more weeks. I snatched up two brands, paid for them, and went immediately to the ladies’ room.
“Wait here,” I told Aquila tightly.
Yeah, I knew it was too early. Even with Amber, it would have only been four days, not eight. There was also the fact that a human pregnancy test might not work for a mostly Monère, only-one-quarter-human woman. But something in me needed to know right now. I needed to do something, even if that something was to pee on two plastic sticks and see if a blue line appeared in one, and a smiley face on the other.
They did. One blue line and one smiley face.
Oh shit. White dots hazed my vision. I had to put my hands against the stall walls and wait until it passed. Until I could see once more without little white dots floating in my field of vision. I took a deep breath and looked again, sure I had to be wrong.
A blue line was in the center window of the first plastic stick. Not faintly blue, but distinctly and solidly blue. A very strong positive blue. A smiling happy face peered up at me from the other pregnancy test.
With trembling hands, I opened up both instruction booklets and read all the tiny print, especially the parts about accuracy. I had to read them three times. If I understood it correctly, most of the inaccuracies rested with false negatives, meaning that the test read inaccurately as negative when you were actually pregnant. They recommended repeating the test when you were further along, if there was any question. False positives, on the other hand—having the test read as positive and not being pregnant—were very rare.
I stuck the plastic testers back in their boxes, shoved them into the brown paper bag, and left the ladies’ room. Aquila immediately came to my side and took my arm in a supporting grip. I guess I must have looked as pale and shaky as I felt.
“Do you wish to go home?” he asked—not if I was okay, or if I was pregnant or not. Just whether or not I wanted to go home. For some reason, his tact and consideration brought tears to my eyes. Me, who rarely cried. Those tears, more than anything else, really scared me. Made me wonder. Oh my God, can I really be pregnant?
“I need to speak to the pharmacist again,” I said.
Without another word, Aquila guided me back to the pharmacist, then wandered over to a nearby aisle, pretending to browse the items there.
The pharmacist smiled when he saw me again. “Did you find what you needed?”
I nodded and took out the two boxes, opened them, and solemnly showed him the results. I should have felt a little awkward presenting him with something I had just peed on, but I was pretty much numb to all embarrassment at this point.
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“It means you’re pregnant, ma’am.”
“But I can’t be,” I said desperately. “It’s too soon. Way too soon. Only a few days. Four at the most.”
The pharmacist looked from me to the glaringly positive tests, then back again. “If these tests were negative, and you just told me it had only been a few days for you, I would tell you to repeat the tests in two weeks. But with not just one but two positive results, how early you are doesn’t matter. It pretty much means that you should be expecting a little one nine months from now.”
He glanced down at my hand, took in the lack of a wedding ring. In a compassionate, nonjudgmental tone he added, “Unless you don’t want it. If that’s the case, then you’re early enough that you have some other options open to you, like Plan B.”
“What’s that?” I asked, carefully putting all the incriminating contents back in the bag.
“Pretty much what the name says. It’s an FDA-approved, emergency contraceptive. A second chance for a woman to prevent an unplanned pregnancy. You have to use it within five days of intercourse, though it’s most effective if taken within the first twenty-four-hour period. And you have to be eighteen or older. If you’re younger, you’ll need a doctor’s prescription for it.”
“I’m twenty-one.”
“Then I can offer it to you without a doctor’s script. Would you like it?”
My throat closed up. Words wouldn’t come out. I nodded instead.