One of the twins gave a very aggressive kick. My stomach lurched. “Ow,” I said, touching the spot of impact.
“Do you think that was a vote for or against?” Nick asked. He leaned toward it. “Hello? BBC Two and ITV, do either of you have a thought?”
“Here’s one way to look at it,” I said. “I’ve led a normal life. I can go back to that and be perfectly fine. But can you do it? Do you really know what it means?”
“If I could snap my fingers and make it so that I had never been royal? I’d do it. I really think I would,” he said. “The idea of being able to live in a quiet hole somewhere, being unremarkable, is a dream.”
“But you can’t, and that’s the problem,” I said. “The closest you ever got was Wigtown, and even then, we were being protected and bankrolled by your family. That’s not real life.”
“Do you not want to give this up?” he asked. “Is there any part of you that would feel differently about being married to me if we chucked all this?”
“That is mental and you know it,” I said. “You’re stuck with me until the end of the road, buddy, no matter which one it is. I’m just trying to be practical.”
“I know the baked-in fancy part of my personality is the crux of my sex appeal,” he joked. “Be honest, you’ve never been able to resist a man with his own heraldic flag.”
“No, the real draw was your family history of syphilis,” I said. “That, and your forearms.”
Nick grinned. “It is a relief that even in complicated circumstances, we can still be glib.”
“I would never be glib about these,” I told him, grabbing his arm and giving it a messy kiss.
He brought his knees to his chest and hugged them. “My entire life I’ve been complaining that I’ve never been given a choice, and now that I have one, it’s paralyzing.” He drummed his fingers on his shins. “To go, or not to go. That is the question. Which, by the way, you haven’t answered yet, either.”
I shifted again, trying in vain to feel better, and pictured myself as I was before. That girl who only wore jeans and hair elastics—in a ponytail with no extensions enhancing it—felt very far away from me now, and it was alluring to imagine jumping off the hamster wheel of being a public figure and getting reacquainted with her. But there was more than a decade between her and me, and what if—
Suddenly, I felt a telltale wetness underneath me. “We have to go.”
“It was that easy?” Nick looked at me, puzzled. “No indecision?”
I gestured to my stomach. “To the hospital,” I said. “I think my water broke.”
* * *
The shock of it immediately sent me into denial. I wasn’t even at thirty-four weeks yet, and everything had progressed normally to date; surely this wasn’t real labor. It’s not that much water. Maybe my bladder quit on me? I think I have food poisoning actually. I should call the doctor, but first I’ll get back in the shower and shave my legs. I forgot to do that. Then I might feel better. And on and on it went, calmly, stupidly, until Nick took the razor out of my hands and told me the hospital was ready, and my Go Time bag was in the boot of the waiting car.
“Oh, okay,” I said, and then I threw up in the sink. “I think I ate some bad cheese, Nick.”
“Whatever gets you downstairs,” he said.
My cramping was getting stronger. I concentrated on breathing and on not vomiting all over the back of PPO Stout’s car, which we were taking to the hospital’s private entrance. When we got there, I was hustled into a wheelchair, pausing once to puke in a waste bin near the elevator.
“I mean, okay, it probably is labor, but I also might have had bad cheese?” I said hopefully, as a kind nurse handed me a gown and instructed me to change and lie down in our very posh hospital room that I hoped we did not actually need yet. I did as I was told, while Nick finished filling out some paperwork and called my mother.
“Let’s check to see what the situation is here,” the nurse said, delicately turning up the gown as Nick jogged back in the room. She nodded thoughtfully. “Right. Well. Do not push, love,” she said.
“Hell no. I am not pushing until I have had all of the drugs,” I said.
She smiled at me. “We’re too far along for that, I’m afraid.”
“I’m sorry, what? No,” I said. “We cannot have missed the drug window.”
“You are ten centimeters and most definitely in labor,” she said. “These babies are coming now.”
“Now?” I said, looking from her kind face to Nick’s ashen one. Panic gripped me. “Like, now now?”
“Now enough that I can tell you Baby A is not bald,” she said. “Your doctor is on the way.”
“No. Sorry. I’m not done being pregnant yet,” I said nonsensically. “I’ve only just started being able to rest a full dinner plate on my bump. We haven’t decided on names. We haven’t even talked about names.” I grabbed her hand. “Please. I’m freaking out. We could do a couple of drugs. I won’t tell anyone.”
“I would also like some drugs at the moment,” Nick said, disentangling me from the nurse. “But I don’t think it’s going to happen. Take a deep breath, Bex. It’s going to be okay. This is all absolutely under control, right…” He peered at her name tag. “Brenda?”
“Absolutely, Your Royal Highness,” she said.
Nick shook his head. “No titles,” he said. “No formalities. We’re Nick and Bex, and we’re proper frightened right now.”
Brenda pulled out a machine
