The American Heir(21)

I let the nurse take care of me. Let Gibson run the household. Let our   chef and Alice run the kitchen and Mrs. Rees clean the castle without   instruction. I let Bird manage the game.   





 

Everything ran on autopilot. It ran so well, I wondered if I was needed at all around the castle.

I was too sick to care about anything. I mostly gave up on my quest to   find Sid's twin and whether Bird was her father. I felt horribly guilty   about that. But I simply didn't have the energy or drive. Or five spare   minutes where I wasn't tossing my cookies. First thing when I got   through this, I promised myself.

As for Sid, she insisted on talking every few days, remaining upbeat and   encouraging, and, as desperately as she needed and wanted a cure, not   pressing me to do more investigating. She kept me informed on all the   happenings in Seattle. Which made me homesick on top of being morning   sick. But still, it was sweet. We made plans for her to be in England   with me at the end of June after class was out. And in time for my   twenty-week appointment, where we would find out the gender of the baby.

"We need a gender-reveal party," she reminded me. "I'll help you plan it." She clapped gleefully and maniacally.

She could get annoyingly excited about stuff. "You'll be announcing a   duke's baby's gender. Boy? Or girl? The future of the dukedom is at   stake … dum, dum, dum." She laughed as she made her joking, ominous   sounds. "It will be an event. No, not just an event. The event. There   hasn't been a baby born to the duke of the realm in nearly eighty years.   Your gender-reveal party will have to be over-the-top grand."

I was so sick and tired I could barely work up energy for living, but   her enthusiasm made me smile. I promised to include her. "Crap. This   duchess stuff is overwhelming sometimes. All I really want is a simple   gathering with you and a few of Riggins' close friends. If it's going to   have to be on the scale of a wedding-"

"Oh, it will have to be," Sid said, enthusiastically ominous.

I made a snap decision. "Then I'm hiring an event planner."

Sid clapped again. "Brilliant! Can I ride roughshod over them? I've   always wanted to boss an event planner around and make outrageous   demands. This may be my only chance. Who knows when I'll get to be a   bride?"

I rolled my eyes. She was so adorable sometimes. She could be bossy, but   she was never mean. I seriously doubted making crazy demands was  really  a dream of hers. "You mean you want to be my maid-of-honor-type  person  for the gender reveal?"

"Exactly. I'm good at it, too."

She wasn't kidding. She really was. And I didn't have the energy anyway. "Done. You're it. I'll give you a budget."

"Hehehe."

"Are you twirling your mustache, Snidely?" I laughed.

"Absolutely. And I'm angling to be godmother to this kid, too. Someone has to be around to teach it how to party."

I laughed again.

My PR firm handled all inquiries regarding the current state of my   pregnancy and how I was feeling. Why anyone should care, I didn't know.   But somehow every time I threw up was newsworthy. And so was every   millimeter the baby grew. Apps abounded that told you the size of your   baby at every week of pregnancy. It's the size of a sesame seed. The   size of a plum. It's the size of a peach, honey!

My PR team, however, wasn't satisfied with any of those mundane apps and   their everyday generic descriptions. They put my growing baby's size   into ducal terms and convinced Justin, who was a programming genius, to   design a custom app to track Baby Feldhem's development. And any other   growing baby whose mum wanted to track it in aristocratic terms.

We gave it away free on the website that Riggins established for the   castle and dukedom. It was a hit. As was the betting pool to guess the   date and time Baby would be born. My team had convinced Riggins to   donate a large Flashionista gift card and cash prize. Which may have   accounted for a lot of the popularity.

Riggins thought the whole idea was hysterically funny. Yeah.

So my baby, and anyone else's if they cared to use the app, was the size   of a ducal seal from Riggins' signet ring. The size of the center   diamond in the duchess' tiara. And on and on. When it reached the size   of the castle wall, I was done for. Hopefully baby bun would be done   before that.

And, in a case of strange bedfellows, Rose became my greatest ally.   Maybe she was worried I'd go back on my word and this was her insurance   against it. Whatever the case, she mentioned me as often as possible in   all her social media, painting a flattering picture of me to be sure.   She was a minor national celebrity and used that to our full advantage.   





 

She played up her close social connection to me, spilling my "secrets,"   and making me into some kind of heroine for bravely bearing the trials   of pregnancy with dignity. She managed to make my travails sound almost   humorous. Where would the duchess throw up today? Nothing was immune   from a sudden lost lunch.

I'd never had so much sympathy in my life. It seemed that hyperemesis   gravidarum hit duchesses with startling frequency. To my great surprise   and pleasure, I even got a wonderful note of encouragement from the   princess.

As I had promised Sid, I hired an event planner for the gender-reveal   party. And put Sid in charge, taking only a final-say role for myself.

Riggins. Even though we talked almost every day, I missed him so much I   ached. I worried that I was losing my chance for him to fall in love   with me. That he'd forget about me. Maybe most pregnant women are a   little insecure about something. But for me, in particular, having a bun   in the oven wasn't sexy. I was a mess and felt barely alive. There was   no energy left over to feel even halfway attractive.

There was no point in Riggins being here. I knew he felt guilty that I   had to bear this burden. But what could he have done besides hold my   hand while I retched into the handiest receptacle?

No, it was better for him not to see me constantly like this. Better to   wait until I blossomed in this pregnancy and had that famous radiant   pregnant glow. That was what I told myself. But I couldn't help thinking   it was a lie. And holding out hope that it wasn't.

Riggins promised to return for the big gender-reveal event that Sid had   so well in hand. And had given me a generous budget for it. But  although  neither of us admitted it, we were both nervous about it. Me  maybe most  of all. Because a boy could mean the end of our relationship  and free  us both from the contract and the clutches of my  great-grandfather. And a  girl would be a disappointment and keep us  under his control. Was  freedom better? Or worse? Why was there always a  downside?

It poured rain in April and May. Week after gloomy week of it until I   dreamed of a tropical paradise and felt as if the sun had abandoned us   forever.

Slowly, somehow, the weeks passed. The morning sickness hung on fiercely   until about week eighteen. And then, a day at a time, it receded so   gradually I didn't notice at first. One day I went an entire hour   without throwing up. Then two. Then a whole morning.

I began to be able to keep food down an ounce at a time. Food began to   smell good again. Then sound good. Then taste good and stay down. I   started to gain some weight and look more and more like a pregnant   woman. Not a dehydrated skeleton with a basketball shoved beneath her   shirt.

I started to feel more and more like myself. I began taking an interest   in life again. I started walking the grounds and the garden. And once   again, I had that sense of being watched and followed. It has to be the   security detail, I told myself.

But when I asked the security guys about it, they denied following me.   They even showed me security feeds that proved it. And also proved I'd   been alone. No sinister figures lurking behind me. On a few occasions, I   took one of the security guys with me into the maze and the gardens.   Nothing. No one.

No one on any of the security feeds. And yet I kept watching the Ghost   Tower, looking for the light again. There were times I thought I saw   something. But when I ran to the security room and asked them to check   the cameras, there was nothing. And the Ghost Tower was always locked   tight when we checked it.

It made me uneasy. I wanted Riggins. I felt safer and more secure when   he was here. I even joked with him and asked him to borrow Lazer's   ghost-hunting gear next time he came. I wasn't going crazy. I trusted my   instincts. Something, or someone, was out there.

I busied myself planning for Sid's visit and Riggins' return. And   bracing myself for finding out what I was having. Boy? Or girl? It was   ridiculous how important that was.