The Heir Apparent - a historical why choose, rh, poly, MMF, spicy romance ✅

Chapter Nineteen

Anevay

I grew stronger over the next three days.

This was largely thanks to the fact that Casimir now knew which poison I had consumed, and the various ways it affected the body, as well as ways to counteract its damage.

This meant I was continually being forced to drink foul-smelling and tasting teas, slip equally as disgusting tinctures under my tongue, and wear my winter gowns, cloak, and huddle under all of my quilts to invoke sweating, which helped the trace amounts of poison still in my body to escape.

I was, to be perfectly honest, quite miserable as my body recovered.

So miserable, in fact, that even stalwart Riven and kind-hearted Casimir were keeping their distance.

"Lady, I believe you have been lying around in one attitude for too long," Laef declared on the third evening as she took my teacup away after I had choked and cursed the awful liquid down.

It was her kind way of reminding me that I was being wholly unpleasant. Enough so that she, someone who had been with me through all of my ups and downs, all of my sickness, was quite fed up with me.

"I feel well enough," I told her. "But these men..." I said, waving out to the hall where Riven was hiding from me, and where Casimir was likely holed up in his office for the same reason.

"They want to care for you," she told me. "You make it difficult," she added with a knowing brow raise.

No one in the whole castle knew my secrets the way Laef did. While we had not discussed it, I suspected she was aware there was something more than professionalism between Riven and me, and me and Cass.

It should have worried me, perhaps.

An unmarried queen had no business with one man, let alone two.

But I knew Laef would always keep my business in the strictest of confidence.

"I know they mean well," I said, sighing as I threw off the blankets that were once again drenched in my sweat.

"Sometimes the care of men can be rather... oppressive," Laef said.

"Yes."

"What you really want right now is a bath, is it not?" she asked, knowing me far too well.

"Yes."

"Then you shall have a bath. And a proper cup of tea."

"That sounds downright sinful," I admitted, getting a smile out of her.

"The men have had their chance to fuss. Now it is your turn to take charge," she told me, reminding me of my position of power.

It was far too easy to forget at times that I no longer needed to be submissive to the men around me, that I was now the one with true power to make all of my own decisions.

So Laef was right.

If I wanted a bath and tea and to stop being forced to sweat all the moisture out of my body, that was exactly what was going to happen.

Whether these men liked it or not.

By the time I asked Laef for some privacy as I slipped into the water, the word must have gotten out about the bath.

Because the next thing I knew, my chamber door was bursting open, and Casimir was standing there even as Riven tried to stop him.

"You can not take a bath," Casimir insisted as my arms instinctively moved to cover my bare breasts under the water. Laef had sprinkled herbs and flowers on the water at my request, but they hardly shielded my nudity at all.