Chapter 28 The Diagnosis
Three months later...
Ulrika Vincent had expected many things when she visited the discreet private clinic in the merchant district under a false name. Judgment, perhaps. Questions, certainly. An old healer narrowing her eyes and saying, Young lady, respectable women do not arrive here alone with that expression unless either poison or men are involved. What Ulrika had not expected was efficiency. Or twins.
She sat in a narrow but clean examination room with her elbows braced on her knees, looking more like a military commander awaiting casualty numbers than an unmarried noblewoman receiving delicate medical news. Across from her, Mistress Ilvena—licensed healer, midwife, potion specialist, and possessor of the most mercilessly practical bedside manner Ulrika had encountered in either of her lives—looked down at the diagnostic paper with professional calm.
“Well,” said the woman, adjusting her spectacles. “You are pregnant.”
Ulrika nodded once. “That tracks.”
Mistress Ilvena looked up. Most women cried, panicked, or denied reality for at least a minute or two. This one had the expression of someone confirming inventory.
“You suspected already?”
“I know my body,” Ulrika said. “Also I threw a knife at a curtain this morning because the embroidery annoyed me, then cried because it landed crooked.”
Mistress Ilvena considered that. “…fair.”
The healer returned to the report. “And there is a second matter.”
Ulrika’s eyes narrowed. “Complication?”
“No.”
Mistress Ilvena paused. Then, in the same tone one might use to announce a slight increase in tea prices, she said, “Twins.”
Silence. The room did not move. The window remained open half an inch. The street noise continued below. The clock on the wall ticked with irritating confidence.
Ulrika blinked once. “Twins,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“Two.”
“Yes.”
“As in two separate infants.”
“Yes.”
“Inside me.”
Mistress Ilvena folded her hands. “That is generally how twins operate.”
Ulrika leaned back slowly. Then she nodded. “Efficiency.”
The healer stared at her. “Efficiency,” Ulrika repeated, more thoughtfully now. “I accomplished in one operation what most noble houses require repeated marriages, prayer circles, and six years of suspiciously timed fertility pilgrimages to achieve.”
Mistress Ilvena said nothing. After a long moment, she asked, “Are you in shock?”
“No.”
“Denial?”
“No.”
“Panic?”
Ulrika considered. “…later.”
That, at least, was honest. Because the truth was that Ulrika’s mind was moving too fast to settle into one emotion. Pregnant. Twins. With Aric Solheim’s children. Two children. Not one. Which meant the plan had escalated from seduce the doomed male lead into not dying tragically alone into congratulations, you have created heirs, destabilized court politics, and accelerated a kingdom’s succession discourse in a single strategic maneuver.
She covered her face with both hands. Not because she regretted it. Not because she feared it. Because the sheer scale of the chaos was, frankly, impressive. Behind her fingers, she muttered, “This may be the funniest thing I’ve ever done.”
Mistress Ilvena, who had delivered six children during a blizzard and once slapped a baron back into consciousness mid-seizure, looked almost unsettled. “Should I be concerned about the father?”
Ulrika lowered her hands. “Oh, definitely.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“He’ll survive.”
“Will he?”
Ulrika thought of Aric waking up alone, surveying the ruins of his dignity, and finding her note on the table. Then she thought of his face when she would eventually tell him. Good news. You’re going to be a father. Actually, a father of twins. No, I still refuse to explain properly. Yes, we’re getting married. She pressed her lips together. “…probably.”
Mistress Ilvena cleared her throat. “You will need rest, a reduction in stress, consistent meals, and fewer reckless decisions.”
Ulrika stared at her. The healer stared back. Finally, Ulrika asked, “How many reckless decisions can I keep?”
“None.”
“That seems inflexible.”
“It seems alive.”
Ulrika sighed. “Fine. Temporarily.”
Mistress Ilvena began outlining medicines, dietary needs, warning signs, and the importance of avoiding scandal-induced collapses. Ulrika listened with the intensity she usually reserved for assassination routes and battlefield schematics. Because no matter how absurd the circumstances, this was real now. Not a plan. Not a plot intervention. Not an emotional stunt. There were children. Two of them. And if this world thought she was going to let anything happen to them—or to Aric, or to the future they had no idea they were already standing on—it was profoundly mistaken.
By the time the consultation ended, Ulrika had a medicine packet, a folded dietary sheet, and a list of rules she intended to obey selectively. At the door, Mistress Ilvena said, “You should tell the father soon.”
Ulrika glanced back. “Yes.”
The healer crossed her arms. “I mean that seriously.”
“So do I.”
“Your expression says otherwise.”
Ulrika smiled. “That’s because I’m deciding how.”
Mistress Ilvena’s face went blank in a way that suggested she had just realized she was medically involved in someone else’s impending disaster. “Tell him gently.”
Ulrika opened the door. “I’m incapable of that.”
And left.
The city was loud outside. Vendors shouted. Carts rattled over stone. Noble carriages cut through traffic like expensive arrogance on wheels. Somewhere nearby, a child laughed, a dog barked, and a man loudly accused a fruit seller of crimes against pears.
Ulrika walked through it all with measured calm, medicine packet hidden beneath her cloak, mind moving several stages ahead. Twins. She almost laughed again. It changed things. Not the goal. Never the goal. Aric still had to live. Lucien still had to fall. The original novel still had to be burned, dismantled, and insulted thoroughly for ever thinking Aric Solheim should die unloved and alone. But now the route forward had acquired urgency.
She needed security. Legal positioning. A marriage before the pregnancy became too obvious. Control over information. And above all, she needed to confront Aric before some other noblewoman, scheming dowager, or gossip-starved idiot invented a rumor more absurd than the truth. Granted, that would be difficult. The truth was already extremely absurd.
She turned down a quieter lane and stopped beneath the shadow of a stone arch, one hand resting unconsciously over her lower abdomen. Twins. Her expression softened in a way no one in the capital would have recognized. “Well,” she murmured under her breath, “you two certainly don’t waste time.”
For one brief, private moment, the chaos fell away. There was no plot. No court. No prince. No looming political war. Just a woman in a second life, standing in the cool city air, realizing that the future she had stormed into existence was no longer theoretical. Two small lives. Fragile. impossible. hers. And his.
Aric, emotionally constipated fortress of a man that he was, had no idea. The thought made her grin again. “Oh,” she whispered, almost fondly. “He’s going to malfunction so hard.”
Then her smile sharpened. Because first she had to find him without alerting half the capital. Second, she had to survive telling him. Third, she had to prevent him from doing something heroic, idiotic, or both.
By the time she reached her hidden townhouse on the edge of the artisan quarter, Ulrika had already made up her mind. She would wait just long enough to confirm stability. Then she would return. To his bedroom, naturally. Through his security, again. Because really, at this point, tradition had been established.
And when she did, she would tell him the truth. Not all of it. Not the novel. Not reincarnation. Not yet. Just the important parts.
Good news, Duke. You are not dying tragically unloved. You are, however, going to need much stronger nerves.