Although I’m sure removing me from the line of succession would break him, it would still be preferable to the potential outcome should I take the throne and shirk my duties. Though there’s no legal requirement for me to have children, and the throne would simply pass to Uncle Albert’s line if I were unable to for any reason—as it would have if I were never born—I’m not sure if I could bear the shame that would be piled on me for the rest of my life should I willfully refuse.

Not to mention, our family is on shaky ground as it is. Stepping outside the lines when ruling a majority-Catholic country is quite the dangerous activity as it is. Doing so only a decade after that terrible referendum is practically begging for a re-vote.

Truthfully, it’s not the prospect of having a child I oppose, anyway. It’s the idea of pregnancy itself that chills me. Whenever I picture it, I think of Mum, lying in a hospital bed, her skin so translucent I could trace a perfect map of her veins. I think of the snippets of information I gathered eavesdropping until I scraped together a shaky understanding from snatches of conversations. I had lost yet another would-be sibling, and had very nearly lost my mother in the process. And though nobody discussed it with me directly, I took a grave lesson away. New life cannot be formed without gambling an existing life. And I’m rather attached to the idea of my continued existence. I suppose I’m selfish like that.

If I set aside the pregnancy issue, I don’t mind the idea of having a child at all. In another life, one where my choices didn’t carry an entire bloodline of pressure behind them, I may have had children of my own free will. Only in that life, I would have wanted my wife to carry them.

“Thank god,” Alfie says mildly. “I wouldn’t want to hear what your father would say if you told him you were planning to go child-free.”

“Plans aren’t always the biggest factor,” I point out. “My mother struggled enough to have me, and she was trying rather a lot harder than I imagine I will. Luck could be on my side.”

“That’s not funny, Rosie.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” I say, just short of a snap. “I’m sure I’ll spend half my adult life creating a horde of heirs. The universe will see to it just to spite me.”

“Why would you say that?” Alfie asks.

“Just a pattern I’m noticing.”

“Oh, yes.” Alfie snorts. “You’re unbelievably beautiful, unbelievably rich, and unbelievably powerful, all by birthright. When will the injustice end?”

“Shut up,” I say, fighting a smile.