The Chancellor walked into Lucy’s bedroom. His brown eyes gleamed at her with a heat greater than the candles that lit the room, greater than the flames that roared in the fireplace.

All her dreams, all her desires were coming to fruition at last.

“Lucy,” he said, “I want you.”

His beautiful, scarred mouth smiled and even in the flickering candlelight she could see the shadow of the bruise that blackened his eye. Wounds gained in her defense, for her pleasure.

She lay on her bed, transfixed by the sight of his tall, lanky body.

Slowly, he removed his shirt, his chest appearing inch by inch as he undid his buttons. His skin was golden in the firelight. A sensation grew inside her inexorably, rising from her stomach up into her throat as he divested himself of his trousers and his pants and approached her, gloriously naked, every bone and muscle and inch of skin perfect. His erection, huge thick and hot, swayed towards her.

Lucy’s hands flew to her throat.

“Jesus Christ, will you get the hell away from me with that thing before I throw up,” she gagged, and only just had time to reach the bin before she puked all over her satin lingerie.

I groaned and pushed the keyboard away from me. I tried to take a sip of the ice-cold water that was the only thing I could stand the thought of just now, but the glass suddenly seemed to have a sickening, evil, hitherto-unknown smell of its own.

The mere idea of sex made me shudder. All that touching, and sweating, and panting, and heaving. All that hair and liquid. And why?

I pushed on my shoes and went next door, on the off chance.

“Hugh,” I said when he opened the door, “I don’t know why they call it morning sickness because it’s with me all the bloody time.”

He stepped aside and I came in. The scent of baking filled my nostrils and therefore my being: sweet and gingery. My stomach did a tentative roll, decided it actually quite liked the smell of ginger, and settled back down for now.

“I thought you’d be out,” I said.

“Decided to stay in and make biscuits.” He watched as I dropped heavily onto his couch.

“Your phone’s off the hook.”

“Oh is it?” He went into the kitchen, feigning nonchalance, and came back with a plate of ginger biscuits. “Want one of these?”

I took one and toyed with it until my stomach could decide whether it wanted one or not. “You’re in on a Friday night alone with the phone off the hook?”

“I’m not alone any more.” He joined me on the couch and ate a biscuit. “Not bad. So how long is the morning sickness going to last?”

“I can’t remember. I was too freaked out when I saw the midwife. The whole visit is a blur.”

Hugh frowned. “Listen, I said I’d be happy to come along with you. I’d be another pair of ears, at least.”

I shook my head. When I’d made the appointment I’d expected it to be with a large, bosomy woman in her fifties, with iron grey hair and apple cheeks. That’s what the title implied: something like a fishwife crossed with the Wife of Bath. Imagine my surprise when Fiona the midwife turned out to be Scottish, slender, strawberry blonde, and freckled in an intensely cute way. Her ring-less left hand told me that whatever her profession, she wasn’t a wife at all.

I could imagine what would happen if Hugh came along to one of my appointments: he’d be flirting with her within five minutes while I sat there like a nauseated nonentity. Not the kind of antenatal care I wanted.

I tried the ginger biscuit. It was nice. “So who are the biscuits for?” I asked. “A blonde or a redhead?”

Hugh raised his eyebrows and said nothing.

“Oh, I forgot, you’ve branched out into brunettes.” I ate the rest of it.

“Do you like the biscuits?”

“They’re not bad. I think I read something about ginger helping nausea, you know.” I reached for another. He settled back on the couch beside me, turned on the telly, and flicked through the channels. The activity didn’t make me feel ill this time. In fact I felt a whole lot better, in my stomach anyway.

“Why’s your phone off the hook?” I asked. “Are you trying to avoid one of your women? Or several of them?”

He kept on flicking channels. “I thought you were spending tonight doing rewrites on Throbbing Member.”

“Do you know how impossible it is to write sex scenes when all you want to do is throw up?”

“I can imagine.”

“There might be some people out there who find vomit sexy, but I just don’t.”

“I wholeheartedly agree.” He seemed to settle on a programme set in a hospital emergency room, then thought better of it and flicked onwards.

“The thing is,” I said, “what if I can never write sex again? What if my hormones have permanently changed and my writing career is gone?”

I didn’t know where that had come from; it had flowed of my mouth of its own accord, as if my brain were spitting out its own sick thoughts.

But it was exactly what I’d been worried about. My nausea began to gnaw at me again.

Hugh turned the sound off the television.

“I mean, I could always write something else, but I don’t know that I’d be any good at it. And what if I can’t write at all once the baby comes? Babies need lots of care and attention and time. How am I going to be able to concentrate?”

Hugh turned the television off.

“And if I can’t write, what am I going to do for money? Am I going to end up with the baby sleeping in the back room in the Mouse and Duck while I pull pints and my life goes nowhere? And what if I don’t even like the baby?”

By now my throat was sore, too, as if I had been violently ill. I felt tears in my eyes and Hugh was looking at me but I looked at the blank television screen instead.

“My whole life is going to change,” I said, and although I’d acknowledged this before, it was if I’d never fully realised it until now. “And I wanted my life to change but I’m not sure I wanted it to change like this.”

Hugh put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me gently towards him. I leaned sideways and let myself be surrounded by his firm chest, his warm arms, his heartbeat and his breath. He stroked my hair back from my face and I took in a deep, hitching breath and then let out the worry, the fear, the sick-making anxiety in an overflow of tears. They dripped onto his cotton shirt and he didn’t move, just held me and didn’t say a thing, gave me no answers.
*
I woke up to the scent of ginger, tears, and Hugh. Tentatively I moved my head. I was still leaning against Hugh’s chest, but his shirt had dried under my cheek. We were stretched out on the couch; my head was tucked underneath his arm, using him as a pillow. He was half-turned towards me and our bodies pressed close together all down their length. He was breathing slowly but his heartbeat under my ear was rapid.

I opened my eyes. It was daylight, which meant that I’d slept here with Hugh all night. The warmth of his body spread through me like a drug and I breathed him in again, so familiar yet so strange and real.

When I looked up to his face he was looking down at me.

It was so quiet, only our breathing and the soft rustle of our clothes. I’m not sure how it happened because I obviously was not thinking. But I stretched my face up towards his and he bent his face towards mine, or at least it seemed as if he did, and suddenly our lips were touching each other.

It felt as if warm honey were being poured all over me, all through me, sweet and sexy, and then four words forced themselves into my brain with all the comfort of a wailing alarm clock.

I pushed myself upright, away from his lips, though my body was still entangled with his so I couldn’t get far. My thigh was between his and my dirty mind immediately thought about whether he had an erection, because that would mean that he was as turned on as I was, but then again lots of men had erections automatically in the morning, didn’t they, and someone as oversexed as Hugh would probably have an erection after spending the night snuggled up with any female. It didn’t have to be because he was turned on by me.

And then what if he didn’t have an erection?

I moved my leg down so I wouldn’t be able to tell and closed my eyes so I wouldn’t be tempted to look. By pure instinct and panic I managed to get myself off the couch and onto my two feet.

“Eleanor,” Hugh was saying, but I was at the door already.

“Sorry,” I said. “That was a mistake. Sorry. Listen, I have to go home now because I feel sick again, bye.”

I slammed his door behind me and dropped my keys before I could get them into the lock.