Sienna let out a short laugh. "Now that's unfair. Cesare was the one who laced the food. Cesare was the one who didn't want it. All I did was mention it in passing."
I stared at her, unblinking. My nails dug into my palms until the skin split.
She rose and walked over to me, one hand resting on her belly.
"Besides, you should count yourself lucky. Even if your child had survived, it would have been taken from you and raised under the legitimate wife. Better this way, really."
"Bring the tonic over. Make her drink it. Help her recover."
The servants pried my jaw open and forced the liquid down my throat. I recognized the taste. Bitter herbs. The sterilizing concoction. The kind of old-country remedy that doesn't show up in any hospital record, the kind passed between women in whispers and administered in rooms no one speaks about afterward.
I thrashed, tried to spit it out, but they pinned me down and held my mouth shut.
Sienna crouched beside me and patted my cheek, slow and deliberate, every touch a humiliation. "Can't have you bearing more children down the line. All that squabbling over heirs gets so tiresome."