‘What do you fear?’ I dreaded the answer. She must have seen my vagueness, heard my snap of temper, however hard I had tried to curb it. My women must have gossiped about my inconsistency so that it had reached even Alice. I found myself gripping her arm in my fear. ‘What ails me, Alice?’
‘I think you are carrying a child.’
Shock drove all thoughts from my mind: frozen, I sat and stared at Alice. A child. I was carrying a child. So perhaps it was not what I had most feared, the onset of a terrible fragility of mind from which I would never be free. Perhaps it was this unlooked-for child that had unsettled my mind and stirred my body to nausea and my mind to ill temper. But I recalled none of those symptoms when I had carried Young Henry. I had been full of health, calm and hopeful of a golden future, not the weak mewling, snappish thing that had fallen down the stairs. But, without doubt, this child, newly growing within me, was the cause of my sufferings.
In that moment of revelation I experienced relief so strong that I laughed aloud.
‘I see nothing to laugh at,’ Alice lectured. ‘Well, my lady? Have you fallen for a child?’
‘I don’t know.’
She clicked her tongue as if addressing an ignorant maidservant. ‘Have your courses stopped?’
I thought about it. Perhaps they had, but they had never been regular to any degree and my recent mindlessness had impaired my memory. But, yes, it had been at least two months, perhaps three. I was carrying Owen’s child. Owen’s child…A little spurt of delight—but then of fear—began to lick along my arms, so that I shivered despite the heat in the room.
Alice took my hands in hers and squeezed as if she could make me concentrate. Not that her questions made any difference to my predicament.
‘Did you not take precautions?’
‘Yes. I did.’
‘But not well enough, it seems.’
I blushed, hot blood rushing to colour my cheeks. I had been wantonly careless. In my brief marriage to Henry it had been necessary to be fertile and conceive as fast as possible, not prevent the possibility. With Owen, between my imprecise knowledge and Guille’s flawed memory of drinking the seeds of Queen Anne’s lace steeped in wine, I had fallen headlong into the net set to entrap all women who indulged in sinful union outside the blessing of Holy Mother Church.
‘You should have come to me,’ Alice said crossly.
‘And admitted to you that I was steeped in sin?’
‘Better to be steeped in sin and safe from conception than carrying the bastard child of a servant!’
I inhaled sharply at her hard judgement.
‘What were you thinking? Do I need to ask who the father is? I don’t think I do.’ She shook her head, her fingers digging into my wrists, her voice anguished with what I could only think was distress. ‘How could you do this, my lady? A liaison with a servant of your own household. A man who has no breeding, no income, no status. How could you even consider it? And now a child, out of wedlock! What will Gloucester say?’ Her eyes widened. ‘What will he do?’
‘I don’t care what Gloucester says.’ I freed my hands from hers and inspected my palms, my fingers spread wide, as if I would see an answer written there. I carried Owen’s child and I could see no future that was not shrouded in uncertainty, yet a strange happiness had me in its grip. I looked up, frowning a little: ‘What do I do now, Alice?’
A significant pause. ‘You would not consider ending—?’
My hand on hers stopped her. ‘No. Never that.’ It was the one certainty. Whatever difficulties this child brought to me, I would carry it to term. After Henry’s death I had been forced to accept that I would never have another child. Now I carried a child by a man I adored. ‘You must never speak of such things,’ I said fiercely. ‘I want this baby.’
Alice sighed but nodded. ‘As I thought. It was a hard burden that Gloucester placed on you. It was not natural.’
‘But what do I do? Advise me, Alice.’
She pursed her lips. ‘You can hide it for a little time. Houppelandes have their uses, even if they are too cumbersome for words. But after that…’ To my astonishment her eyes were moist with tears.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t. I see no happiness for you in this.’
No happiness? What was the worst Gloucester could do? Take my child from me at birth? Part me from Owen? It was not beyond the realms of belief.
‘Gloucester will persist in preserving your immaculate reputation.’ Alice’s words echoed my thoughts.
‘Rather than allowing me to be seen as a slut who allowed a servant to get a bastard child on her,’ I added, fear making me unacceptably crude. I looked at her, at the tears on her cheeks, although I knew the answer before I asked the question. ‘Do I tell him?’
‘Yes. Tell him. You can’t keep it secret long—not if you intend to continue to share his bed. Ah, my lady…Why did you do it?’
I replied without hesitation. ‘Because I love him and I have no doubts of his love for me. It is given unconditionally. I have never known such joy.’
