I stood like a rock in the battering waves of her words. There was nothing else I could do. Everything she said was true. I looked at my feet while she caught her breath. When she spoke again, the anger had faded from her voice, to be replaced with something worse. Misery and discouragement.
“Fitz, it’s just so hard. Every time I think I have accepted it, I turn a corner and catch myself hoping again. But there’s never going to be anything for us, is there? Never going to be a time that belongs just to us, never going to be a place that is just ours.” She paused. She looked down, biting on her lower lip. When she spoke, her voice trembled. “I’ve seen Celerity. She’s beautiful. I even made an excuse to speak to her …. I asked if they needed more candles for their rooms …. She spoke back, shyly, but courteously. She even thanked me for being concerned, as few here thank servants. She’s … she’s nice. A Lady. Oh, they’ll never give you permission to marry me. Why would you want to marry a servant?”
“You are not a servant to me,” I said quietly. “I never think of you that way.”
“Then what am I? I am not a wife,” she pointed out quietly.
“In my heart, you are,” I said miserably. It was a pitiful comfort to offer her. It shamed me that she accepted it, and came to rest her forehead on my shoulder. I held her gently for a few moments, then pulled her into a warmer embrace. As she nestled against me I said softly into her hair, “There’s something I have to ask you.”
“What?”
“Are you … with child?”