My stomach rolls again. I sit up too quickly and immediately regret having a spine. For a moment, the room tilts, enough to remind me that I’m no longer the sole governing authority over my own body. There’s a second system operating inside me now.
Well, two, technically. Which is just greedy.
I breathe through my nose. Bad idea. The faint smell of last night’s firewood, rain in the stone, and the soap Teresa insists on having placed in every guest room hits me all at once. Lavender. I’ve never had strong opinions about lavender before. I do now. Lavender is a crime.
I get out of bed with the careful dignity of a woman trying not to vomit on Italian marble, which is perhaps the least glamorous kind of dignity. The bathroom is twelve steps away. I make it in eleven and a half.
Small win.
Afterward, I sit on the cold floor with my back against the tub and my cheek resting on my raised knee. The tile presses through the thin fabric of my nightdress, grounding in a way thought can no longer accomplish. My breath evens slowly, reluctantly, as though my body resents the idea of cooperation now that it has declared independence.
I press a hand low against my stomach. Still nothing. Not to anyone else.
Seven weeks, give or take.
Twins. Two heartbeats somewhere beneath my hand. Not yet large enough to announce themselves, already powerful enough to bend my entire future around them.
Ridiculous.
I close my eyes. For a moment, just a moment, I try to imagine them as something separate from consequence. Not leverage. Not liability. Not calculation.
Just…
No. That’s not useful.
I open my eyes again. The mirror across from me reflects a woman sitting on a bathroom floor before sunrise, pale in a way no makeup powder can correct, hair half fallen from its tie, expression too controlled for the situation she’s in.
She looks composed. She’s not.
By breakfast, I’ve made three decisions. First: no one sees me nauseous. Second: no one notices the clothes. Third: I build something useful before Alessandro discovers what I’ve not told him.
The problem with decision three is that it assumes he hasn’t discovered my secret already.
That thought arrives like a draft under a closed door. Cold. Uninvited. Plausible. I stop halfway through fastening my dress.
No.
I can’t go there. Not yet.
If he knew, something would have changed.
Wouldn’t it?
I stand in front of the wardrobe, one hand on the buttons, and examine the evidence. He hasn’t confronted me. He hasn’t altered the guards. He hasn’t summoned a doctor. He hasn’t made one of those quiet, decisive choices that announce ownership.
So he doesn’t know.
Probably.
That word is a disaster in a silk robe. I hate it.
I choose the navy dress because it gives at the waist. Not noticeably. Not if one doesn’t know to look.
Unfortunately, every person in this house has been trained to look.
I discard it. Choose black, like I have so many times before. Black hides everything. Grief. Blood. Poor decisions. The early stages of dynastic catastrophe. So very versatile. I pin my hair back.
Questions invite doctors. Doctors invite records. Records invite him.
