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Better, but not by much. She still looked wretched.With a sigh, she requested another layer of powder.
Humming, Molly obliged. Clara turned her head away from the overpowering odor of starch from her maid’s apron, but it chased her like a noxious cloud. Her stomach roiled.
Her eyes flew open at the same moment that she realized she was about to lose her breakfast. She turned on the stool and pushed away helplessly from her dressing table, retching away from Molly. As if poisoned, she convulsed repeatedly.
Molly stayed with her until the sickness passed, then ran to the bell pull next to her bed. She returned and spoke with a quiet, soothing voice. “We shall clean this up right quick, my lady. Annie will be coming up, and she’ll have everything set to rights, she will.”
The rancid odor of illness soaked the front of Clara’s gown. Her body shook as nausea darted around her stomach again. Molly unfastened her dress and lifted it off, bringing some relief.
Undressed down to her chemise, Molly guided her around the mess on the floor and helped her sit on the edge of the bed.
Clara held on to her knees for support and concentrated on breathing evenly while Molly prepared a wet cloth to wipe her. Clara could tolerate it only for a few seconds before the starchy smell from Molly’s apron combined with a laundered smell from the linen itself. Suppressing a gag, she turned her head away and retreated.
“I must be abed,” she said, crawling in. She curled into a protective position and slept through Annie and another downstairs maid cleaning her room.
When she awoke for the second time that day, the midday sun glowed behind her closed draperies, silhouetting Molly, who rose from a chair as soon as Clara sat up.
“I feel much better,” she reassured the fretting woman. After a minute passed, she was relieved that it was true. “Whatever ailed me, the extra sleep was all I needed.”
Molly’s eyes dropped.
“After I eat, I should like a bath. No fragrance today,” she requested, in light of her current sensitivity to odors.
She sipped tea and nibbled sandwiches, managing to retain it all. By the time she melted back against the tub’s high back, she was sanguine about attending dinner with her brother and family friends.
A long breath of relief slid out.How splendid the water fee—
Clara gasped, staring down at her own body with a look of horror. Rather than their usual pale pink, her areolas were the color of dark red brick.
“Molly!”
She looked desperately at her maid, who sat down in a chair and covered her face.
“Molly, speak! Do you know what malady has struck?”
“Today was not the first day your stomach was unsettled?”
“No, it’s been several days.”
Silence.
Clara continued. “I’ve felt almost exactly as I feel whenever my visitor comes. I’ve been waiting for it, yet…”
She pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Could I be with child?”
Looking through her fingers, Molly could not even begin to hide her devastation.
“But I was imbibing those powders from the apothecary,” said Clara dully.
She stared at her breasts as though they were someone else’s. Normally pale and fine tipped, her nipples were dark and swollen now.
“Are you certain?“ she whispered conspiratorially.
Eyes downcast, Molly answered in an emotionless voice. “Yes. I saw me mum pregnant more than fifteen times, my lady. I’m sure.”
Clara’s eyebrows raised into her forehead. She looked back down at her body. Her ivory stomach looked no different. She didn’t look up—even when she heard Molly sniffle back tears and leave the room to give her privacy.
Brought up on a steady diet of warnings about the ruinous consequences of conceiving a child out of wedlock, Clara waited for the expected feeling of horror to arrive.
