Celeste dabbed at her tears, stealing a glance toward the carriage from the corner of her eye.
Nana Burke, the old nursemaid at her side, stepped forward. "Mrs. Ferris Gilbert, bearing children for your husband is a wife's most basic duty. You can't conceive yourself, haven't produced a single child in years, and now our mistress carries the heir's flesh and blood. You ought to be down on your knees in gratitude, welcoming her through those gates with full ceremony."
"She's delicate. The young master never lets anyone cause our mistress the slightest distress. You stand there ignoring her, leaving her to kneel in the dirt. If something happens to the baby because of you, can you bear that responsibility?"
Whispers rippled through the crowd. I signaled my handmaid to draw back the curtain, then fixed a cold stare on the beautiful woman kneeling below the carriage. "How far along are you?"
Celeste answered with a demure blush. "This humble woman was taken in by the heir nine months ago. The child in my womb is eight months along."
I looked at her with undisguised contempt. "So for nine months, the heir hasn't brought you into the estate. Why is that? Is your background too shameful to speak of? Or is the child not his?"
"If he truly treasured you, why would he keep you hidden away as a secret mistress?"
The crowd murmured in agreement. It was a fair point. If a man truly cherished a woman, he would have brought her home and given her a proper title long ago. Why wait until she was nearly due?
Celeste's eyes brimmed over, and she wept aloud. "Only because Celeste had to observe three years of mourning for her late father and could not marry during that time. That is the only reason it has been delayed. Celeste's virtue is beyond reproach. I am not that kind of woman."
"Why must you humiliate me, my lady? Is it simply because I come from a poor family that I must be a woman of loose morals? What do you take ordinary women like us for?"
"She's right. This is too much."
"Just because she's the heir's wife, she thinks she can look down on everyone?"
"So high and mighty, and she can't even lay an egg. The heir ought to divorce her and be done with it."
The crowd's mood shifted, fed by Celeste's words, turning hostile toward me. People always resented the wealthy. Now that someone had made this about rich versus poor, they were all too eager to see the privileged brought low.
Celeste wiped her tears again and spoke. "Now that the three years of mourning are complete, Celeste finally dares to come before my lady and beg entry into the household. The heir's firstborn son cannot be born outside these walls. If he were, the child's legitimacy would forever be questioned. Surely that would only invite ridicule."
Heads nodded throughout the crowd.
My handmaid Rosalind looked ready to breathe fire. "What a shameless little fox! My lady, say the word and I'll drag her out of here. She can't even find the right house to grovel at, and here she is running her filthy mouth."
I motioned for Rosalind to pull the curtain aside fully. My face, half-veiled behind gauze, appeared before the onlookers.
I stepped down from the carriage, slow and deliberate, and came to a stop before her. Nana Burke took one look at the veil covering my face and let a sneer curl across her lips. "So that's why the lady of the house won't let our mistress through the door. Afraid that once a younger beauty moves in, she'll steal whatever affection the heir has left for you."
"You are a few years older than our mistress, after all. Men prefer a pretty young thing in their bed. That's just the way of the world. Every household has its share of wives and concubines. Why cling so stubbornly to something you've already lost?"
Celeste shuffled forward on her knees until she was right at my feet. She tilted her face upward, lovely as carved jade, and gazed at me. "I beg my lady's mercy."
The moment the words left her lips, she tugged the hem of my skirt from an angle no one else could see, then threw herself backward. Her hands flew to her stomach and she screamed, "My lady, please, spare my child! Don't kick my stomach!"
Agony twisted her features. She crumpled to the ground, both hands pressed tight over her belly, tears streaming down her face.
Nana Burke shrieked. "Mistress! What happened to you?!"
Then she whipped around and glared at me, eyes blazing. "Even if you are the heir's wife, that gives you no right to lay hands on a person! She's about to give birth! You strike now, and you'll be killing two lives. Is that what you want?!"
