“Is that better?” I ask.
“Much,” she replies, slathering butter and jam on a third slice of toast. I take her adding these accentuations as a good sign.
“Coffee?” I ask, pouring myself a cup.
“Yes.”
I hand her the cup I just poured and she brings it to her lips—but then sets it back down again.
“On second thought,” she says. “I don’t think so.”
I take back the cup and pour in cream.
“Is it worse in the mornings?”
She looks up at me. “Yes. It usually is. Or that is what I have always heard said.”
“It was the same for Emily. She would look positively green at breakfast and then be perfectly fine by supper.”
“Poor wench. I have been feeling just the same. And at least I have had many orgasms in bed with a handsome man as compensation. Where she probably only had a dry rutting courtesy of your father as prelude.”
“Annabelle!”
The thought of my father bedding Emily is not one I want to entertain. However, I can’t keep from laughing either.
“You know I am right.”
“They have never struck me as particularly in love, you are correct.”
“Shocking. Clergymen over fifty and their wives thirty years their junior are known for their passionate marital beds.”
“It is ghastly when you put it that way. I always felt bad for Emily.”
“As I said, poor wench. She’s probably been dying of love for you the entire time. I am sure she wishes she were married toyouand not your father.”
I shake my head. “She isn’t that type of woman.”
Annabelle opens her mouth to lay down another saucy retort, I am sure, but then she closes it again and goes pale.
She closes her eyes.
“I am fine,” she says before I can react. “Just a bad moment.”
“I am concerned. You suffer too much,” I say. “There must be something that we can do.”
“I will write to my friend, Matilda—she is an apothecary. But I doubt much can be done.”
“Let me writefor you.”
And so I do, addressing a letter to a Mrs. Matilda Cunningham, a widow and a practicing apothecary in the Seven Dials. I introduce myself as Annabelle’s new husband and ask for her to call that afternoon, if she is able, with any remedies for nausea. I don’t state that my wife is pregnant, but I suspect that between the sudden marriage and my request, it will be obvious.
After I dispatch the letter, we continue to eat breakfast. Annabelle opts for black tea and manages to drink that without incident.
“I want to go over to the counting house this morning,” Annabelle says finally after a period of silence. “I feel it is my duty. I know my steward, Miss Endicott, has everything under control. But nevertheless I have neglected the place for too long.”
I can’t help but frown at this plan. “But you are ill.”
“I am already feeling better. Soon I will be well even, I am sure. As you said, it is worse in the morning.”
