“A biscuit?” her sister pressed. “You look positively bilious, my dear.”
“That is because I am.” A violent churn of nausea assailed her. “No biscuits.”
She did not think she could eat another morsel of sustenance ever again. Her distress was acute.
“I do hope it is nothing catching.” Octavia frowned down at her and pressed the back of her hand to Mirabel’s brow. “You do not seem feverish, at least. But I must warn you, if the children are struck low with this same complaint, I shall not be on chamber pot duty for all.”
Mirabel had made it no farther than the sitting area of her chamber this morning. She was currently draped in wretched fashion over her chaise longue, afraid to move lest she begin erupting like a volcano once more.
“I do not think you need to concern yourself over the children,” she said grimly. “This is the sort of malady which is caused by recklessness of a different nature altogether.”
Octavia’s dark eyebrows arched. “Surely you are not suggesting what I think you are suggesting.”
A whiff of tea reached Mirabel then, making her stomach curdle in stern opposition. “Will you be a darling and move the tray away from me? I cannot bear the scent of it just now.”
And that was another sign.
Stomach in upheaval, tired, acute sense of smell…
“Of course.” Octavia hastened to heft the tray which a servant had brought a few minutes earlier, moving it to a low table at the far end of the room before hurrying back to Mirabel’s side. “But let us return now to your words of a moment ago, dearest sister.”
“There may have been an unintended, lasting effect of the evenings I spent at Lady Fortune,” she admitted, the notion becoming more real to her now that she was giving voice to her fear she was carrying Damian’s child.
“You are saying you areenceinte?” Octavia asked, her voice a whisper.
It would have been comical if Mirabel were not feeling so pitiful. And if the ramifications of bearing a child when she had already been widowed for over a year were not so socially ruinous. If she had been worried that her affair with Damian would affect her children before, now…
Mirabel closed her yes. “I believe it possible, yes.”
More than possible, but she could not admit that aloud.Heavens, she could scarcely admit it to herself.
“Mirabel!” Octavia sounded scandalized. “Are there not means by which one avoids such an effect? I understood a gentleman can place a sheath over his rod to capture the seed. A condom, I believe it is called. Surely your Mr. Winter would have worn one?”
Mirabel groaned. “Pray do not tell me the source of this information. I do not think it can be in those scandalous broadsides of yours.”
Octavia’s grin was unrepentant. “A lady never reveals her sources. But never mind me. We are speaking of you. Did you not take care?”
“Nothing is certain,” she said weakly, not bothering to go into detail.
Some matters were best left private.
But that was the crux of the matter—if she was carrying a child, such matters would not remain private for long.
“What shall you do?” Octavia asked.
Mirabel’s stomach lurched. “I do not know just yet.”
* * *
Demon hadn’tthe stomach for the chocolate Davy placed before him on the desk. The moment the rich aroma hit his nostrils, his bread basket mutinied.
He clutched his roiling gut and glared at the lad. “Get it out of here.”
“I fetched it for yournabs,” Davy said, looking crestfallen. “I know it’s your favorite.”
It had been his favorite. However, in recent mornings, he preferred spirits to take the edge off the previous evening’s over-indulgences.
“Get me some drops of jackey instead,” he growled. “Chocolate makes me want to flash the hash.”
