The following day, Doctor Granny stopped by my room when she came to check up on Mimosa. Her diagnosis was almost identical to her husband’s: that I was about two months pregnant, and that my queasiness was just a symptom of morning sickness.
Time marched on without notable changes, and before I knew it, I was six months into my pregnancy. The worst of my morning sickness had long since passed, and my appetite was back to normal. I still couldn’t handle anything with too strong a smell, but for the most part I was eating as much as I ever had.
The biggest thing to change was definitely my belly—it was jutting out pretty far by this point. It was what you’d call a potbelly. There was something almost strange about putting on weight nowhere but the one spot.
“I’m a regular roly-poly now!”
“You are not,” Dahlia calmly retorted in the face of my wisecracking.
True. It’s not extra meat I’ve put on my stomach—it’s a baby.
Besides, my belly wasn’t all that had gotten bigger.
“Three cheers for the first and biggest bazongas of my lifetime!”
“...I suppose I can’t deny that.”
Heh heh! I puffed up my chest and owned it with pride! The nearby maids were shooting me deadpan looks, but that was their problem☆
Here I thought I knew my own body better than anyone, and yet it kept undergoing all these rapid changes. I was having a hard time just keeping up with it at all.
I’d outgrown my old maid uniform—I mean, casual wear—so these days I was in the habit of wearing the brand new maternity dresses we’d had made for the occasion.
I wasn’t having any issues with my physical health, and the excuse to stay out of high society was a boon to my mental health, so at one point I even considered the pregnant life to be a dream come true.
How truly naive of me to think things would stay so stress-free to the end.
✦ ✦ ✦
It was the middle of the night, when even the servants were fast asleep.
“Aaahhh!”
My husband’s scream echoed through our deathly quiet bedroom, startling me awake.
Whoa nelly! That gave me a scare! What happened to make him yell like that, anyway? Was it a sudden bout of pain?
“What is it, Cercis?” I asked, worried for him.
The man in question only sat up straight in bed, staring off into the distance with unfocused eyes. His shoulders rose and fell with the effort of his wheezing.
What do I do? Should I go get Rohtas?
“Cercis? Hey, Cercis? Are you all right? Does anything hurt? Should I call for Rohtas?” I questioned him, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him back and forth.
“Ah... Viola?”
His chocolate eyes snapped into focus, finally appearing to register my presence. Oh, good! He’s snapped out of it.
“Yep, that’s me—your dear Viola! Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?” While I asked one more time for good measure, I pressed my hand to his forehead and...nope, no fever! Next, I gave him a light smack to the bod...and his bones seemed to be doing fine too!
As I was in the middle of performing my full health check, worried about what might be wrong, he said, “It’s nothing—sorry. I’m just fine. Nothing hurts, and I’m not sick. I had a bad dream, that’s all.” He laughed, but there was no humor to the sound.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“But how could it be bad enough to make you scream...?”
Had it aggravated a secret ailment of his? Or was the stress of his hectic work life finally taking a toll on him?
I squinted hard at him, determined not to miss the distress signals his body was sending out—but what he said next told me everything.
“How could I not scream?! My darling daughter said she was going to become that prince’s future queen!”
“Excuse me?”
Uh, Mr. Fisalis? Did you just spill the beans about your secret love child (female)?
✦ ✦ ✦
“Er...ahem. So to sum it up, you have a daughter around the same age as Prince Dianthus, and he’s turned out to be that daughter’s first love? And she told you she wants to be his queen when she grows up? Do I have that right?”
The two of us were sitting on our heels atop the bed, facing one another. I was getting to the bottom of—I mean, asking Mr. Fisalis to explain his latest remark (about his darling daughter, etc.).
“Not a single thing you just said was correct! That didn’t even come close to summing up the story!” Mr. Fisalis countered, completely repudiating my listening comprehension skills. No? Well, I just woke up myself, so I can’t deny that I’m not exactly thinking straight.
“Then explain it one more time for me. Who’s the mother of your love child?”
“Vi... Could we leave the whole ‘love child’ idea behind?”
“Fine. Go on.”
“Try actually listening to me this time. In the dream I just had...”
He told me that in his dream, the little one I was currently carrying had turned out to be a girl (for whatever reason, dubbed “Bitsy” for this explanation), and when this Bitsy came of age, the grown-up version of Prince Dianthus had asked her to become his crown princess. Bitsy had been secretly pining for the prince for years, and thus had jumped at his proposal. Mr. Fisalis had protested this development, only for his daughter to break into tears screaming, “I hate you, Daddy!” and for me to brandish a whip against him(!) shouting, “Stay out of our daughter’s love life!”
Or so the story went.
There were a whole lot of comments I could make about that, but first I had to get one thing out of the way.
“Yeah, I’m not the type to whip anyone.”
“That’s all you have to say about this?!”
I politely ignored the way Mr. Fisalis deflated.
“So this ‘Bitsy’ isn’t a secret love child, but this one right here?” I confirmed, stroking my plump belly.
“Why would I have a love child?! Of course this is who I meant,” he retorted, likewise giving my stomach a rub.
“I mean... It’s not like we know this is a girl. If the child turns out to be a boy, he isn’t about to become anyone’s princess.”
“That’s a good point.”
And now my husband was desperately attempting to convince himself that “we don’t know it’s a girl yet.” Did he really find the idea of our kid becoming the crown princess that abhorrent? Just how much did he hate that little prince’s guts?
“So there you have it—I’m neither sick nor otherwise indisposed, and I certainly don’t have any secret love children. I’m sorry I woke you up in the middle of the night. You must be sleepy, no? Even I’m feeling a bit groggy now that I’ve calmed down, so let’s get back to bed.”
“Good plan.”
I’d been perpetually exhausted ever since I found out I was pregnant. I was confident that the moment I laid down, I’d fall right back asleep.
Once I crawled back under the covers, it was only a matter of time before I drifted off into dreamland. I started to doze off almost immediately, but that didn’t seem to be the case for Mr. Fisalis.
“You know, I didn’t mind seeing you with that whip...”
“Save the nonsense for when you’re sleep-talking.”
Stop trying to open strange new doors and go to bed!