Page 65 of The Forbidden Love of an Officer
He gave her a stiff nod, before letting her hand fall, and then he turned away.
Discomfort skimmed up Ellen’s spine.
Once the door had shut, she returned to the bedchamber and climbed back up on the bed as tears traced a path down her cheeks.
24
The maid the lieutenant colonel had employed stood before Ellen, holding the chamber pot Ellen had recently vomited into. ‘But you have been sick almost every morning, ma’am,’ she argued against Ellen’s protests that it was grief making her ill. ‘It is not normal. When did your last bleed come?’
Three weeks had passed since the Battle of Waterloo. Ellen tried to remember, but she had not been able to think properly since Paul’s death.
She could not remember. She had been sick a few mornings in the last week of Paul’s life too. Before then… Whenever she thought of Paul, an overwhelming pain absorbed her heart and a burning emptiness opened a chasm in her chest.
It was possibly two months since she had bled…
She looked at the woman with bewilderment. Megan had asked a few moments ago,‘Are you with child?’
‘Shall I send for a doctor, ma’am?’
In the first days, every day she sought to leave and help the wounded, and every day Lieutenant Colonel Hillier persuaded her against it. Then she had become increasingly listless with nothing to do but think of Paul, and she had not even tried to leave her rooms.
She had cried so many tears there seemed none left within her. Yet she thought the emptiness inside her would never leave.A child? Paul’s…Was she carrying a part of him inside her? He might live on through her body…
Ellen looked at the woman and nodded.
When the doctor arrived, he pressed her stomach a few times, then looked up and nodded. The verdict was swift. ‘You are indeed with child. Have your breasts felt tender?’ Ellen nodded, but she had thought that merely a part of her aching heart, and longing for Paul’s touch. ‘That is all a part of it. I would estimate the child is due in February.’
Ellen’s hand lay on her stomach as she sat upright.A child.
The doctor watched her. ‘Who should I look to for my fee?’
Since the battle, with so many men lost, and so much debt dying with them, she had heard from the maid that no trades accepted credit.
‘You must speak to the lieutenant colonel,’ Ellen answered. He had supported her since the battle. He had bought her the new dresses she did not want, and sent the best food up to her rooms, though she ate little more than a couple of spoonfuls.
‘Is the child his?’
A blush rose through Ellen’s skin as she looked with disgust at the doctor. ‘Of course not. My husband is… was a captain in his regiment… He died during the battle.’
‘And you are living with the lieutenant colonel now…’ His words carried judgement as though it was wrong for Lieutenant Colonel Hillier to help her.
But he was being kind to her…
‘Very well.’ The doctor turned away and Megan followed, to escort him downstairs.
A child…The thought grew like a planted seed in her heart. Her fingers spread over her stomach. Paul was not here but there was another reason to live now.A child.
She thought of telling Paul he was to become a father… The tears she thought had dried up forever flooded her eyes.
* * *
A knock struck the sitting room door.
Ellen climbed from the bed.
Lieutenant Colonel Hillier. She knew his knock; it was always the same. The door opened without her calling as she entered the sitting room.
‘Ah, forgive me, I thought you may be sleeping. I wished to know how you fared. I have paid the physician. He says you are with child.’ He stared at her, his eyes questioning her as they had always done.
