Page 41 of Escaping the Earl
“Do not discount it. Trust it. Trust yourself.”
13
Two months later
Sabrina staredat the pure white sheets of her bed and nibbled her bottom lip with growing dread. A second full month had passed, and she had not yet bled. Her cycle had always been quite predictable until...
Oh Lord... I cannot be.
“Miss Talleyrand?” Nelly, one of the maids, entered the room. “You’re as white as a sheet. What’s wrong?”
She glanced at the bed and then the maid. “I must see a doctor. One who is known for his discretion. Could you find me one?”
Nelly nodded. “Let me ask Mrs. Hutchins. She would know.”
Sabrina was still standing in her nightgown by the window, gazing out at the gardens, when Nelly returned. “There’s a doctor named Dr. Givens. I wrote down his address for you.” Nelly passed her a slip of paper.
“Thank you.” She finally forced herself to move, and with Nellie’s help, she dressed in a simple pale-blue day gown. Then she went downstairs and knocked on the door to Rafe’s study.
“Come in!” he called out.
She peered inside to see him rifling through papers on his desk.
“I was hoping I could have some time to visit a doctor this morning?”
“Oh?” He abandoned his papers. “Are you ill?”
“I am feeling rather unwell.”
“By all means. Go now if you wish. Isla and I shall go to Hyde Park. I can see to her until you return.”
“Thank you, Mr. Lennox.”
Sabrina retrieved her reticule and hired a hackney to take her to Dr. Givens’s office, a red brick townhouse in a nice part of London. A brass plaque on the front door had his name and medical title engraved on it. She rapped the knocker and waited until a butler opened the door and guided her into a waiting room.
“Name, ma’am?”
“Sabrina Talleyrand. I work for Mr. Rafe Lennox. His housekeeper, Mrs. Hutchins, gave me Dr. Givens’s name.” She rushed through the explanation, praying the butler wouldn’t try to shoo her out of the townhouse.
“Please wait here.” The butler left the room, and she glanced about, her gaze unable to fix on anything. Her worries only doubled while the clock on the mantel continued to tick away, the only thing to be heard in the silence. What was she to do if her fears proved correct?
The butler returned and motioned for her to follow him. “This way, ma’am.”
She was shown into an examination room, where the doctor was seated at a desk making notes. “Ah, Miss Talleyrand?” He stood and closed the door to give them some privacy.
“Yes. Thank you for seeing me, Dr. Givens.”
“Of course. Mrs. Hutchins is an old friend.” The doctor was a fit man in his middling years, with streaks of gray at his temples that made him look both dashing and distinguished. Sabrina wondered if Mrs. Hutchins was perhaps more than an old friend of the doctor’s.
“If you would lie back on the table for me, Miss Talleyrand.”
She did, and despite herself, she started to shake as she remembered the doctor Mr. Booker had brought to examine her. That man, although somewhat sympathetic, had still touched her intimately, and she’d been as uncomfortable then as she was now.
“Now, what ails you?”
“I believe that I might be with child. It’s been two months since my last bleeding, and I am rarely off schedule.” Shame colored her cheeks as she half expected a hole to open up in the floor and swallow her.
“Yes, I see. Well, let me examine you.” The doctor gently touched her abdomen. “Have you had any nausea or felt unusually full after meals where you have not eaten much?”
