My Husband Left Me To Play Hero To A Weeping Widow — Five Years Later, I Bought His Absolute Ruin
Part 2
The room was remarkably stuffy, and I suggested the lord fetch some fresh air.
The Queen did not smile, but the tension in her jaw eased.
She dismissed him, her voice a low rasp.
He scrambled away just as the lady-in-waiting arrived with a dark cloth.
She held the dark fabric to her brow and sighed deeply.
She looked down at me, stripping away the polite veneer of society.
She called me the discarded wife.
I met her gaze unflinchingly and told her I was the Duchess, and that I was the one who had discarded the dead weight.
Her lips twitched.
It was a minuscule movement, but in the brutal hierarchy of the court, it was the equivalent of a trumpet blast.
She commanded me to walk with her to the withdrawing room, noting I seemed to know when to speak and how to silence fools.
As I followed her, my child kicked violently against my ribs.
I pressed my hand to my side, ignoring the pain.
The air cleared immediately, smelling only of medicinal oil and unquestioned authority.
Beeswax and burning rosemary heavily scented her private study.
I sat at a low walnut writing desk, my quill scratching a rhythmic, aggressive beat across heavy parchment.
I was drafting a rejection to an ambassador, wording it so politely the insult would take days to register.
Sweat dripped from my hairline.
I was eight months pregnant now.
Underneath the heavy wool and silk, my body was a battlefield.
The canvas corset dug so deeply into my hips that my skin was perpetually bruised a sickly, mottled yellow.
Breathing was a luxury I rationed.
The Queen sat near the roaring hearth, sipping a murky tonic that smelled of sulfur.
She ordered me to mention a rival’s failure in Madrid, noting a subtle knife is best twisted slowly.
I murmured that it was already done.
I reached for the sand shaker to blot the ink.
As I lifted my arm, a sharp, twisting agony ripped through my lower back.
It was a vicious, downward drag that seized my muscles like a vise.
I gasped, dropping the shaker.
The blotting sand spilled everywhere over the fine wood.
Her Majesty looked up sharply.
I gripped the edge of the desk, my jaw locked tight.
Another wave hit me.
It was stronger this time, a brutal crushing pressure that forced a low animal sound from my throat.
As I pushed myself up, a hot, sudden gush of fluid soaked my undergarments, running down my thighs.
The sharp metallic scent of blood filled the suffocating room.
My charade had finally ended.
The lie I had bled to keep unraveled in a puddle on the floor.
The Queen crossed the room with surprising speed, grabbing my arm with a shockingly strong grip.
She fiercely asked how far along I was.
I choked out the truth.
She looked at my agonizingly tight bodice and smiled a terrifying smile.
She locked the study doors and summoned her deaf midwife.
They cut my dress open.
As the constriction released, I screamed.
My ribs expanded for the first time in months.
The next four hours were a blur of tearing flesh and absolute pain.
With a final chest-heaving push, my son was born.
I wrapped my arms around his slippery weight, sobbing dry, exhausted tears.
The Queen wiped a smear of blood from her cheek and declared herself his godmother.
She promised God would help the man who tried to claim him from either of us.
Five years passed in a blink, solidifying my reign as the Queen’s principal secretary.
But what happens when the ghost of my past finally crawls back to the palace, begging for a crumb of the power I had built?
