A Love Worthy

Chapter Thirty-Four

                In the next enduring weeks, with her pregnancy progressing and restricting much of her movements, she grew easily fatigued and confined to bed a majority of time.

            Accompanying her constant tiredness was a great deal of curiosity. She began to see less and less of Dorian, at first surmising that he had other affairs to manage, she simply brushed disquieting notions aside, that is until days on end of scarcely seeing him increased her skepticism.

            Troubling thoughts took root, disconcerting her mind as to where he could be during his time of absence. Much time alone and spent abed had her weighing these thoughts heavily; a fleeting intuition of doubt and uncertainty clouding the base of her mind.

            She was abed early one morning, awaiting a servant as her mind grew increasingly agitated and unnerved by her relentless assumptions.

            She nearly jumped out of her skin when a knock resounded in the room. Ginelle waited as Lucile entered quietly, expecting her to be asleep.

            “You’re awake?” the housekeeper exclaimed surprisingly. “I expected you abed until midday. How are you feeling, my pet?” she asked, moving forward to examine Ginelle more closely.

            “I am fine.” She replied coolly. “Where is Dorian?” she watched the older woman carefully, keen to note that her dark eyes averted nervously.

            Ginelle narrowed her eyes suspiciously, “Lucile, if there is something you know that I don’t-I trust that you would tell me.”

            Lucile shifted awkwardly on her heels, almost anxiously, heightening her suspicions. “He and Lieutenant Cummings are conducting business.”

            Ginelle frowned, “What sort of business? Is it plantation work? A trade?” she noticed the older woman tensing, hastening for an explanation. “Lucile, I feel that you are not entirely speaking the truth. What is going on?” she demanded.

            “I cannot say, my dear. It is for the best that you not know and that you stay abed.”

            “I am not ill, Lucile.” Ginelle asserted, “I am with child and I believe I have the right to know where the father of my child is? Don’t you?”

            Lucile straightened her broad shoulders, releasing a heavy sigh as she met Ginelle’s penetrating stare. “Trust me, my dear; all is as it should be.”

            Suspecting she wouldn’t get the answers she sought, she let the matter fall and exhaled a breath of frustration. She trusted in the older woman and knew she would not keep matters of importance from her, so what than was going on beneath her nose? She knew Dorian was up to something but what? What kept him away for such a prolonged period of time?

            When Dorian returned to her that night, she feigned sleep, too angry to question his whereabouts; she decided to avoid it entirely. She listened intently as he shuffled about the darkened room, his movements more profound against the quiet as he moved from one corner to another, at one point, she thought him standing above her, peering down at her, the sound of his breathing emitting the silence.