Once I told William of my disgrace, my pregnancy seemed to smooth out like a sea after a storm. The waves of nausea ran their course. I was able to eat again in the mornings and felt almost like myself.
I saw little of William after our talk in his rooms. But whenever I did see him, whether in the corridor leading to the main hall or at the large trestle table where we ate our evening meal, he always smiled on me, and asked after my health and that of the baby.
When we spoke together it seemed that all the world listened, waiting to hear some breath of further scandal, some indication that he would cast me off as the harlot they knew me to be.
But though William was never warm to me during the first pregnancy of our marriage, he was never cold either. He walked a line somewhere in betwe
