Women Grow By Men

"Giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel."

March 6th

Kent felt sick. At the moment it happened, he had been thinking of Cornwall. It had never been right to want his sister's unwanted husband. Yet, he had sat down to breakfast yearning to be wrong. He wanted Cornwall's thimbleful of emotions back in his possession, to displace all his misery with love. He wanted to push his sister, his lifelong protector, out of her place with her husband. Those had been his thoughts as Regan rose from the breakfast table and collapsed.

Cornwall had carried her upstairs; he was promptly ejected from the room by Regan's maid. Kent then sent their fastest rider for the doctor and then for Goneril. Later, the two fell onto the same bench near Regan's bedroom. Other than the maid and the doctor asking Cornwall what happened, neither man had said a word. Kent yearned all along for either some news of his sister or some word of consolation. His guilty heart was killing him in silence. If Kent hadn't been daydreaming about winning Cornwall at that very moment, Regan wouldn't have fallen. After swallowing another sudden, acidic flux, he dared to ask, "How long has it been?"

Cornwall pushed a cloud of hair back from his face. It flopped right back to where it had been. "Too long."

"Is she in danger?"

"I don't know." If Cornwall's irritated tone didn't speak loudly enough, his footsteps did. "I doubt it. Regan is too stubborn to be ill. If Goneril ever turns up, she can tell you for certain. I don't know anything more than you do."

"Maybe you should be with her." He was craving some word that all was well with Regan, but Kent hated sickrooms. He was grasping for legitimate reasons for Cornwall to go. "You are her husband. You should go in there and look after her."

"I'm not sparing you the trouble, Kent. If she is unwell, she doesn't need the irritation of my presence. Either wait for Goneril or go in yourself. I don't care which."

Kent's brotherly instinct tried to whip up a response. All of them failed. Lingering near Regan's bedroom was the best Cornwall could do for her. If he loved his sister more than he hated sickrooms, Kent would have to brave it himself.

"Regan? Are you well?"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, did he send you in? He is such a coward."

"My lady," the doctor murmured, "please. You must not be upset."

"I will not be scolded in my own home," Regan snapped. "Kent, has Goneril arrived yet?"

"No."

"Then come here." She patted the empty mattress beside her and overlooked his boots touching her bedding. "It seems the honor of knowing that you'll have another niece in the autumn falls first to you, brother."

Kent's eyes fought to burst out of their sockets in surprise. "What? How?"

"The usual way. Shall I explain it?" Regan smirked at her brother. She had never been able to merely possess a weapon. She parried gently with Kent, but she parried.

"No, no," he stammered. "But I thought you had said it was... that you wouldn't be able to." Memories of long-simmering, explosive fights between Regan and Cornwall were fresh in his mind. "I thought you had given it up."

Regan waved her hand. "Then stop thinking that. Suffice it to say, unless you want a recounting of the difference between my monthly and-"

"Perfectly sufficient!"

"Good, then." She turned to the doctor with a much colder demeanor. "You will excuse us until Lady Capulet arrives. She will want to question you."

"Shall I inform your husband, Lady Regan?"

"Whatever for?"

Kent fixed a serious look on his sister. "Regan, he's worried for you. And it is his child, too." Isn't it?

Regan read the thought off of her brother's face. "Of course it is! God Almighty!" She rolled her eyes and told the doctor, "On second thought, you may inform my husband."

"Yes, m'lady." He bowed and hurried out of the room.

"This ought to be entertaining."

Kent wasn't sure what she meant and pressed on with his own questions. "But you're well otherwise, sis? The fainting wasn't serious?"

"Fainting? I was merely dizzy for a moment. All of you made too much of it, even the doctor. I feel perfectly fine."

Kent bit his lip. There were more fireworks to come. Goneril would interrogate the physician when she arrived. She would uncover whatever Regan was concealing about the doctor's pronouncement, and she would outrage Regan by agreeing with him. "Babies need more care than you do. Maybe it needs rest. You couldn't have been acting as carefully as you would if you had known there was a baby."

"Are you suggesting my daughter is weak, brother?"

"No! No, of course not." A question struck him. "You're certain it's a girl?"

"Of course I am, Kent. I'm a Capulet."

"So am I."

"Yes, but-"

"She's expecting!" 

"Oh, that's better than telling him myself. If my luck holds, he will brood and sulk over this news until the baby is born." After a few moments lost in the blissful haze of her husband's shock, Regan remembered her argument. "It's nearly unheard of for anyone near the main line of descent to have only a son. I'm too old for two children, Kent, so this one must be a girl."

They both knew that was only wishful thinking. However, Kent would not argue with his expectant sister, who not long ago had been a heap next to the breakfast table. He would nod, smile, and agree. Regan and the baby, whatever it was, were both better off if Regan was happy. And as Kent had no immediate expectations for his own happiness, he invested himself in his sister's. "Then so it must be. I can hardly wait to meet her."

"Neither can I," Regan confessed. She touched her stomach gingerly with her fingertips. "There's another Capulet inside of me. That's remarkable, Kent, isn't it? Another Capulet, one of my own making." When she caught Kent smiling at her, she fixed a glare on him. "Don't you dare be getting any ideas, brother. I am not turning soft, and neither will she if I have the least say about it. It's only that I think that I can, as I am now, love her sufficiently. I can do this properly."

"More than properly, sis. You'll do wonderfully." Kent was organizing more confident assurances for his sister when the moment was broken.

"You're pregnant?"

Regan narrowed her eyes. "Yes, Cornwall, I am. Your concern is overwhelming, I might add."

"The doctor said you will be well so long as you stay off your feet." A strong edge ran through his voice. "I believe that makes you well enough to tell me how the hell this happened."

"If you recall any of the interminable times you stuck your-" Feeling the mattress shift under Kent's squirming, Regan bit her lip hard. "I would imagine it was the potion. Your natural fertility must be on par with a stone's."

Confused, Cornwall could only blink at first. "You bled after the potion."

"Only slightly. And when I went to Titania to bargain for more, I was happy to learn one dose lasts for months, not weeks. Perhaps it took a little time to do the trick."

A surprised silence, worthy of the shock of a cannon ball bursting the wall of Regan's bedroom, descended. Kent pulsed alternately with sympathy and fear while he drank in the sight of Cornwall. He looked as though that cannon ball had hit him directly in the gut. Kent studied his boots intently; he had never been good at watching a loved one suffer.

Regan aimed to put him out of his misery, though perhaps only to make him leave. "You said that you didn't want to hear anything else about Fae potions. I assumed you were at least clever enough to realize the potion would last as long as your abnormal lust. I will have my daughter, Cornwall, and we never have to have sex again. You should be happy." Regan stroked her belly and smirked. "I certainly am."

"Good. We might be in for a rough time of it if you were suddenly uncomfortable with deceit," he muttered.

"What does it matter? You're alive and well enough to complain, so I don't see it's done you any harm!"

"Don't raise your voice."

Being caught in Regan and Cornwall's arguments had always made him feel like their child: helpless, afraid, anxious for the return of normalcy. This argument was relatively cool, but Kent felt the strike to his gut just the same. Worse, he barely understood what was happening. Cornwall had wanted Regan to have her wish and leave him in peace; what could he be so angry about? And what was this about sexual appetite? Had it been less? More? And if more, if more than obliging Regan could satisfy, then how had he fed it? With whom? Other women? Other men? Why not with me? 

Kent didn't want to know.

March 10th

The two Capulets least happy with the happy news were Cornwall and Goneril. Goneril was exceptionally worried for Regan. She had all but moved into Middleham to enforce the physician's suggestions with a draconian hand. That was reason enough for Cornwall's misery. He could add to that all of his previous misgivings about the baby and his dread of Regan's disappointment if it was a boy. She wouldn't mistreat a son, but she wouldn't love him the same as a daughter. Cornwall knew he couldn't compensate for that fall out of Regan's top priorities.

And then, there was one more miserable aspect to this entire situation.

"Would you like for me to close my eyes so you can sneak away under cover of darkness again?"

Cornwall cringed. "I'm sorry."

"As you should be. By rights, I should have torn up your note and let you sit here alone all night." Anne smoothed her coat beneath her as she sat down. "You had no danger from me. When a lady is feeling tipsy and old after watching her baby be married, sometimes that is all she feels." As the wind picked up outside, strings of it pushed through the crevices in the old church's walls, chilling the bones of anyone inside. Anne adjusted the fur on her collar to keep from shivering. "You are not exactly irresistible upon closer acquaintance, you know."

He would let her keep her assumptions; they were better for them both. The day of the wedding, a full day in Kent's company and ample wine had worn him down. The effects of the potion had been weakening over time, but he had felt it strongly by the end of the evening. Anne looked miserable, and Cornwall took a leap on the idea that misery loved company. Her eyes were so like Kent's. Cornwall had hoped to steal a taste of what he was missing. Instead, the cacophony ruined it all. Unable to bear waking up to those perfect eyes in the wrong head, Cornwall had fled while she slept. He didn't regret that particular choice. "My lady, I have to tell you something, and you are likely to be more than angry, but please listen until the end."

"Talk away, my lord."

"My wife has been desperate to conceive for nearly a year now. A few months ago, I was given a Fae tonic to push the point. However, the only noticeable effect was was what you saw at Christmas and again at the wedding."

Anne smiled and tried to suppress a laugh with her fingers. "My lord, if all you meant to tell me is that some Fae magic and not my own charms made me attractive to you, relieve yourself of guilt."

"No, that isn't.. there was- is something about you I find... but that isn't my point." He brushed back his hair, frustrated with himself. "My wife is with child. In the course of telling me, she let slip that the potion lasted for longer, much longer, than I had thought. So you might also be... that way."

A long, heavy silence fell onto the two. Anne alternately touched her stomach and her face, the tips of her fingers dancing in search of something to steady herself. Watching her from the corner of his eye, Cornwall felt terrible. If he had been stronger, he could have kept to himself. Perhaps he might even have broken his engagement to Regan or buckled under and been a proper husband. A stronger man wouldn't be in love with his own brother-in-law and seducing lonely widows.

"Well," Anne exhaled deeply. "Are you informing every lady you've seen or just me?"

"Strictly speaking, the others weren't exactly ladies." That much was true twice over. There had been men. With men, he had aimed high. Other men in his situation valued discretion for their own sake. When it had to be a woman, he had gone as low as possible. Whores were easy to find, not expensive, and likely to be doing whatever women did to avoid having a baby. Christmas had found him drunk and weak, but he had been lucky. The ladies he tried to flirt with all turned him down. At the wedding, his luck had run dry when he found Anne as lost as he was. "It's different for you, in your position. I just thought that maybe there was something that could be done. The potion came to my wife from Ambassador Summerdream; she might have a way to-"

"To expel the baby from my body and half my innards with it? No, thank you." Anne's gaze fell onto the faded, painted wood surrounding the altar at the head of the church. This far back, one couldn't make out the figures, but the mythical Birth of the Savior was there somewhere. The Birth had been the most prominent image in the faith since the the revelation of the prophecy. "There's no need of it." She eased her way out of the pew, barely ruffling the bow on her coat. "Thank you for telling me, but I will be fine."

Still waiting to be slapped or screamed at, Cornwall remained in the pew nearly too long. His exit was much less graceful; he tripped over the foot of the bench and stumbled across the aisle. "Anne, wait."

"I have to go home," Anne replied in a voice as cool as the air in the old church.

"First, answer one question. Answer just one question."

"I will not."

"Then you haven't, have you?"

Anne's shoulders shot up even before Cornwall closed his mouth. "If my every missed course was a child, I would more children than I could count. It was bad enough when George was alive. It's been worse still since he died - and before you accuse me of anything, I never wanted anyone's children but his."

"I'm not accusing you. I only want to know what I should do if you are..."

"If am forty, unmarried, and carrying your natural child?" With a practiced air, she glared at Cornwall until he dropped his gaze. "Take a bit of advice from me and stop borrowing troubles. If I have something to tell you, I will. I will do it quietly. I will not humiliate either of our families by causing a fuss over my own poor choices."

"Thank you." Rubbing his neck, Cornwall admitted, "The only thing I can do for Regan is not antagonize her. I might manage it someday. But if I've put you in the same condition... if there is anything I can do..."

"The only thing I want of you is for you to leave me alone. All will be well, so please consider yourself absolved." Anne inclined her head to him. "Good night, my lord."

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