The Master and The Muses. Amanda McIntyre

her rag absentmindedly over a shelf.

      “In my condition, I prefer to be at home,” I replied, not looking up from my book.

      “Is Thomas happy about the child?”

      “I don’t see how that is any of your affair,” I offered curtly, hoping to send her back upstairs.

      Her blue eyes glittered with knowledge, the kind foreign to me, and yet, in spite of my distaste for her, I wanted to know how well she knew my Thomas. My pride stopped me, however.

      “He’ll come around, I wouldn’t worry.”

      A shiver skittered up my spine at how well she could read me. “What makes you think I’m concerned?” Was I that readable, that predictable?

      She shrugged. “You stay around here all day, waiting for him to come home. Don’t you have family that is interested in your condition? Have they been here to visit?”

      I stared at the book in my hands, not knowing what to say. I’d been following Thomas’s suggestion to wait until the baby was born to tell my family. However, I was growing desperate to have my mother know that I was with child, so she could be here with me when my time came. Still, Grace’s remark and her sticking her nose in where it did not belong did not sit well with me. “I’m going to go lie down awhile. I’m suddenly quite tired.” I waltzed past her and up the stairs, holding my belly with the book in my hand. I made it my single purpose to discuss the idea of an afternoon visit to my family with Thomas tonight after supper.

      “That was a sumptuous meal,” Thomas sighed, leaning his head back against the comfortable wingback chair. He took a swallow of his port and closed his eyes. Grace had left us a leg of lamb, cooked to perfection, and roasted potatoes and carrots for our supper that evening.

      He had come home quite enthused about his tromp through the woods, saying he was inspired about a new project. I waited patiently for the right time to approach him with my request.

      “Thomas, I’ve been thinking I would like to have someone I trust with me when my time comes,” I reasoned.

      “Fine, I’ll send for my mother,” he stated, his eyes still closed.

      “Thomas, you’ve barely acknowledged your mother for the entire time I’ve known you. Does she even know that I exist, much less that you are giving her a grandchild?”

      He opened one eye. “Of course she does.”

      I was admittedly startled at this revelation. “And what was her reaction?”

      “William didn’t say.”

      “William? You let William tell your family that you married and were having a child?” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

      He frowned, pushed up from the chair and drew me into his arms. “Please, Helen, you need to stay calm—the baby.”

      Thomas stroked my back while I fumed inside at his lackadaisical attitude about our marriage, our family.

      “I haven’t spoken much about them as I am not exactly the apple of my family’s eye. My father thinks I am wasting my time with my art, and my mother—well, let’s just say she didn’t get the priestly son that she’d hoped for.”

      He rested his chin on my head. “William, on the other hand, has always been my mother’s darling boy.”

      “Thomas—” I began, but my thought was snatched in my next breath. I gripped his arm, unsure what was happening.

      “Helen, what is it?” he asked.

      There was a flutter deep inside me. Everything else paled in comparison to the wonder of this strange little flip. I grabbed Thomas’s hand and held it to my belly. “There, can you feel her?”