“Even if they fancy themselves in love,” he reassured her, “it doesn’t mean anything at their age.”
“It’s different in wartime, George. There’s a kind of desperation that sets in when people are no longer sure how long they’ll live.”
“They’ll both live a long time, and fall in love many times after this. This is child’s play, my dear. You have no cause for concern.” He didn’t see the looks in their eyes when they gazed at each other, but his wife did. Charlotte went to bed early that night, and they made love again as soon as they thought everyone was asleep. They were noisier this time than they meant to be. Lucy woke up with a start when she thought she heard a muffled scream. She heard the floorboards creak an hour or so later, opened her door a crack and peered out. She saw Henry tiptoeing to the stairs, with his shirt off, wearing only his pajama bottoms, and guessed instantly what it meant. She closed her door just as softly, with a deep anger burning inside her, and raw hatred for both of them. She felt cheated of all her dreams. Charlotte had stolen them from her. Lucy didn’t know what she would do about it, but she knew her time would come one day to get even with them.
As it turned out, retribution came in another form, within weeks. A month later, Charlotte appeared at breakfast looking green. She rushed away from the table within minutes and was violently ill. When the countess came to her bedroom afterward, Charlotte told her that she felt sure she had eaten something spoiled the night before. The countess was worried and sympathetic, and offered to call the doctor, but Charlotte insisted she was fine and it wasn’t serious.
Two weeks later, in mid-September, she was just as ill, even more violently than she had been at first. She hadn’t been out on Pharaoh in weeks, and despite their innocence, both Charlotte and Henry could guess what had happened. The waistband of her skirt was already tight, and she was so nauseous, she could barely eat. The only time she felt better was in Henry’s arms. He spent every night with her now, and didn’t want to leave her feeling so ill.
“What are we going to do?” she asked him one night, as tears slid down her cheeks. There was no doubt in their minds. She was six weeks pregnant by their calculations. She must have gotten pregnant immediately. They were both young and healthy, and nature had taken the upper hand once they lost control. Now they would have to ride the wave until the end. Or she would. He was leaving soon. His birthday was only weeks away, in October, and the army would take him soon after.
“We have to tell my mother,” he said, sounding determined. “She’ll know what to do. Do you think something is wrong that you’re so sick?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never known anyone who had a baby, and my mother never talks about things like that. We should really tell her too. But I don’t want to tell her in a letter, and we can’t just show up in London and give her this news. It would kill her, and my father too.” And they had told her not to call them, the lines weren’t secure, and there were always many people listening on the lines at the palace. Everyone would know instantly, and she would be disgraced.
“And they’d hate me forever,” he said, worried.
They told his mother the next day. Like two children who had committed an unpardonable crime, they went to her study together after breakfast and told her the truth. She closed her eyes for a minute, trying to stay calm, and gather her wits about her. How was she going to face Queen Anne, or worse the king, with this piece of news? They had entrusted her with their daughter, and her son had gotten her pregnant, at seventeen. There had been no sign of her asthma since she’d arrived, but what she had now was much worse. The countess was desperately trying to think about what was the best thing to do in the circumstances, and how to handle it. They were innocent children in a dangerously adult situation, which could easily become the scandal of the century. And Charlotte couldn’t sit down with her parents and discuss it face-to-face. This was wartime, and nothing was simple, let alone for a pregnant seventeen-year-old princess. The countess could guess that her parents would be devastated.
“Do you want to go home?” she asked Charlotte quietly. It would create a scandal ultimately, but she might prefer to deal with this at home, with her own parents, instead of his.
“No, I don’t,” she said firmly. “They want me to be here. I know they’ll be furious at first, but maybe the best thing is to tell them afterward. There is nothing they can do about it then.”