Between a vampire and a hunter

POV Helena

My nausea crested in the East Gallery, the long corridor that overlooked the frost-bitten inner courtyard.

The Blackwood portraits watched me with oil-dark eyes as I gripped a mullioned window and swallowed bile. Was this a punishment for what I had done, a poison seeping from my soul into my flesh?

Footsteps clicked on the checkered stone—Kathrin's sensible heels. I straightened too quickly, the world tilting.

"Helena?" My mother-in-law's voice carried that particular tone of concern mixed with scrutiny that only she had perfected. "The maid said you were unwell again."

"It's nothing." I pressed my palm flat against the cold glass. "The mutton at dinner was too rich."

"The mutton three nights ago? Or the fowl yesterday? Or perhaps the herring this morning that you couldn't touch?" Kathrin moved closer, her gray silk rustling like whispers. "I've been in the stillroom just below, preparing rosemary-thyme tonics for the household, when Mary mentioned 'milady retched again by the tapestry stairs.'"

My fingers curled against the window frame. "The servants talk too much."

"The servants worry." Kathrin's hand touched my elbow, gentle but insistent. "Come. Stand away from the draft."

She guided me toward the solar that adjoined the chapel—a small, sun-warmed room crowded with prayer books and dried lavender.

I focused on breathing through my mouth, avoiding the thick scent of beeswax from the votives burning beneath the wooden cross.

"Sit." Her command brooked no argument. She poured water from a pewter pitcher, watching as I sipped carefully. "How long?"

"How long what?"

"Don't play games with me, child. How long have you been ill in the mornings?"

I set down the cup with excessive care. "A fortnight. Perhaps longer."

"And your courses?"

Heat flooded my cheeks. "That's hardly—"

"I bore three sons and buried two. I know what I'm asking." Kathrin's eyes, the same storm-gray as Alistair's, pinned me in place. "When?"

My throat constricted. Down the west wing, I could hear the distant murmur of men's voices—Alistair locked in the tower study with his steward since dawn, reviewing winter accounts and tenant relief petitions. The normalcy of it, the routine of my husband's morning, made my deception burn hotter.

"Seven weeks past," I whispered.

Kathrin's intake of breath was sharp. She leaned forward, studying my face with the intensity of a physician. "Your color is high despite the nausea. Your breasts?"

"Tender." The admission scraped out.

"Your appetite—has it changed? Do you still take the spiced wine at vespers?"

"Not the wine." My gaze slid involuntarily toward the sideboard where a jar of salted plums sat beside the communion chalice. "Only warm milk with honey. And plums. Vinegared ones. I can't seem to—"

I stopped, realizing what I was confessing.

Kathrin's eyebrows lifted, then her entire face transformed. The severity melted into something luminous, tears gathering in her eyes. "Oh, my dear girl."

"No." I stood abruptly, the chair scraping against stone. "No, you're wrong."

"I'm not wrong." Kathrin rose too, reaching out with trembling fingers as though touching sacred news. "You're pregnant. You're carrying my grandchild."

My knees threatened to buckle. Pregnant. Whose child? Nathaniel's passionate encounters these past months, or the cold, dutiful couplings when Alistair still came to my bed—

"This is wonderful!" Kathrin clasped my hands, her joy radiating like heat from a forge. "Alistair will be beside himself. After three years of marriage, we'd begun to worry—"

"Stop." I pulled my hands free, backing toward the door. "Please, stop."

"Whatever is the matter? This is a blessing, Helena. The continuation of the Blackwood line, an heir for the estate—"

"You can't tell him."

The words hung between us like a blade. Kathrin's joy fractured into confusion. "What?"

My mind raced, searching for purchase on the slippery slope of truth. "You can't tell Alistair. Not yet."

"Helena, this is absurd. He's your husband. He has the right—"

"Please." I grabbed Kathrin's wrists, desperation lending me strength. "Please, you must promise me. Don't tell him about the child yet."

Kathrin pulled back, her face cycling through confusion to suspicion. "Explain yourself."

I released her, wrapping my arms around my middle as though I could hide what grew there. Think. Think. "My mother," I began, the lie forming even as I spoke it. "She had stillborns. Three of them before me."

Kathrin's expression softened marginally. "Many women do."

"You don't understand. The grief nearly killed her. And my father—each time destroyed him a little more. The hope, then the loss." I let real tears come; they were easy enough to summon with terror clawing at my throat. "What if I'm like her? What if this child—"

"You're young and healthy."

"So was she." I met Kathrin's gaze, pouring every ounce of conviction into my words. "I couldn't bear to put Alistair through that hope only to dash it with premature death. Let me wait. Just a few more weeks. Let me be certain the child is viable before we celebrate."

"This is morbid thinking." Kathrin's tone had turned stern. "To dwell on death when life quickens within you—"

"It's practical thinking." I straightened my spine. "My mother taught me that joy can turn to ash in your mouth. I won't serve that meal to my husband."