Page 55 of Everything But the Earl
The servants jumped into action, constantly asking Grace if she felt all right. She usually answered yes, even if she didn’t, because she wanted them to leave her alone.
There was no way to hide her condition. She had to get a few of her day dresses altered, and she gave up on wearing stays. Still, she felt vaguely uncomfortable all the time. And while it was improper for a woman in her condition to be out and about in public, she slipped a few coins to one of the carriage drivers to shuttle her back and forth to the cottage; she told Catrin she would continue to make pottery as long as she could reach her potter’s wheel.
The wild part of all of it was that her designs were very much in demand. She’d received letters from her dealer in London saying that the months she’d taken off while she’d been in the process of moving to Wales meant that he now had a waitlist for the next Gerard Makepeace sculpture.
She was feeling inspired, though. She loved the sea and the view of it from her cottage, which she was starting to think of ashersand notOwen’s. Caer Newydd was beautiful and welcome, but it was Owen’s house. Because this cottage had been a blank slate, Grace had decorated it in the way she liked, and it felt like hers. And she mixed glazes in colors to match the sea, she put natural details into her work, she played around with firing techniques that imprinted the local plants on her work, and she created some of the best pieces she’d ever made in her little studio. She explained to Catrin that she was making art under an assumed name and selling her work in London, and so Catrin became her apprentice—learning to make bowls and dishes for her family in exchange for helping Grace pack up her work to ship to London.
But Owen didn’t know about Gerard Makepeace, either, did he?
Grace felt bad about keeping things from her husband. She should tell him everything. And yet, she didn’t.
She wasn’t used to telling people things. She kept most of her innerlife from her parents, who didn’t seem to much care anyway. She was used to keeping her own company. She had never considered what it would mean to share her life with someone, as she was supposed to with her husband. The fact that he was such a great distance away made it easy to continue to keep her own company, except all the other people—Catrin, Morfudd, the Williams family, some of the folk in the little town around the cottage—made sure she was never lonely.
Grace wasn’t at all used to it, but having these people there, this family of sorts, it was nice. She found she liked having people around to talk with about idle gossip, about the estate, about the pending birth of her child. Having this level of support was something she’d never experienced it before, but she was grateful for it.
And yet, despite all these people around her, she missed Owen even more. He was her actual family and he should have been a part of what she was building here in Wales.
And, well, she wanted him with her again.
Grace sat with Catrin at the pottery studio, all of this swirling in her mind. She was so distracted, in fact, that she put too much pressure on one side of the vase, and by the time the slip of clay under her fingers snared her attention, the whole shape was a lost cause. One side of the vase caved in and the force of the wheel sent it flying to the floor.
“Your head is in the clouds,” Catrin said.
“It is. Apologies.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“Whether I should tell my husband about the baby. I should, I know, but I don’t want him to rush home right now.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he’s busy at Parliament, of course. There’s no need to take him away from his work when the baby is still months away.”
Catrin narrowed her eyes. “I suspect another reason.”
Grace had no idea how to explain what she was feeling. She wasn’teven sure she understood it. “This…changes things. When I was still living with my parents in London, all I wanted was to be free of them. To get away from the city and build a studio for my art and never have to worry about my father telling me the pottery was silly or my mother watching my every move for the slightest impropriety. And Owen gave me everything I’d ever wanted. He was not eager to marry, nor was I, so we made an agreement. He’d give me the freedom I craved here in Wales, and he’d go back to London.”
“All right. And?”
“And now I regret the arrangement. I wish he were here.”
“So why not ask him to come home?”
“His letters are filled with the things he’s doing in London. He’s very busy. So how can I ask him? I’m the one who sent him away.”
Catrin nodded. “All right. So postpone telling him a little longer, but youshouldtell him. Give him enough time to get home when the time comes. Believe me, you’ll be happier with him here.”
Grace nodded. “A reasonable compromise.” She rubbed her belly. “I feel somewhat better now, at least.”
“Less tossing of accounts?”
“It’s been a week since I had to.”
“Well, that is some progress.”
*
Owen threw himselfinto a chair next to the fireplace at his club and regretted many of his life choices.
