The Pearl of Great Price Part II

Chapter 22: Truth

Charles paced around the length of the bedroom. Every so often, he would stop, stare at Mary, open his mouth to speak, and return to pace again. She knew he was troubled by the things she told him. There was uncertainty as to how much until he said, "Woman," in an accusatory way. He never calls her that. It's either My Darling, Sweetheart, Lady Brandon, and sometimes Wife.

Never has Mary ever felt like less of a woman than she did at that moment. For she is the woman who brought this massive stress into her husband's life. She is the one who kept those secrets from him about her father's wife, causing her stress to spread. Mary couldn't bear to look at her Prince with the weight of guilt and remorse bearing down, so she looked away.

But Charles saw. He saw her slightly turn away, which would not do at all. Coming to sit beside her on the bed, he took his hand and rested it on her cheek. "Mary, My Love, I need you to look at me. Please."

Once she raised her eyes as requested, he told her, "I choose you. I will continue to choose you over and over again until the day I die. I'll always choose you, but I'm a wee bit agitated right now." He put his thumb and forefinger up to show the wee bit.

Mary worried her lip with her teeth at his words. Her eyes looked as pleading and sorrowful as her voice. "I know you are. I'm agitated with myself. But Charles, I don't want you complicit, so I didn't tell you. I don't want you impacted by that knowledge."

He groaned loudly and lay on the bed, much like his wife had earlier. Looking up at the ceiling, he told her, "I'm already impacted because you're stressed." Rolling his head to the side, he caught her eyes and gave his wife a light reprimand. "What made you think you could handle that yourself? Every time something like that weighs on you, compounded by the poisoning, this trip, and your knee, it's no wonder you're anxious. Then your stress builds, you ignore it, and boom!" He mimicked an explosion for dramatic effect.

Mary strumbled out a few words of disagreement, but she couldn't disagree. So, she sat there staring at him, waiting for him to speak. But he didn't talk, for staring back at her. That made her edgy enough to start crying again. And that's when she sobbed, "Please don't send me to a monastery like my Aunt Joanna."

Charles couldn't help it. He laughed, and she bopped him with a pillow. Sitting up, he stalked his wife like a lion stalking its prey to the bed's headboard. "Lady Brandon, of all the things you could have chosen to say, you said the least expecting one. I knew meeting your aunt would burden your tender heart and mind, causing you to think you're similar. But you're not. You're far from it."

He kissed her hands and made her look at him. "I need you to breathe and calm yourself." Then a thought that had crossed his mind during the bullfight wrestled its way to his lips. He didn't give the thought credence because surely not, but now he's not so sure.

So he casually spoke it. "You know you always act a touch unreasonable when you're pregnant. You tend to feel deeper and take things more personally, too. It makes whatever is happening inside you ten times bigger than it really is." His eyebrow raised in question.

At first, Mary scoffed at that notion. "We've only just started actively trying. I can't have gotten pregnant on the first few tries. At least not pregnant enough to make me weird."

Charles laughed at that choice of words too. "Oh, Darling, I do love you. Just because we weren't actively trying before doesn't mean something couldn't have happened. Of all the marriages in England, you and I are the most engaged in that area. And believe me, I know because I hear all manner of things in court. Some that's entirely not worth repeating." He shivered at the thought of Lord Turnbuckle's hemorrhoids.