The Lost Selection

V.

Like Corlina had predicted it took just over a month or so for her bump to start to show, and then there seemed to be no stoping it growing. Every day it seemed it grew a centimetre or two more, and, also like she predicted, she wasn't able to keep it a secret from her ladies' maids for more than half a month, when her dresses started to become harder to lace and she was waking up before they ever reached her bedroom, always locked away in her bathroom, the morning sickness having truly set in a few weeks after she found out. 

When she told her ladies' maid she had woken up at the crack of dawn, even before she sun was fully risen, with just a few rays of sunshine making an appearance, announcing that soon the day would officially begin. She had already spent the last hour with her head buried in the toilet, throwing up everything she had eaten the night before, which hadn't been much considering she was also nauseous every time she looked or thought of food. Still, she was sitting on the floor with her back against the elegant tub when there was the familiar quick knocks at the door, and her older lady's voice coming from the other side. 

"Your Majesty? Is everything alright? Should we call the royal doctor? I have to admit, we've been worried, this is not the first time..." 

"No, no," Corlina says, matter of factly, getting up and flushing the toilet, unlocking the door of her bathroom to revel her not so pleasant state, but turns around quickly enough when a waive a nausea hits her. After flushing the toilet again and brushing her teeth she finally faces her ladies. "I'm fine." 

"You're pale as paper, ma'am. And you haven't been eating well, we've noticed." The younger lady says, trying to reassure her Queen. 

"You can tell us." The older lady says, almost in a motherly manner, the three ladies sharing a smile of reassurance for their Queen. Corlina opens her mouth and closes it before taking a deep breath and sitting down at the corner of her bed, as if she was suddenly needing the support. 

"I'm expecting." 

"Oh, oh dear." They all say, almost in unison. 

Once her ladies' maid knew everything became a little easier, since it was a secret three more people knew Corlina didn't have to carry alone, or make excuses as to why certain things were changing, and with the intimacy she had with her ladies' maid, why her body was suddenly changing. 

Her ladies were in charge now of altering her dresses whenever necessary, making the waists higher so that her bump wouldn't appear. They made changes to the chest area, covering it more, now that her chest was growing because of the pregnancy, and even made some skirts fuller so that the attention wouldn't be dragged to her middle section. They also started to find more comfortable shoes, with lower heels, for Corlina to wear, especially later on on her pregnancy. 

Corlina was having her check-ins with her doctor at the Palace, and now that they were approaching Christmas, and their experiment with the Friday Report was going wonderfully, or so Grace was reporting back to her, with phase two of their plan, initiating an every week Friday Report just after New Years being discussed in the Advisory Board and in full throttle to actually happen. 

The Queen was on her way to have her two and a half months check-in, when she found Grace and Lachlan talking with wide gestures at the end of the corridor of the subfloor, where the Report Room was located and the opposite room as to where the Medical Bay was located. Corlina walked slowly, her hands pressed together in front of her body, protecting her baby bump although no one knew that at the moment. 

"Anything the matter? Grace? Mr. Irvin?" Her former governess and now Palace planner, and the presenter of the Report curtsy and bow, respectively, their heated discussion coming to an end as soon as Corlina made her presence known.