An Absolutely Terrible Idea

Chapter 3

We would have to tell them.

At some point.

Maybe in six months time.

For now we said nothing. George said nothing. Holly didn't even say anything, and only looked slightly smug when she caught me in the library with the sewing kit, letting out the waistband in my trousers.

Kipps was clueless, as usual. He'd also developed a perturbing habit of locking himself out of the house at inopportune times (3am on our night off, Lockwood in my room with me under the covers) and I'd have to rush to the door, hoping he didn't notice that I was wearing Lockwood's dressing gown.

"You're looking a bit peaky, Carlyle," he said to me one morning when he'd stopped by for breakfast and was flipping delicately through a copy of that week's London's Weirdest Hauntings. He glanced at me over the cover (Possessed Kitten Speaks Pig Latin! Page 13) and raised an eyebrow. 'Too many donuts?'

"Yeah," agreed George, "didn't want to say anything, Luce, but you are packing it on a bit lately."

"Drop it, you two," demanded Lockwood. "Lucy can be as fat as she wants."

"Oh, stuff it, Lockwood," I snapped, and he pressed his lips together to prevent a smile. "And you two, if I hear you comment on any woman's body again I'll feed you to the Limbless Hound in Vauxhall."

"Bit touchy, too," Kipps stage-whispered to George.

"Yeah," said George. "If I didn't know better, I'd think she was preg-"

Conversation ceased. A bit of scrambled egg fell to Kipps's plate. George took his glasses off, rubbed the lens with his shirt, and shoved them back on again. His eyes were very large and blinky as he leaned toward me across the table.

I'm still not sure what gave it away. Maybe the color I felt rising in my cheeks. Perhaps the slight green tinge of my skin at the smell of Kipps's eggs. Or maybe, just maybe, it was Lockwood, finally announcing, as though the words were under severe pressure and sealed with a flimsy lid, "She is!"

Kipps said something unrepeatable. George shouted, "I knew it!", and Lockwood continued grinning as though this had been the plan all along.

"You're both fools," Kipps said.

George nodded. "Utter nincompoops."

Lockwood's famous smile faltered. "I thought you'd congratulate us."

"So it is yours," George said, wiping his hands on his grubby t-shirt, as though we were the unclean ones.

"Of course it's his," I grumbled. "Who else would it belong to?"

"My mistake," George said to Lockwood. "I thought you had sense."

"What is your problem, George?"

"My problem?" George stood and once more began wiping his lenses furiously. "My problem. You" –a chubby finger pointed at Lockwood, then to me- "get her pregnant, and you expect me to be absolutely fine with it?"

"We can soundproof the nursery," Lockwood said. His face had become quite concrete, all the premature lines appearing. He suddenly looked very much older than his eighteen years. "I'll be sure it's not an inconvenience to you."

"An inconvenience!" George spat. I then noticed that Kipps had made himself scarce, the coward. "That's what you're worried about, the inconvenience? How many times have you been out on calls in the last few months, Luce? Did you know?"

Lockwood and I exchanged glances. I gave a small nod.

"Idiots!" George proclaimed. "Imbeciles!"

"If you could calm down, George, we may discuss this as the adults we are, about to have a child together."

George collapsed in his chair, threw his head back so he was sitting in it nearly diagonally, and gave a deep groan.

"I've heard about this," he told the ceiling. "Girls getting knocked up then heading out on calls. It never ends well."

Lockwood began to say something but George cut him off. I stayed silent, my thumb brushing the slight bulge of my lower belly, harboring the sinking feeling that I knew exactly what he was talking about. I didn't have to think back far, only last week: the Georgian terraced house in Storey's Gate. The Visitor had been a Whig politician long-dead, and had cornered me in the study with a speech so passionate about working mothers that I'd nearly reached for him and the softly glowing buff-coloured ribbon in his insubstancial hand. It was only at the last minute when I remembered that I mistrusted all adults who tried to sell me something and withdrew my rapier, cornering him neatly behind iron filings.

I hadn't told the others. We tried not to discuss politics on Portland Row--Lockwood and Kipps would come to blows. And, well, I didn't want to admit I'd nearly been ghost-touched.

Again.

"What gets stronger when women get pregnant, Lockwood?" George said, confirming the source of my sinking feeling. "The senses, isn't that right?"

"I'm hardly an expert," Lockwood sniffed.

"I'm not either," I said, though I was a bit, if only because Holly had been a never-ending supply of family-planning books, and I'd already nearly finished, Your Baby, Your Visitors and You. It wasn't hopeful reading.

"Well, that's what happens." George blinked deeply. "You've already become strongly misled by your Listening before, Lucy. Too emotionally entangled. I reckon things will only get worse from here. You're going on desk duty immediately."

"No!" I protested.

"Lockwood, she's your girlfriend," George beseeched him. He made a rubbery face. So did I--that term was becoming a bit of a sore point for me. It had never come up in my and Lockwood's conversations. "And your employee. And she's carrying your unborn child. Which is all a bit gross, really."

Lockwood's lips pulled sideways in an expression of uncertainty. "Maybe he's right, Luce."

"I'm not your property!"

"Of course you're not." The soothing timber of his voice made me want to punch him. Punch Lockwood, the future father of my children.

Good lord, what was wrong with me—three months gone and I was already thinking of another one.

"I just think," Lockwood whispered, "that maybe George is right."

"That's beautiful," George said, softening. "George is right. You really must say that more often."

"You do have a poor history of self-preservation," Lockwood said to me, ignoring George. "And you must remember there are two of you, now."

"Yes, I know, and no, I don't," I protested. "I'm not going on desk duty."

"You are," George said.

I rose from the table, the emotion of one medium person and one very small one filling me with a fury so pure I could light the entire room red.

"No, I am not. No matter how pregnant I am. Leave me behind and I will end you."

Lockwood cleared his throat and scooted back from the chair.

"I'll get a spare cushion for the wheely chair," he said.

"Excellent," George said. "I'll help."

And they left me to stare at their empty places across the table.

Cat-like, I slowly pushed Kipps's cooling eggs until they clattered satisfyingly to the floor.

"I'm not over-emotional," I told the empty room, and I squished the eggs beneath my feet until they were but a thin film on the linoleum.