My hand unconsciously palms my still-flat belly, as Richard walks by my side on the pavement in town.
We’re here for the final fitting of my gown, and I have a feeling that it will need to be taken out a bit in the breast area. My breasts are already swollen and sore, and it was the first sign that I might be with child. The second was morning sickness, which still plagues me. At the moment, however, my queasiness comes from Richard’s touch on my elbow.
As we walk, I keep my eyes down. It’s habit. If I don’t make eye contact, I won’t see ridicule. Will I receive ridicule? I don’t know, but I feel as though people will see me, truly see me, and they’ll know what I’ve done.
It is when I cross the street, my feet padding against the cobblestone that I feel someone’s stare.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
I’m afraid it is someone who has figured me out, who has deemed me a treacherous adulteress, someone who will run to Eleanor and expose everything. It’s an irrational fear, because currently I’m the only one who knows.
With every step, I feel the gaze upon me getting hotter and hotter, and finally, Finally,
I look.
I inhale sharply and my feet falter because it’s Phillip.
He’s seated on a bench and his black eyes are connected with mine, the edge of his lips curved up in a soft smile.
He smolders with mystery, with sexiness, with confidence, and he impales me with his gaze from all the way across the street. He’s got a book in his lap and he’s lounging casually, one long leg crossed over the other.
I’m frozen and I don’t know why.
Maybe it’s the energy I feel between us, as though he’s staring at me with purpose.
Maybe it’s the fact that he’s oh-so-beautiful.
Or maybe it’s because I somehow thought he’d be gone, that he’d left me and I was all alone.
Whatever it is, I’m drawn to it. I’m frozen with the weight of his stare, and for a minute, it’s like it’s only he and I in the world as the faces and people and cars spin around us, leaving us isolated and alone.
The corner of his mouth tilts up.
He lifts his hand.
He’s waving.
At me.
I gulp, and return the wave, then realize that I must look ridiculous, standing limply in the street, staring at him like a forlorn puppy.
“Who is that?” Richard asks impatiently and I snap from my daze, jolted back into Richard’s harsh reality.
“I don’t know,” I lie. “I think he’s a drifter. I noticed him in town the other day.”
Part of that isn’t a lie. I do think he’s a drifter. And I did notice him the other day. Many many times, all through the night.
Richard’s pale eyes narrow. “He looks as though he knows you.”
But at that moment, almost like he heard, Phillip shifts his gaze away, as though I’m a stranger, as though he was mistaken for waving at me.
It crushes me soul and I swallow hard.
“See? I guess he thought he knew me but was mistaken.”
Richard pauses, but I’m not important enough for his concern. He returns his attention to the matter at hand.
“I’m going to leave you in the dress shop, while I attend to a few things.”
I know his “few things” include visiting the brothel so that his depraved, unnatural wants may be attended to, but I don’t indicate that I know. Instead, I simply nod.
He leaves me at the shop and I disappear inside.
I obediently wait inside a dressing room while they prepare my gown, and when they offer to help me put it on, I decline. I can dress myself, for God’s sake.
“Can I be of assistance?”
Phillip’s silky voice is in my ear just as I’m struggling to fasten the spine full of pearl buttons.
“How did you…you can’t be… they can’t see you here!” I finally manage to say, while at the same time throwing my arms around his neck and clinging to him. His scent is so familiar and I suck it down.
“Don’t fret, ma Cherie,” he tells me. “No one knows I’m here.”