Chapter Twenty-Four: The Gathering Storm
The peace of the focaccia day was fragile, a delicate soap bubble soon pricked by a change in the weather—both inside and out.
The sky, which had been a flawless blue, grew heavy with bruised purple clouds, pressing down on the estate with a damp, electric tension. It matched the sudden, unpredictable shifts happening within me. One moment I was laughing with Lucia over a fashion magazine, the next I was near tears because the pattern on the sofa was "too busy." A wave of dizziness would hit me in the middle of the library, forcing me to clutch a bookshelf until the room stopped tilting. A deep, bone-aching weariness settled in my limbs, making the grand staircase feel like a mountain climb.
Maria noticed first. Her sharp, maternal eyes missed nothing. She found me one afternoon, pale and leaning against the cool marble of the hallway wall after a sudden spell of lightheadedness.
"Arisha, tesora, you are white as a sheet," she said, her voice soft but firm. She pressed the back of her hand to my forehead. "You're clammy. This is more than stress. I'm calling Doctor Milan."
Adrian, summoned from his father's study, arrived with storm clouds in his eyes that rivaled the ones outside. "What's wrong?" The question was a demand, his hand immediately finding the small of my back.
"Your wife is unwell, and she's been hiding it," Maria said, giving me a gentle but chastising look. "Doctor Milan is on his way."
Dr. Milan, the discreet family physician, was a kind man with gentle hands and a calm demeanor. He asked careful questions in the privacy of the downstairs sitting room as Adrian paced like a caged wolf by the window. I listed the symptoms: the dizziness, the fatigue that felt like lead in my veins, the wild mood swings, the strange aversion to the scent of Maria's favorite jasmine tea.
"Hmm," Dr. Milan said, his expression thoughtful. "Given your age, and the timing of your marriage… it could be very early pregnancy. The symptoms can be surprisingly similar to anemia or extreme fatigue. The only way to be certain, this early, would be an internal ultrasound."
The word hung in the room like a struck gong.
Pregnancy.
Adrian stopped pacing. The color drained from his face, then rushed back in a flush of something that looked like panic. His eyes flew to mine, wide and horrified.
Maria was the first to speak, her voice cutting through the thick silence with practiced, matriarchal calm. "Doctor, she is only nineteen. It is far more likely to be an iron deficiency. The stress, the change in diet, the upheaval…" She shot a swift, assessing glance at Adrian, whose jaw was now clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping. "We should test for that first."
"Of course," Dr. Milan nodded. "We can do a blood panel immediately. But if the results are inconclusive, the ultrasound would be the next logical step. Just to rule it out."
"Rule it out," Adrian echoed, the words sounding hollow. He ran a hand through his hair, his gaze fixed on the patterned rug, not seeing it. "Yes. Rule it out."
The atmosphere in the room shifted from concern to a complex, vibrating tension. Maria's worry was now layered with a sharp, pragmatic protectiveness—protecting me from a potential scandal, yes, but also, I sensed, protecting her son from a burden he might not be ready to bear. Adrian's fear was a palpable, self-directed wrath. I could see the words screaming in his rigid posture: My fault. I should have been more careful. I was reckless.
I wanted to reach for him, to soothe him, but a fresh wave of dizziness made me sink back into the sofa cushions. "It's probably just low iron," I said, my voice smaller than I intended. "My mother… she used to get the same way. She'd send me iron tablets."
Maria was instantly on the phone, her tone warm but authoritative. A short conversation with my mother, who was evidently both worried and unsurprised. Within the hour, a bottle of my mother's trusted iron supplements was delivered to the estate, a tangible piece of my old life reaching into the new.
The family dynamic pivoted with a quiet, collective resolve. The political plotting, the shadow of Gregory Hale, was pushed to the periphery. For now, I was the sole focus.
Lucia, who had been hovering anxiously by the door, came to sit beside me. She took my hand, her youthful face serious. "Even if it is that," she whispered, her eyes darting toward her brother's stiff back, "even if you are… it's okay. We'll handle it. We're family. We take care of each other." The maturity in her eighteen-year-old voice was startling and profoundly comforting.
William, informed of the situation, ceased all talk of Hale and accountability acts. His concern was quiet, logistical. He ensured Dr. Milan had everything he needed, that the house was kept calm. His gaze, when it rested on me, was no longer that of a strategist assessing an asset, but of a patriarch concerned for a young woman's health. The potential "distraction" of a scandal was secondary; my well-being was primary.
Adrian was the epicenter of the silent storm. He was relentlessly attentive, bringing me glasses of water, fetching blankets, but his touch was stiff, his smiles forced. When he thought no one was looking, the mask fell, revealing a stark, terrified guilt.
That night, in our room, he finally broke. The blood test results had come back—inconclusive. Iron was borderline, but not definitively the cause. The ultrasound was scheduled for two days' time.
"Arisha," he said, his voice raw in the darkness. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, head in his hands. "God, if you are… if I've… you're nineteen. You're in the middle of this madness with my family, with Hale breathing down our necks, and I…" He looked up, his eyes tortured. "I was so caught up in you, in us, I didn't think. I should have protected you better. From everything. Even from this."
I crawled across the bed to him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders from behind, resting my cheek against his back. "Adrian, stop. It takes two. And 'this' isn't a punishment. It's a possibility. And if it's real…" I took a shaky breath, voicing the hope I hadn't dared acknowledge. "Would it be so terrible? To have a piece of us that's just… pure? In the middle of all their noise?"
He turned, gathering me into his arms, holding me as if I were glass. "I'm scared," he admitted, the confession a hot whisper against my hair. "Not of the responsibility. But of the world you'd have to bring a child into. The spotlight. The danger. Hale…" His arms tightened. "He's not just plotting against my father's seat, Arisha. He's digging. For anything. A health scare, a whisper of trouble… a pregnancy out of wedlock turned hasty marriage… he'd use it. He'd use you. And if there was a child…"
The dread in his voice was a cold river down my spine. I thought I understood the cost of the name before. Now, I saw its true depth. It wasn't just about facing reporters. It was about the most intimate, joyful possibilities of life becoming weapons in a shadow war.
"We don't know anything yet," I said, forcing calm into my voice for both our sakes. "Let's just… get through the test. One thing at a time."
He nodded, but the tension didn't leave his body. He held me all night, not in passion, but in a silent, vigilant watch, as if he could shield me from the future with the strength of his arms alone.
Downstairs, in the locked study, a different kind of vigilance was taking place. William and Richard pored over intelligence reports. Gregory Hale was making his move. Not with gossip columns this time, but with backroom deals, promises to powerful constituencies, a smear campaign being meticulously built not on rumour, but on twisted half-truths about policy. The Prime Minister's seat, and the stability it represented, was under direct, calculated siege.
Two storms were gathering: one in the heavy, pregnant sky above the estate, and one in the treacherous landscape of power. And at the centre of both, feeling too young and too dizzy, was me—waiting for a doctor's wand to show me a future that was either a miracle, or a mistake, or simply a need for an iron pill. The only certainty was the circle of family around me, their concern a solid wall against the gathering gales. For now, that had to be enough.