I seized his hand and held on with everything I had. "Chester, listen to me. I am a princess. Princess Stella Henson. Go get the physician. Save this child."

But he thought I was lying. He wrenched his hand free, anger flashing across his face.

"You've truly disappointed me. If you're going to lie, at least make it believable. This is the capital, not your little countryside cottage. One wrong word here can cost you your head."

He flicked his sleeves and stormed out.

"A miscarriage won't kill you. Look after yourself."

I watched his retreating figure until it disappeared. Every last shred of hope in me went with it.

I curled into the corner, the pain splitting me open. I could feel it, every moment of it, the child slipping away from my body.

The child I had longed for day and night, killed by its own father on the very first day he learned of its existence.

I was unconscious through the night. The skirt beneath me soaked through with blood.

The door crashed open with a kick. Shelagh Fox strode in, flanked by several older servants.

She glanced at me, drenched in blood from the waist down, then settled into a chair by the table and poured herself a cup of tea as if she had all the time in the world.

"Don't blame me. The child in my belly has to be the firstborn heir. That's the only way I'll have any standing in the Delgado household. Surely you understand."

I braced myself against the wall, barely upright. "So you had my child killed."

Shelagh let out a short laugh. "Now that's unfair. Chester was the one who laced the food. Chester was the one who didn't want it. All I did was mention it in passing."

I stared at her, unblinking. My nails dug into my palms until the skin split.

She rose and walked over to me, one hand resting on her belly.

"Besides, you should count yourself lucky. Even if your child had survived, it would have been taken from you and raised under the legitimate wife. Better this way, really."

"Bring the tonic over. Make her drink it. Help her recover."

The servants pried my jaw open and forced the liquid down my throat. I recognized the taste. Safflower. The sterilizing concoction.

I thrashed, tried to spit it out, but they pinned me down and held my mouth shut.

Shelagh crouched beside me and patted my cheek, slow and deliberate, every touch a humiliation. "Can't have you bearing more children down the line. All that squabbling over heirs gets so tiresome."