"She's delicate. The young master never lets anyone cause our mistress the slightest distress. You stand there ignoring her, leaving her to kneel in the dirt. If something happens to the baby because of you, can you bear that responsibility?"
Whispers rippled through the crowd. I signaled my handmaid to draw back the curtain, then fixed a cold stare on the beautiful woman kneeling below the carriage. "How far along are you?"
Celeste answered with a demure blush. "This humble woman was taken in by the heir nine months ago. The child in my womb is eight months along."
I looked at her with undisguised contempt. "So for nine months, the heir hasn't brought you into the estate. Why is that? Is your background too shameful to speak of? Or is the child not his?"
"If he truly treasured you, why would he keep you hidden away as a secret mistress?"
The crowd murmured in agreement. It was a fair point. If a man truly cherished a woman, he would have brought her home and given her a proper title long ago. Why wait until she was nearly due?
Celeste's eyes brimmed over, and she wept aloud. "Only because Celeste had to observe three years of mourning for her late father and could not marry during that time. That is the only reason it has been delayed. Celeste's virtue is beyond reproach. I am not that kind of woman."
"Why must you humiliate me, my lady? Is it simply because I come from a poor family that I must be a woman of loose morals? What do you take ordinary women like us for?"
"She's right. This is too much."
"Just because she's the heir's wife, she thinks she can look down on everyone?"
"So high and mighty, and she can't even lay an egg. The heir ought to divorce her and be done with it."
The crowd's mood shifted, fed by Celeste's words, turning hostile toward me. People always resented the wealthy. Now that someone had made this about rich versus poor, they were all too eager to see the privileged brought low.
Celeste wiped her tears again and spoke. "Now that the three years of mourning are complete, Celeste finally dares to come before my lady and beg entry into the household. The heir's firstborn son cannot be born outside these walls. If he were, the child's legitimacy would forever be questioned. Surely that would only invite ridicule."
Heads nodded throughout the crowd.