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Meust 1892

Birthing a bastard wasn&039;t in the plans When she&039;d learned she was carrying her lover&039;s child, the shock and panic turned quickly to anger

There ays of dealing with it, of course A woman in her position had contacts, had avenues But she was afraid of them, nearly as afraid of the abortionists as she was of as growing, unwanted, inside her

The inald Harper couldn&039;t afford pregnancy

He&039;d kept her for nearly two years now, and kept her well Oh, she knew he kept others - including his wife - but they didn&039;t concern her

She was still young, and she was beautiful Youth and beauty were products that could be marketed She&039;d done so, for nearly a decade, with steely mind and heart And she&039;d profited by therace and char the fine ladies who&039;d visited the grand house on the river where her mother had worked

She&039;d been educated - a bit But more than books and music, she&039;d learned the arts of flirtation

She&039;d sold herself for the first ti with the coin But prostitution wasn&039;t her goal, anyoff to the factory day after day She knew the difference bethore and mistress A whore traded quick and cold sex for pennies and was forgotten before the ain

But a mistress - a clever and successful mistress - offered ro with the co wall, a sexual fantasy An aain much

Amelia Ellen Conner had ambitions

And she&039;d achieved theinald quite carefully He wasn&039;t handsome or brilliant of mind But he was, as her research had assured her, very rich and very unfaithful to the thin and proper ho presided over Harper House

He had a woman in Natchez, and it was said he kept another in New Orleans He could afford another, so Ahts on him Wooed and won him

At twenty-four, she lived in a pretty house on South Main and had three servants of her own Her wardrobe was full of beautiful clothes, and her jewelry case sparkled

It was true she wasn&039;t received by the fine ladies she&039;d once envied, but there was a fashionable half world where a woman of her station elcome Where she was envied

She threw lavish parties She traveled She lived

Then, hardly inald had tucked her into that pretty house, her clever, craftily designed world crashed

She would have hidden it froe to visit the red-light district and end the thing But he&039;d caught her when she was violently ill, and he&039;d studied her face with those dark, shrewd eyes

And he&039;d known

He&039;d not only been pleased but had forbidden her to end the pregnancy To her shock, he&039;d bought her a sapphire bracelet to celebrate her situation

She hadn&039;t wanted the child, but he had

So she began to see how the child could work for her As the inald Harper&039;s child - bastard or no - she would be cared for in perpetuity Heto her bed as she lost the bloom of youth, as beauty faded, but he would support her, and the child

His wife hadn&039;t given hih the last chills of winter and into the spring, she carried the child and planned for her future

Then soe happened It moved inside her Flutters and stretches, playful kicks The child she hadn&039;t wanted becarew inside her like a flower that only she could see, could feel, could know And so did a strong and terrible love

Through the sweltering, sticky heat of the summer she bloomed, and for the first ti other than herself and her own comfort