Author's note: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, especially to those whom I couldn't contact personally. I hope you will enjoy this chapter too.
I think it's worth mentioning that although comparatively few people reading this story I got four reviews - I think this is pretty amazing.
Chapter one
June, 1888
"Irene, darling, how are you? Not sick again I hope?"
She muttered something incoherent that could hardly be considered nice if he had been able to hear it but as it was, she wouldn't care even if he did.
"You really should see a doctor about this stomach bug my dear, by all means, this can't be healthy. I shall fetch one for you right away."
Irene turned her head a bit as she heard him hurrying out of the room. She couldn't really remember why she'd thought that marrying Godfrey Norton was a good idea when there had been so many other possibly willing suitors she could have chosen. They had been married for about three months by now, and it already wasn't what one would call a normal, healthy relationship anymore. Probably had never been at that. After she'd spent her wedding night with a certain Mister Sherlock Holmes rather than her new husband they hadn't been intimate for about one more month as she had constantly been on the run from the heriditary King of Bohemia and he had had to go back to London to settle a few transactions. Now they'd settled down in Rennes, a rather nice Breton city in the east of France, far enough away from Bohemia for her and near enough to England for her husband's liking.
"Ma'am?"
"Yes?" She looked up at the small blonde maid.
"The doctor is here." Irene nodded and made a small motion with her hand, indicating her that she should send him in. She let him examine her as her thoughts drifted to the world's most famous detective. She often looked at his watch, wondering if he thought of her as often as she did of him. He'd probably be running through London right now, on the way to solving yet another great mystery. How she wished she could be there with him right now.
"Do you have any other symptoms besides being sick in the morning?" The doctor asked in a heavily accented voice, ripping her out of her daydreams.
"My head is almost constantly spinning nowadays and I think it was about a week ago that I fainted. Besides that I'm sick all through the day and I can't stand certain smells anymore." She sounded miserable, even to her own ears, and hated herself for showing even the tiniest bit of weakness.
"When was the last time you had your period?" He asked leaning forward.
"Excuse me?" She shrieked, flinching back.
"Please just answer the question ma'am." He tried to stay as calm as possible as he saw the woman in front of him widening her eyes in shock.
"About three and a half months ago." Irene answered hesitantly, still eyeing him sceptically.
"Then I'd say that you are indeed not ill but rather about three months pregnant." She didn't get anything of what he said after that announcement as in her head it sort of all blurred together. Sigismond coming to London, her marrying Godfrey and then meeting Sherlock Holmes, taking him with her to the Grand, sleeping with him, lying in his arms the whole night long-
She felt nauseaus suddenly, lightheaded, as if she was about to pass out again. Desperately she tried to focus on the doctor's face in front of her till she could see it clearly again.
"Shall I tell your husband or do you want to do the honors yourself?"
Her hand flew to her mouth as she shook her head vehemently, startling the man still sitting beside her. "I'll do it myself." She said huskily, turning her head away from him as she felt the tears welling up in her eyes. She heard him exiting the room as she bit down on her fist to prevent herself from making a sound. She couldn't tell him.
That would not only seal her fate but that of her child too.
Single women with a child were frowned upon, spurned and ostracized by society, but for married women bearing another man's child it was even worse. But she was married, and she had no way of coming out of it soon, so her only real possibility was to hope that her child would look like her and she could pass it off as her husband's.
"Darling?" She heard her husband's heavy footsteps on the other side of the door coming nearer. She fixed a smile on her face as he gripped the handle, opening the door, hoping that her eyes wouldn't give her away.
"Darling, are you alright?" She watched him sitting down on the edge of the bed and unconsciously shifted away from him.
"Godfrey-" she began hesitantly, her hands resting on her stomach, feeling for the light curve she knew would soon be there. "Godfrey, I'm pregnant."
December 17, 1888
The next six months after that fateful morning in Rennes were a blurr to her. She'd gone to the telegraph office too many times to count, waiting for the courage to send him a wire to build up but had come off empty-handed every time. She wasn't sure what she'd expected him to do if she ever had nerve enough to actually follow through with her plans. At some point she'd started to go there just out of a habit, already knowing she wouldn't send him a message before she was even there, and one morning she came to the decision that she would have to raise their child on her own.
Now, six months later Irene lay writhing on her bed, the pain she was in worse than everything she'd ever felt. Her husband was listening to Mozart's Rondo alla Turca at full volume –he'd bought a gramophone just last month– in the adjoining sitting room to drown her crys.
She felt as if she was fainting every second now, fading out everything besides the doctor's face at the end of the bed and the midwife's almost hysteric voice, telling her she had to keep pushing. Everything around her blurred together till she couldn't distinguish the noises in her room from Mozart still playing in the next room anymore.
And suddenly it was all over. Her head was spinning, she was dizzy, but not in pain anymore, and she could hear her child's crys. Tears welled up in her eyes as they placed her child in her arms, congratulating her to a beautiful daughter.
"Your husband told me you could name the child ma'am?" The doctor asked lowly.
Irene nodded as she looked down at the small bundle in her arms, she hadn't thought about names all that much. The little girl had a few strays of auburn-brownish hair covering her head, very much the same shade as her own, but then she opened her eyes and stared at her with blueish-grey eyes, eyes like neither Irene nor her husband had, but rather her real father.
"Ma'am?" The doctor asked, a pen already in his hand.
"Louise. Louise Irene Adler." She answered, caressing her daughter's head.
"Adler ma'am?"
She nodded. "Louise Irene Adler. Born to Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes on December 17, 1888."
The doctor paused, his hand hovering over the paper. "To Mr Sherlock Holmes ma'am?" He asked uncertainly. "Not to Mr Godfrey Norton?"
"No." She said curtly. "And I would prefer it if this stayed between the two of us."
He nodded obediently and hurried out of the room. She just hoped he would keep his promise.
March 1890
Time seemed to have flown by after Louise's birth. Her daughter was a little bit more than one year old now, and Irene found herself often spending time with her and missing the girl when she wasn't with her. She found her daughter rather intelligent, after all she'd said her first word at the tender age of only nine months, and she often wondered whether it was Sherlock's intelligence or her witty persona that was coming through in her. She took the girl with her to the opera, or sang for her in hope to pass her passion for music to her, as well as escaping her husband's presence from time to time.
Godfrey had soon had to realize that even marriage couldn't tame his wife's adventurous nature, and after the bitterness over this had vanished, frustration, and with it abusion, had taken its place. Irene put all her efforts into protecting her daughter at all costs, stubbornly keeping quiet whenever he asked why 'his' daughter didn't look like him in the slightest, or why she wouldn't let him be around her as often as he desired.
He didn't find it suitable that she didn't want a nanny to look after her child, and as he just employed one one day, she didn't leave her daughter with her anyways. He didn't like it that she let her daughter sleep in a cradle in her room and that she was always near her. And last but not least, his frustrations had gotten the better of him the day he'd found out that Louise's surname wasn't Norton like he'd assumed, but Adler, and he hadn't been able to find a reason for it. She'd keeled over at the second blow.
The next day, Irene had looked for a lawyer to file a petition for divorce.
March 22, 1890
It was late at night when she hovered over Louise's small cradle standing next to her bed, listening to her faint, even breathing. She'd sung for her for the last two hours, trying to get her to sleep, but the little girl had been bent on crying so much, that finally she had seen no alternative to giving her a brandy soaked cloth to chew on to calm her down. She was probably teething, she thought as she watched her sleeping.
"Irene?" She heard the hollering voice of her husband coming towards her room. "Irene." He yelled again as he tore open the door, not caring about the sleeping girl inside. "I've gotten a wire from the court house today. Guess what it says?"
She hadn't ever seen him so mad. His face was ashen safe from his flushed cheeks and his blood-shot eyes under which were dark circles. "You are filing for a divorce?"
She nodded, positioning herself between him and the crib.
He turned scarlet, his hands shaking as he came towards her. "I'll take your money, I'll take your jewelry, and I'll take your child, and you won't ever see her again."
"You cannot take my possessions, they are legally mine." Irene said, her voice shaking with barely concealed fury. "And you cannot take a child from me that isn't yours."
That seemed to knock the wind out of him as he stopped just in front of her, his face turning ashen again. "She is my child as much as she is yours. The fact that she bears your maiden name has nothing to do with this."
She shook her head, her chestnut curls cascading down her back. "Look at her birth certificate. Louise Irene Adler, born to Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes on December 17, 1888."
She didn't see his hand coming, and even if she had, she wasn't sure if she had been strong enough to break the force of the blow. His hand collided painfully with her head, the impact knocking the air out of her body. The last thing she heard before she passed out was his hoarse voice.
"I'll get back at you for that, I promise."
Information: Like you may have noticed, this time I actually considered the 'Married Women's Property Act 1882' cause I didn't want Godfrey to be able to take all her possessions from our heroine. Furthermore, it's highly unlikely that he bought a gramophone in 1888, as they were only patented in 1887 by Emil Berliner, but I think music always fits, no matter the subject, and I found myself listening to Mozart's Rondo alla Turca when I wrote this.
At that time (1890) women were actually able to file for divorce, had been since the 'Matrimonial Causes Act' became law in 1857, although at the beginning they had only limited access to divorce and had to prove besides their husband's adultery also incest, bigamy, cruelty, or desertion.
Sadly, violence against women as well as marital rape were quite common and almost 'normal' among the middle and upper class of Victorian society.
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