Chapter 26
On 23rd June Victoria dissolved the parliament as requested by the Prime Minister. This led to the holding of elections.
The nausea had passed, which was a significant improvement.
In order for her to leave the palace and amuse herself, enjoying something she appreciated, Victoria and William went to the opera.
When the Queen entered the royal box God Save the Queen was played by the orchestra of Her Majesty's Theater.
The royal couple heard the hymn standing in the box.
Victoria loved showing William off beside her at public events! Expose to public opinion that she had managed to marry him and that they were a happy couple, even more now that there was a baby on the way. Actually that wasn't something that made her happy. In fact, it was something that worried her. However no one knew about this and for that hypocritical society what mattered was appearances and, among them, a family with children was the peak of achievement!
They were now on their way back to the palace in the royal chariot.
Victoria had sat down on William's right side. She lay down on his lap and said:
"My head hurts."
With his right arm he wrapped her against him, placing his hand on her belly. There was a public Victoria and another Victoria in private. Just for him! She was majestic in public, but humble, sweet and human in intimacy.
Victoria put her right hand over William's hand and asked:
"Do you think things will change? That I will feel for this baby what other women say they feel for their children?"
William closed his eyes. It was not easy to hear her say that she didn't feel anything for that child. But he hoped that with time things would be better.
"In the coming months you'll see that you will begin to feel affinity with this child. Otherwise, it will happen after the birth, when you first see it... or after that... It will be your child and I am sure that you will love it!"
He calmed her and gave her strength, even when it required him to find even a greater force inside him!
They were both already in the dressing room in their nightshirts.
She stared at the full-length mirror, observing her reflected body and face. The hands on the belly. The three-month pregnancy was barely noticeable.
William watched her from some distance, from the bedroom door.
He approached her, grabbed her by the waist and kissed her exposed left shoulder and then the neck.
She closed her eyes.
"My head hurts, William..." Victoria reminded.
"I know…"
He pushed her hair further to the side and continued to kiss her shoulders and back. He ran his teeth across her neck...
She turned to him. She kissed him on the mouth. First softly, then more excited.
He led her backwards to the bed as he continued to kiss her.
As they reached the side of the bed, she sat down and he knelt so he could continue to kiss her. He went down her chin, her neck, her chest. Then he kissed her breasts and belly over the fabric of her nightgown as he clutched her hips.
Victoria let him do it without reacting, enjoying only what she felt in his hands and mouth. She remembered he had acted in a similar way the first time they had been physically together in Brocket Hall. She let her body drop across the bed, as if she had fainted.
William followed her to get access to her mouth again. He ran back down her body with his mouth, over the cloth.
Victoria closed her eyes, sharpening her ability to feel his kisses. She was languid. Halfway between the need to take advantage of anything physical that he did to her and a certain prostration that didn't allow her to give much in retribution, but only to receive.
He lifted her nightgown and kissed her bare thighs. Then he pushed the nightgown up to her waist. There was no other piece of clothing underneath.
She dragged herself further into the bed and flexed her legs, raising her knees.
With the body positioned between her legs, he kissed her belly in the womb area.
Victoria thought it sweet that he kissed the child that was forming inside her!
He traced the skin of her body with kisses and with his tongue upwards, rolling the nightshirt in front of him.
She was willing to help and raised her arms above the head so he could undress her.
William undressed his nightshirt as well.
Then he kissed her breasts, now a little more bulky because of the pregnancy.
Victoria put her hands around his neck... on his head... the fingers through his hair... He was delicious! She missed him! That he activated her! There had been four weeks without them physically enjoying each other.
Then he came back down, kissing her continually as he used his hands to cup her breasts and squeeze her nipples progressively, measuring her reaction.
When he hit the end of her belly she expected him to... But he changed direction. He started to kiss the inside of her thighs. One and then the other.
Victoria moaned with pleasure.
He placed his arms around her hips, grabbing the top of her thighs, and pulled her closer.
Then his mouth came down! There, in the middle of her legs. He began to run his tongue from the bottom up between the folds of pink flesh, delicately separating them like they were petals of a flower. From one side to the other. First the tip of the tongue, then the surface... He kissed it. She was lubricated.
"Ooooh...! It's so good..." She let out.
The lower-abdomen, the mons veneris, the folds of flesh between the legs, everything was perfect! William encompassed with his open mouth all the inside of her legs, rumbled and sucked.
Victoria felt her core sucked in by him! She squirmed on the bed!
He inserted the tongue in it, moved it and then, coming from the inside out, ran it through the center. He went up. He concentrated on the highest, central point. He kissed, licked, sucked...
She was now very wet.
Victoria grabbed his head with both hands as he continued to act on her. She sank her fingers into the waves of his hair and listened to the guttural sounds and fiery sighs that made her desire spread even more. She wanted to lift her body higher; she wanted to see him better... She pulled one of the pillows on her right and placed it under her head to raise the viewing angle.
He alternated soft licks and faster ones.
She was on the verge of madness!
Victoria looked back to the middle of her legs and saw his head more explicitly there. The image was as exciting as what he was doing to her, alternating vertical movements, horizontal movements and circular movements...
Her breathing was growing faster and faster.
"Don't stop!" She asked.
He looked at her and continued to stimulate her.
She looked into his beautiful, bright, green eyes, and asked again:
"There, there... Don't stop, don't stop!"
Victoria closed her eyes, concentrating on the heat he made flow from her, she laid her head back and raised her feet soles, only her fingers resting on the mattress, in a movement that reproduced the crescendo of voluptuousness she felt in the place where he ran his tongue. She gripped the surface of the sheet on either side of the body with both hands, rested her soles again on the bed, arched her back, and it was extraordinary... In the continuous vortex of excitement she lowered her back and lifted her hips in spasms, squeezing his head between her legs.
He countered her movement, pressing her body on the bed with his arms and the middle of her legs with his mouth.
"Please! Please!" She exclaimed.
She was there! In his mouth!
Victoria let herself lie prostrate on the bed, breathing, recovering.
He ran over her belly again with kisses and tongue, her breasts, mouth... His mouth still tasted like her sex!
However, after this there was a void inside her. A void that needed to be filled!
"I want more!" She asked as she gave her neck to his mouth. "Inside me…"
He did it!
A few minutes of continuous agitation followed in contradance.
"Oh... Here it comes again!" She exclaimed.
"Yes, yes, yes..." He tried to rush her.
It was relatively fast. He was already very excited.
She got there again, already after he had spilled on her.
It ended.
The two of them were still lying on their backs across the bed.
He asked:
"Does your head still hurt?"
"No. The pain has gone."
"I thought it would."
He knew how to relieve the tension she had felt in the past weeks. It had only been necessary to wait for it to happen naturally, at the right moment.
"Doesn't it hurt the baby?" She asked.
"There are doctors who recommend abstinence throughout pregnancy and others who recommend containment only in the last months..."
"Abstinence for nine months?" She asked, turning her head to him looking worried.
"Well, Victoria, in our case, I don't think it will be for nine months anymore... And as for being harmful, actually, before we knew you were pregnant, we did the same thing..."
"But I cannot imagine being without you in the next few months..."
"Let's ask Dr. Charles Locock what he recommends." William counseled and kissed her forehead.
Victoria was tormented by that prospect. She couldn't conceive having his body away from her in the next few months! In the last few weeks she hadn't been willing, but now... And this perspective... She just needed him not to pull his body away from her. That would be torture and it wasn't fair! She had married for pleasure and not for being deprived of her own body, she had married to have him always with her, to be able to enjoy him as a man, to be his wife, not to carry babies...
The doctor advised moderation in nighttime activities and abstinence only in the last months. After the sixth month they weren't recommended because it was thought they could cause lesions in the mother's organs or interrupt the harmonious development of the fetus.
The prospect was not as bad as it had seemed, being moderation a subjective thing… Sharing in bed became frequent again; with the advantage that now she didn't run the risk of being with child... She was already with one…
Victoria integrated the idea of being pregnant.
She felt with strangeness and astonishment the first time she thought the baby had moved inside her.
The Whig party lost 70 seats in the general election and the Tories took control of the House of Commons.
The Queen opened the new Parliament on 24th August. But the government party was again defeated by an additional vote of no confidence on 27th August with 269 votes in favor and 360 against. It was the second time that Russell's government lost in a vote of no confidence in the same year.
As a result Russell resigned on 30th August, and Victoria was forced to invite the conservative leader Robert Peel to become prime minister and form a government. This time things were less complicated than they had been in 1839 because Victoria had already had the intermediate experience of having another prime minister who wasn't Lord M, but he was a Whig, and because now William was already her husband, she didn't miss him as she had at the time.
But that fact obligatorily determined changes in the Queen's house. Emma remained as a Lady of the Bedchamber, but Harriet ceased to be her Mistress of the Robes, being replaced, at Peel's proposal, by Charlotte Montagu Douglas Scott, Duchess of Buccleuch, a thirty-year-old woman. Victoria couldn't stop this change and settled to it.
William reminded her how he had been right when he told her that it didn't matter to resign the post of prime minister to be able to marry her, since soon his party would eventually fall in parliament.
Victoria sat at the piano. She played Alla Turca. William could already hear her from the corridor.
He stopped at the door of the piano room to hear her play.
To feel more at ease Victoria wore a wrapper, a dress opened in the front, looser and more comfortable for pregnant women.
She was engrossed in the music and didn't notice his presence.
Victoria finished the piece and the music stopped.
There was applause coming from the door, she turned her head and smiled.
William walked up to her smiling and sat down on the piano bench beside her, but with his back to the keyboard.
"Mozart! Piano Sonata..." He identified.
She leaned her head against his shoulder and he kissed her forehead.
Victoria moved her head away again.
William looked at her belly with a little more than 5 months.
Noticing his gaze, she asked:
"Will it always be like this?"
"What?"
"Every time we... I might be expecting another baby..."
"Well Victoria, you know... We can do as we did before... or we can try to use the barriers I've already explained to you. And it's not necessary that I enter you at all times..."
With determination in her voice she said:
"I desire you ardently, I always want you inside me, I love everything we do..." And then more calmly, "But I wished the result wasn't always this... Because my life changes so much in this condition..."
"I know, Victoria. But in the future we will be careful to prevent you from conceiving again soon. Maybe there's a time of the month when you're less likely to conceive, but medicine hasn't been able to set that deadline safely yet... After the menses, before the menses, in the middle of the month, all these theories have failed..."
"William!" She exclaimed suddenly, in a tone he didn't understand if it was surprise or fright, as she stared at her belly and grabbed it with both hands.
"Yes, Victoria! What is it?" He asked, seeing that she had placed both hands on her belly.
She stood silently staring at her belly, her hands over it.
After a few seconds of doubled attention to Victoria, which seemed like an eternity of waiting for William, she answered with a mix of discomfort and delight:
"It moved!"
William smiled and asked:
"Did our child move?"
Without answering, she grabbed his right hand and placed it on her belly with her hand on top.
They were silent.
It hadn't been possible for William to feel the baby move yet, and she had noticed that this time the movements were more evident.
It moved again! William felt it! His child! Their child! It had moved inside her! For him that was a unique moment, to feel the pulsating life of that tiny little being that was forming inside her, fruit of their love!
He rolled over on the bench, facing the piano keyboard. He put his left arm around her shoulders and placed his right hand on the round volume of her belly again. He declared in astonishment:
"Oh, Victoria! This is wonderful!" And then he asked, "Do you see how beautiful it is? The life you have inside you?"
She thought it strange, but in the face of his contentment she could only be softened. Victoria smiled and exclaimed:
"By the reaction, I think it must like music!"
William laughed and nodded.
"It seems so! Maybe if you play more often it'll enjoy it."
After a few seconds of silence he asked:
"Remember the day I sat next to you on the piano bench years ago to encourage you to appear again in public after the scandal with Flora Hastings?"
"Of course! For as long as I live, I will never forget that day!"
"In that conversation I told you for the first time about my son who had died..."
With tears welling up her eyes, she interrupted him:
"I thought it was so sad! I was so moved! You told me that, after he died, you no longer had any reason to live, but that through me a new reason had been given to you..."
Equally touched, he fulfilled the explanation he wanted to make:
"It's true Victoria! And now I have two strong reasons to live! You and our child! And today I felt its life for the first time on the same piano bench where I told you about Augustus' death for the first time... This child doesn't replace the son I lost, but it is as if my life story is being repositioned... Today I have the woman I wished for and I will have the child that I dreamed of. There is a family where before there was only loneliness, and there is love where before there was only pain!"
Victoria smiled and added:
"And our child likes Mozart, like you do, William!"
"Maybe, Victoria, maybe..." He said making a smile with an underlying sadness.
They kissed tenderly.
Victoria felt that his love for that child was so great that she could only love it too!
The Duchess of Kent was always recommending that Victoria should rest, but she didn't feel like resting. Conversely William gave her freedom to do whatever she wanted, as long as it didn't endanger her safety and the baby's. He realized that it was necessary to give her freedom so that she could live that pregnancy as healthy as possible, she couldn't bear to live confined.
Theater, opera and music were safe amusements. Walking in the garden, painting... However, some activities were out of the question. Two of them were Victoria's favorites: dances were out of bounds of possible entertainment and riding was too risky and therefore completely impossible. Since she couldn't ride, William didn't do it all by himself, as that would only annoy her more. She insisted for him to go, but he wouldn't, he would keep her company. He cared about her, not just the baby. She felt valued by him. She was as important to him as the child she carried inside her.
In addition to the meetings, the dispatches of daily affairs, and the official appointments she kept going to as long as she could, what remained still was sitting and reading. He liked to put his hand on her belly, over her dress, while they worked or while they read next to each other. Obviously he didn't tell her about the many circumstances in which labor could go wrong. On the other hand, William would show her the Atlas with the drawings of the inside of pregnant women's bodies so that she would know how the process would work at the time of childbirth. Some were very detailed about the moment of the expulsion of the fetus which, in a way, made this approach more reassuring.
In her situation, as a reigning monarch with no chance for her sons to ascend the throne, there wasn't the pressure to have a male heir, nor was her function seen as if she were only the reproducer of a dynasty.
Food intake increased, of sweets especially.
William reassured her. Victoria really began to live that pregnancy in the best possible way.
They were both lying on the bed at night.
Victoria wrapped her hands around her belly, a gesture that was now repeated more and more constantly.
Though strange at first, the feeling of life within her began to feel pleasant, as if that baby communicated.
William put his left hand on her belly and leaned over her kissing her over the cloth. Then, slowly, he lifted her nightgown exposing her belly. He stroked her skin and kissed it tenderly. He loved kissing her belly!
"You're wonderful Victoria! And your belly is beautiful!" He remarked.
Victoria smiled slightly. She felt beautiful, loved and desired as a woman, regardless of the fact that her belly was growing more and more.
William laid his head carefully on her belly.
She put her hands on his head and caressed his hair and face.
He heard the baby's heartbeat, smiled at her, and said:
"His little heart... is beating!"
Victoria smiled more deeply and continued to caress his face. She was fond of the affection he showed for a child who hadn't yet been born and felt that the prospect of birth appeased him; that this child was to occupy the emptiness left by those who had died under different circumstances. As he himself had said, she knew they would never be replaced by this other baby, but in a way, this child would be a restitution in William's life.
In recent times Victoria felt more relaxed, more cheerful, and more enthusiastic about this new perspective in her life.
He lifted the head from her belly and kissed her mouth. He caressed her breasts and thighs.
The pregnancy had made Victoria somewhat more excitable, and William loved to enjoy the body of a pregnant Victory who had grown round and voluminous in various parts: legs, hips, breasts...
Now there would be a moment to enjoy each other...
For Victoria the best way to do it was lying on her left side, with William positioned behind her back. The belly was then comfortably supported and she didn't have to make any effort. With the left leg stretched out and her right leg bent, it was enough to wait for him to slowly enter her, to move slowly and gradually intensify the movement. If she arched her back and lifted her right arm above the head, the sensation was even more pleasant.
William was in the hallway on his way to the office while thinking that his comments on the Greek homilies of St. Chrysostom were now a distant enterprise. After the wedding there had been no more time for this task, or that partial identification with the real and legendary life of the saint. Like St. Chrysostom, it seemed that he had already atoned for all sins and had been welcomed into a kingdom of bliss!
He heard the music coming from the piano room. The first movement of Mozart's Sonata No.16.
He smiled.
She was playing for the baby! And she was specifically playing Mozart!
He knew that through the example of love for that child he gave her, she was learning to love their child!
In the seventh month of pregnancy Victoria and William continued to enjoy each other in nighttime activities. By medical recommendation, they should have already stopped, but it wasn't possible to comply with abstinence, just try to have some moderation...
This practice was, in fact, attenuating the pain on Victoria's back, and she loved that he continued to desire her.
From the start of the eighth month things started to get tough again. Her tension and nervousness increased before the perspective of the delivery approaching. The physical relationship between them subsided. She wasn't willing. Before her frame of emotions, he didn't feel like it either.
Victoria was sitting on the edge of the garden lake.
Achilles was playing in the proximities for the delight of Viscountess Jocelyn, William's niece, and the Duchess of Buccleuch, two more recent presences in Victoria's life, but with whom she had a friendly relationship.
William was seen walking towards the Queen and the two ladies turned away calling Achilles.
He sat on the edge of the lake beside her.
After a while in silence - which he found strange - she began to cry.
"My dear, what's the matter?" He asked, grabbing her hands.
"I'm scared of the pain..."
He hugged her and said:
"I cannot say that there will be no pain, because we both know there will be, but try not to live it by anticipation. Childbirth is difficult, but you are strong. You are such a fighter. If you weren't we wouldn't be here now..."
She smiled at him and William kissed her forehead.
Now in addition to her feeling bad, there was something going on with him. She knew there was. He was quieter and more silent, and there was an underlying sadness. He was very affectionate with her, as usual, but he was different. As if some thought that worried him was haunting him. She knew him very well. She didn't ask anything to give him the opportunity to tell her if he wanted to. But that was becoming an enigma and a concern for her. She thought about what Emily had said; that sometimes it was difficult for him to deal with some emotions, but that didn't mean that something had happened in his relationship with her. She remembered the birthday and death anniversary of his son, but none of those dates were approaching. There had to be another reason.
Despite her physical discomfort, they decided to travel to Brocket Hall to stay there for a few days. Perhaps the change of air, the calm of the countryside and the distance from the political affairs of London would have a reassuring effect on her. She let that be the reason for the trip, but she wanted to be alone with him in a place with more privacy that would maybe help him to open up to her.
At Brocket Hall her mood improved, but things didn't change with him.
That day at the end of the dinner, still sitting at the table, she placed her left hand on his right hand, which rested on the towel, and asked:
"William, what's the matter?"
"Nothing. Why?"
"I think you are very quiet. Something seems to worry you."
"I'm tired, that's all." He said as he removed his hand from under hers and placed it on top, caressing it tenderly.
"Have we had much work lately? I didn't notice much difference."
"The work may not be much different... I'm the one who no longer can handle as much as I could..."
Victoria thought she had understood what was going on.
"Do you want to reduce the number of hours you work with me?"
"No!"
"I'm serious, dear! It doesn't matter. You can collaborate less..."
"But I don't want to. The fatigue will pass; it's just a phase... That is why these days here are also good for me. You'll see that when we get back to Buckingham we'll both be recovered!"
Victoria didn't insist.
When they lay on the bed he hugged her tightly, pressing her against him and kissed her forehead. Her belly between them. It was a normal gesture. He did that many times. But there was something in the way he did it that day that made Victoria apprehensive. He had done it as if he was comforting her for something that had happened to her or that she had lost. And this was strange because nothing had happened in her life that would justify that way of embracing her.
No, the matter wasn't only the fatigue he alleged. She knew better. It was only that she couldn't read him as well as he read her! She was an open book to him. He sensed everything about her. But he was difficult to read, to interpret more deeply what really happened with him.
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