So sorry for the delay! (Actually I wasn't even sure there would be a second chapter to this, but here it is).
Thanks a lot!
She is late, but not very. It could be just a trick of her body. Maybe a miscalculation of her part. Perhaps she didn't mark the dates correctly the last time and she is not late at all.
But she knows, on her heart of hearts, that she is not mistaken. As she washes in the morning early light, getting ready for a day of work, she pauses for just a moment and looks at her middle. Of course, there is nothing to be seen. She has never seen a thing there, all the previous experiences finishing long before there was something big enough to see.
No. Anna shakes her head. She cannot think like that, not this time around.
Lady Mary had taken her to a proper doctor, they have discussed possibilities. She doesn't want to hope, and she can hear the words as were said by Mr Bates so many years ago. "Nothing's harder to live with than false hope".
She can't help it though. She is hoping.
When she meets him downstairs to walk together to the Abbey, she is tempted to tell him. All of it. How she went to the doctor, how he had given her some real possibilities, how she might be pregnant and how maybe, just maybe-
Only, she doesn't. There has been too much disappointment already and even though she wishes for nothing more than to see that sparkle of happiness in his eyes, she knows she has to wait.
For everybody's sake.