The servants knew within two days.
No one told Eleanor this. No one needed to.
Conversations stopped when she entered rooms. The housekeeper began addressing Hartmann with exaggerated formality. Two maids refused to meet Eleanor’s eyes.
Matthias did not accuse her publicly.
In some ways, that was worse.
He ate separately.
He ordered the nursery moved to the north wing.
He sent Felix’s nurse away and replaced her with a widow from Regensburg who had worked for his aunt.
When Eleanor objected, Matthias said, “I am protecting my son.”
“From whom?”
He looked at her.
She slapped the table with her palm.
“Say it.”
He did not.
“Say it to my face.”
Matthias pushed back his chair.
“Not in front of the servants.”
“Then stop humiliating me in front of them.”
He turned toward the door.
Eleanor caught up with him in the corridor.
“Matthias.”
He continued walking.
“Matthias.”
He stopped.
She lowered her voice.
“I have never been with another man.”
He stared at the wall instead of her.
“I swear it.”
“Do not.”
“On my mother’s grave.”
“Don’t.”
“On the Host itself, if that’s what you need.”
He finally looked at her.
His face was exhausted.
“What I need,” he said, “is for that child not to have another man’s face.”
Eleanor stepped back.
There were cruelties people committed deliberately and cruelties they discovered only after speaking.
Matthias seemed to know which kind this was.
He reached for her.
She moved away.
