She touched her belly again. Since returning to Carnford, life had become peaceful and her meals regular. The smooth abdominal lines and firm muscles she once had were gone, never to return.
Her lower belly had grown soft, rising ever so slightly—not from weight gain, but because a new life was growing there once more.
The feeling was strange and wonderful. When she had first carried Klein, her relationship with Karl had been delicate, and with the Princess meddling between them, she had spent every day on tenterhooks. She had never had the time to truly savor the joy of nurturing a life.
But this time, in an utterly secure environment, she could finally calm herself and feel the changes in her body.
Sometimes, she would rest a hand over her lower belly and imagine that tiny life within slowly growing. Then an indescribable tenderness would rise in her heart.
Karl had once told her that he liked the way she was now. He said she possessed a mature, gentle beauty unlike the one she had in her girlish years.
When he said it, his gaze was as gentle as a lake in spring, making her feel like the happiest woman in the world. Yet Charlotte herself still sometimes felt a little wistful.
The dashing female knight who had once galloped freely and cut down enemies on the battlefield with her sword seemed gone forever. The woman in the mirror had a somewhat rounder face, a few more gentle traces between her brows, and a little less sharpness.
Now, she had become a wife who worried every day for her husband's safety, and a mother who had to care for a young child.
She would wake in the dead of night and listen closely to the wind outside the window,