Louise stopped typing and gazed out of the window. Her new study in the farmhouse spare bedroom looked south over her fields and towards the common. It was early autumn. Andrew was ploughing a field for winter wheat and seagulls flew up like a plume of silver white smoke from behind the plough. The common beyond the little red tractor was in shades of ochre, bronze, russet and sepia. The dryer higher patches of grass were a pale bleached yellow and where the autumn bracken lay thick, a foxy auburn colour predominated.
Louise sat back, resting her feet on Rose’s mongrel dog Lloyd George, at his customary place under her desk. She re-read what she had written, unaware as usual that she had completely failed to comment on Lawrence but had successfully described her own emotional state.
She rested a hand on the swell of her belly and felt for the first time the extraordinary sensation of the baby moving inside her. At once the little shape she had seen on the hospital scanner, the little patter of heartbeats, meant something more: the start of a new life, an individual taking shape, an heir for the farm, a child for Andrew and Louise.
Lawrence, the patriarchy, the evolution of new sexual relationships all receded into the background. Louise sat very still, her eyes on the sweet slopes of the Sussex hills, a little smile on her face, waiting for their baby to move again.
THE END
About the Author
Philippa Gregory is an internationally renowned author of historical novels. She holds a PhD in eighteenth-century literature from the University of Edinburgh. Works that have been adapted for television include A Respectable Trade, The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen’s Fool. The Other Boleyn Girl is now a major film, starring Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman and Eric Bana. Philippa Gregory lives in the North of England with her family.
Also by the Author
The Tudor Court Series
THE CONSTANT PRINCESS
THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL
THE BOLEYN INHERITANCE
THE QUEEN’S FOOL
THE VIRGIN’S LOVER
THE OTHER QUEEN
The Wideacre Trilogy
WIDEACRE
THE FAVOURED CHILD
MERIDON
Earthly Joys
EARTHLY JOYS
The Cousins’ War
THE LADY OF THE RIVERS
THE WHITE QUEEN
THE RED QUEEN
THE KINGMAKER’S DAUGHTER
THE WHITE PRINCESS
Standalones
PERFECTLY CORRECT
ALICE HARTLEY’S HAPPINESS
A RESPECTABLE TRADE
THE WISE WOMAN
FALLEN SKIES
THE LITTLE HOUSE
ZELDA’S CUT
Short Stories
BREAD AND CHOCOLATE
Copyright
Harper
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1996
Copyright © Philippa Gregory Ltd 1996
Philippa Gregory asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780002253154
Ebook Edition © JULY 2010 ISBN: 9780007400003
Version: 2013–09–04
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