"Why must you humiliate me, my lady? Is it simply because I come from a poor family that I must be a woman of loose morals? What do you take ordinary women like us for?"
"She's right. This is too much."
"Just because she's the heir's wife, she thinks she can look down on everyone?"
"So high and mighty, and she can't even give him a son. The heir ought to dissolve the marriage and be done with it."
The crowd's mood shifted, fed by Gianna's words, turning hostile toward me. People always resented the powerful. Now that someone had made this about Family wealth versus the common street, they were all too eager to see the privileged brought low.
Gianna wiped her tears again and spoke. "Now that the three years of mourning are complete, Gianna finally dares to come before my lady and beg entry into the household. The heir's firstborn son cannot be born outside these walls. If he were, the child's legitimacy would forever be questioned. Surely that would only invite ridicule."
Heads nodded throughout the crowd.