Celeste's eyes brimmed over, and she wept aloud. "Only because Celeste had to observe three years of mourning for her late father and could not marry during that time. That is the only reason it has been delayed. Celeste's virtue is beyond reproach. I am not that kind of woman."
"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 lay an egg. The heir ought to divorce her and be done with it."
The crowd's mood shifted, fed by Celeste's words, turning hostile toward me. People always resented the wealthy. Now that someone had made this about rich versus poor, they were all too eager to see the privileged brought low.