I’m so sorry, Nick—I didn’t know.She sent the thought toward the heavens before concentrating once more on the man lying next to her.
“Nonna wept into the night. She was me first woman, but I was to find out the bitter truth that I wasna her first man. She had lain with another in hopes that it would make me refuse her.” Conall swallowed. “’Twas how it was to be the whole of our marriage, until she died—she withheld herself from me, as a wife to a husband. Only when I would press her, shame her, guilt her into yielding would she relent to me. And ’twas always grudgingly, and with nae even the smallest kindness in her. I was…I was verra lonely. Especially after Da passed. Duncan had Mam. My town was sick, failing. I was failing. Me own wife didna want me.”
Evelyn wanted to cry. Never had she thought to see or hear Conall MacKerrick so vulnerable, so needing. She had to struggle to maintain her quiet lest she break the spell of the highlander’s dark memories. She wanted them all, greedily wanted every last, painful one of them.
“The last time Nonna and I were together as husband and wife, I was…” He paused, as if gathering his courage. “I was drunk. Loud and hateful. I demanded my due from her. She yielded to me, but when ’twas over, she vowed she would die by her own hand rather than let me touch her in that manner ever again. And I never did.”
Now Evelyn could feel tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, slipping over the bridge of her nose and down her cheek to fall on the ticking below. Such sadness, for them both.
“And now, Eve,” he said, startling her with his address, “I will tell you of my…my locket. Please…” He broke off as if he didn’t know what he was going to ask of her, and then just let the plea dangle.
“I told you that Nonna died of illness, and that is true. Shewasill. But I didna tell you that the illness that killed her was”—he swallowed—“it was my child.”
Evelyn gasped and her stomach tried to turn itself inside out. A chill of fear swept over her and she felt herself curl instinctively around her belly.
“Nonna became pregnant on that drunken night. I was so”—he seemed to search for the right word—“happy.My bairn. Me own companion, to bestow my pride on. I cared not that it was a lad or a gel.
“Nonna, though—my God, she was inconsolable. She made it clear she didna want the child and, in truth, I had to set Duncan upon her while I was about town business to be certain she didna harm herself or the bairn. She’d nae eat for days and by the time she was half gone with child, she’d so little strength left, so little flesh on her, she took to our bed. And she never left it.”
Evelyn turned her face into her arm so as not to have to look at Conall and reveal her fear and pain. His words stabbed at her mercilessly.
“She lasted longer than any of us dared hope. I came immediately when her pains started. But she wouldna have me at her side. Screamed that she hated me, hated the bairn, hated the very earth on which I stood. Duncan attended her in my stead, God bless him.”
Evelyn became very still while she waited for the tale to find its vicious end.
“’Twas a wee, wee lass,” Conall whispered. “So tiny, like a mouse, but with thick, black hair like her mother. She never had the strength to take her first breath, never…never reached out a little fist.” Conall’s voice grew choked and he paused as he held up his own clenched hand, ignoring Evelyn’s silent sobs that shook the ticking. “Nonna slipped away with the blood that ran out of her. When I saw her—after—she looked…at peace.
“But my wee girl, she was gone!” His last words were little more than a croak. Conall drew a long, sniffling breath and blew it out harshly. “Although her mother never wanted her, I could not bear…I could not bear the thought of her little body laid to rest all alone. So I washed her and wrapped her with Nonna.” He gave a harsh cry—anger, grief, deep, deep pain. “But before I let her go, I took a lock of her fine, black hair—like down. And I tied it into this love knot. And then—and then—I let her go.”
He gasped and Evelyn looked up from her arm to see him cover his eyes with his hand, his mouth pulled wide in his grief.
Without hesitation, Evelyn wrapped herself around Conall’s body, holding him more tightly than she had ever held another person while they both cried.
God, she was terrified. The tale of Nonna’s childbed death haunted her and stirred up the creaky old fear of her own frailty, of her own bloody emergence into this world at the expense of her mother’s life.
But now she was more frightened for Conall than for herself. Evelyn thought she now understood what the child growing inside her meant to Conall and it both thrilled and frightened her. If Evelyn was to die while birthing their baby—if the child was not strong and healthy—she knew it would kill him.
Conall’s arms came around her at last, his hitching breaths finally controlled. “I have worsened your fear, have I not?” he asked, his voice heavy with regret.
Evelyn sniffed and shook her head. “Nay,” she said and looked up at his face. She tried to give him a smile but feared it fell short. “’Tis no worse than it was before. But one thing has changed.”
Conall stilled.
“Iwantto give you this child, Conall. I want you to have your bonny gel or wee lad for a companion, to mayhap one day lead your clan.” She leaned up to frame his disbelieving face with her hands, very aware of her mounded belly pressing into him. “And I want him to have his father, the man who loves him with all his heart and would die for him.”
“I do,” he said. “And I would. Eve, I will keep you safe. Our family…I…”
Say it, she pleaded silently.Tell me you love me, Conall.
“What?” she whispered.
His lips pressed together tightly for a moment. “Thank you, Eve.”
Evelyn returned his smile as best she could.
Chapter Seventeen
Six weeks passed, washing Conall and Eve along with great, cold showers that soaked the days and the clearing, dusting the trees and brambles in chilly, vivid, furry green.
