However, Eilidh relaxed further into him.
“A bit of memory returned,” she said. “I saw my hand lighting a fuse.”
Kieran froze, breath seizing in his chest. “What do you mean?”
“Just that. I saw my hand grasp a taper and then light a fuse. The sort of fuse one uses for explosives.”
He blinked, mind scrambling, unsure how to interpret this.
“Ye liked building fireworks with Mr. Chen, lass,” he finally said. “I would imagine ye are just remembering one of those incidents.”
She paused, as if this possibility had not occurred to her.
“Perhaps,” she began slowly. “Itfeelsmore important than that. As if . . . it is tied to emotion somehow. In my memory, my heart is beating rapidly, and I feel jittery—worried but determined. So . . .”
She stopped, swallowing again. When she continued, her voice was once more thick with tears.
“So . . . I have to know if I loved my baby. You said that Jamie was the sort of person who would have blown up the ship if she deemed it necessary. I need to know. I need to believe that I loved my baby and other people, like Mr. Chen, enough to not do something like that.
“Part of me admires this Jamie ye speak of. She sounds courageous and self-sacrificing. But I worry that she was also hot-headed and impulsive. That she m-might have h-harmed those she l-loved.”
Eilidh burrowed into him again, quiet sobs rocking her shoulders.
Kieran held her.
He said nothing.
Jamie would have blown up the ship, if she felt it necessary. Of that, he was certain.
But—
“Ye survived, lass,” he murmured. “That is proof enough that ye loved your babe. Ye did what ye must to protect yourself and her.”
“B-but what about Mr. Chen? W-what about the others?”
Kieran held silent.
He didn’t have a satisfactory answer there.
“I still strongly doubt that the memory you have recalled involves setting powder alight to destroy the ship.”
She sniffed. “B-but you cannot say it isnot,either.”
In her wisdom, Eilidh was not wrong.
Jamie had been many brilliant, fierce things, but she could also be rash and reckless in her decisions.
Like the one that had left her alone on that damned ship in the first place.
But Eilidh . . .
The seeds of Jamie were still there.
She was, despite everything, the same person.
But her courage was a quieter thing now.
The strength of someone who had known agonizing loss.
