Agony and shock flashed across his face. As if her words had been a stiletto strike between the third and fourth ribs.
“Aye!” she huffed. “Ye don’t think for one breath that I wanted that babe, do ye? What woman would? A child conceived in sin and pain? What life would such a child have had? Even Reverend Gillespie said that it was a mercy from God that the babe died. And I’m glad of it!”
Kieran stared atJamie.
Her words were a blow to the solar plexus, punching the air from his lungs and leaving him gasping.
The reverend had told him the babe was no more.
Logically, Kieran had known this.
But . . .
He had assumed that Jamie would have loved their child, no matter her circumstances. After all, the babe was an innocent life.
But this?
Ye don’t think for one breath that I wanted that babe, do ye?
The babe died, and I’m glad of it!
Toknowthat their baby had passed on—unwanted, unloved, and unmourned.
He swallowed back what felt like the whimper of a wounded animal.
She doesnae know, a part of him whispered.She doesnae remember. She will feel differently when she does.
But would she? Feel differently? Or even . . . remember?
His Jamie swiped the tears from her face with a clenched fist, as if eager to rid herself of any memory of their child.
Their child!
He had to tell her, did he not? No matter Alex’s warning?
She had to know that she was his wife. That she had once thought differently about their bairn. That this anguish she carried—assuming their baby resulted from an illicit liaison—was unwarranted.
But . . .
Would she believe him? And would he be telling her for her sake? Or merely to assuage his own pain and guilt?
Focus on her.
Kieran bit his tongue, stopping the words.
“I’mgladI lost that baby,” Jamie repeated. “The shame of being a fallen woman is bad enough. But having a constant reminder of my sins in the form of a child would be—” She paused, shaking her head. She straightened slightly, as if regathering the scattered shards of herself. “I have fought forsixyears to put that episode behind me. That girl—the one who found herself disgraced, pregnant, and abandoned on the underside of the world—is no more. So perhaps ye can appreciate why I am not eager to go rushing into remembering even more of that chapter of my life! Why would I want to recall the horror that led to me being battered, increasing, and left for dead? Perhaps I forgot for a reason!”
Light raked her from the lone window at the end of the hall, turning her face into a harlequin mask—half light, half dark.
Kieran wanted to drag all of her into the light, to tear open the shadow of her memory.
Cannae ye see how much ye are loved?!he longed to yell.How muchour babewas loved?!
But would that convince her to try to remember?
No. No, it would not.
He ran a hand over his face, forcing himself to take a slow breath, in and out.
