“Why do you ask such a thing?” she murmured.
“I can easily discover the answer to my question myself, so I am asking you to tell me the truth.”
“And how would you discover it?”
“Do you truly think you can hide your condition beneath a thin drying towel and a shift?”
That brought her pause. Every emotion, every horror and every fragment of despair rippled across her face as she tried to form the words that would give him a suitable answer.
She was trapped and she knew it.
“It is not as it sounds,” she finally said.
“Whatis not as it sounds?”
She looked away from him completely, so he could not see her face, but he could see her shoulders heaving as she silently wept. There was a long pause before she replied.
“He… he told me he loved me,” she whispered. “I believed him. He said he would return for me, but he did not.”
It was confirmation as far as Maxton was concerned and he felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. He felt sick. Moving in her direction, he spoke softly.
“Tell me all of it,” he said softly. “Please.”
She was looking at the wall. “I cannot speak of it,” she whispered. “To speak of it makes it real, and I do not want this to be real.”
Maxton sighed faintly, lowering himself to the nearest chair. He was so despondent he found it difficult to stand. It was as if all of the energy had drained right out of him.
“It is real whether or not you speak of it,” he said. “Please tell me what happened.”
She sat there and struggled. Maxton could see that she was wiping her face. When she finally began to speak, he could hardly hear her.
“He said he loved me,” she repeated. “We knew each other at Okehampton. I thought we would marry someday, or at least I thought so before I was sent to St. Blitha. Last summer, he finally found me at St. Blitha and he told me he loved me. He said he would return for me, but he never did.”
Maxton could see how ashamed she was. “And he left you with child?”
She wiped at her face, struggling for the last vestiges of her dignity. “I did not want to admit it,” she said. “I have pretended nothing is wrong.”
“Did he force himself upon you? Did he rape you?”
She shook her head. “Nay,” she said. “But he seduced me and I did not resist as much as I should have. He told me he loved me and he wanted to demonstrate that love. I was so happy to see him that I believed him.”
“And he lied to you.”
Sobs caught in her throat as she nodded. “I will end up in The Chaos for this,” she said, finally turning to look at him. “I shall end up in The Chaos and so will the child. It will be dead before it ever has a chance to live. I will have killed it!”
Her voice was lifting in panic. Sighing heavily, Maxton stood up from the chair and made his way over to her.
“You will not end up in The Chaos,” he murmured. “Stand up.”
Andressa looked up at him, terror in her eyes. But as she gazed at him, the trust they’d established took hold. She had no one else in the world to turn to, but she had Maxton. He’d proven that.
Slowly, she obeyed him, clutching the damp drying towel around her body. The moment she rose to her feet, Maxton pushed the towel out of the way so that he could get a look at her torso. When the damp shift concealed too much, he put his hands onto her swollen belly to feel it for himself.
It was a bold move, and an intimate one. He heard her gasp, but she didn’t pull away. The moment his hands collided with her rounded belly, Andressa burst into quiet tears, turning her head away as he ran his fingers over the perfectly rounded bump. If there had been any question about the trust between the two of them before, his intimate action sealed their complete trust.
Now, it was set in stone.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered. “When did this happen?”
