“Stop,” she said. “Stop the wagon.”
Morgan slowed and then halted. She was still clutching his wrist in her gloved hand. He looked from it to her ashen face. “What is it?”
“Those bedrooms in the loft, and the small one beside your room, you said there might be use for them someday.”
Morgan frowned. “Yes. I said that.”
“You were speaking of children, weren’t you?”
“I suppose so. They’re a vague notion right now.” His ginger eyebrows drew closer together as he studied her features. “You’re going to have to tell me. Frankly, I don’t know if it’s what precedes the getting of them that has you twisted three ways from Sunday, or the having of them. It’s probably something we should discuss.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do, Mr. Longstreet. Do you expect me to give you children?”
Morgan blew out a protracted breath that was part whistle, part sigh. “I don’t know that I expect it exactly. I figured it would happen in the course of things. Naturally, you know.” He had a sudden thought. “That’s been explained to you, hasn’t it? Someone’s talked to you about what’s natural between a man and a woman.”
“I am not completely ignorant.”
“Oh, I know you’ve done your reading. I’m just not sure I trust your sources.”
“Mr. Longstreet, it is my intention to have a serious conversation.”
Morgan thought she could not possibly be prissier, but then her mouth flattened in a prim, disapproving line, and he concluded he had been wrong. “Pardon me, Miss Middlebourne, but my intention is the same as yours. I meant what I said. I am not sure I trust your sources.”
“Please put that from your mind,” she said. “I am trying to understand what you want from me in regard to children. What if I am unable to give you any?”
“You’re not past your childbearing years.”
“I know. You are not being helpful. If I said to you now, I cannot have children, what will it mean to your proposal? Or if we marry, and time passes, and I never conceive, what will it mean to your vows?”
“Is this about that photograph? Do you think I looked at the picture of your cousin and thought about her childbearing parts?”
“Why not? You gave a good deal of thought to her bones.”
Morgan looked Jane over. Her face was no longer pale. There were rosy coins of color in her cheeks, but what put them there was frustration, and perhaps, he thought, fear. “You’re pretty riled about this.”
“Because you refuse to answer my question.”
“Well, I reckon that’s because I don’t know. You put it to me kind of sudden.”
Jane said, “I did.”
Morgan saw Jane shiver. A few more minutes in the wind, and her teeth would start to rattle like dice in a cup. “Can we go somewhere warm to discuss this?”
“We have no private place, and please don’t suggest my room. Not in the middle of the afternoon.”
“All right. If you’re going to pin me to the wall, then I guess the answer is I want children. I would be lying if I said my mind never came around to it. Probably Finn and Rabbit got me thinking.”
“Because of what they said about Mrs. Bridger being pregnant?”
“That’s part of it, but mostly it’s the boys being who they are. I like them. I like them just fine, and I wouldn’t mind a couple of rascals underfoot. That said, the particulars of begetting some rascals require two parties, and who’s to say that if there weren’t any children the problem would be yours? I don’t have any children, least none that have ever been presented to me. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I understand that you’ve had opportunity to beget.”
“That’s one way of saying it, I suppose.”
“It never occurred to me that you would be inexperienced.”
Morgan’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “Do you mean to insult or flatter me?”
