“I had another reason for staying. One I did no’ believe possible.”
Here ‘tis,he thought.She cares for me, loves –
“I’m with child,” she said in a rush.
Everything inside Reade froze.
He must have heard her wrong.
Blair was in a distraught state. Mayhap she misspoke.
Because surely, he didn’t hear her say she was –
“Reade? Did ye hear me? I carry your babe.”
His arm fell from her backside, and he stumbled away from her, feeling as weak as he had when Maddock helped him off his horse earlier. All his blood rushed to his chest in a pounding flood, pulsating until he thought his chest would explode.
A child?
A bairn?
‘Twas impossible!
Wasn’t it?
Yet, his mother had said –
Reade blinked at her. “A bairn?” he whispered, clutching at his throbbing chest with his good hand. Everything else in the world was forgotten – his aching arm, their dealings with the Gordons, the conflicts with the Campbells – nothing remained in his head but the echo of her words.
Your babe.
Had his mother been correct? Had she only been barren with –
“But ye are barren,” he whispered roughly, as if his lips did not want to form the cursed word. Rather, his mouth hung open against his will.
Blair fixed her gaze on hands twining in her shift. She sniffed and bobbed her head.
“Aye. I did say that. But your mother explained that sometimes ‘tis no’ the woman, but the man who canna bear children and suggested that could be the case with me.”
“She said much the same to me,” Reade admitted. “In truth, I believed her to be lying to me so I would yet wed ye.”
Blair lifted her blue gaze slightly. “I had wondered why ye wed me even after I told ye such a harsh thing.”
Reade’s mouth was yet parted as he leaned over, looking at her midsection as if he might peer through her skin to the bairn nestled inside. Her hand shifted to her belly, and he couldn’t stop staring.
“Ye have a bairn, in there?” He pointed a shaky finger at her.
Blair nodded.
It was hard to breathe – the air in their chambers felt thin, like the air high in the mountains, and Reade’s chest panted in cadence to the throbbing, trying to take in enough air to focus, to think.
He flicked his gaze to her face, and their eyes met.
“Why did ye no’ tell me sooner? Did ye only find out this night? Was that why ye were ill?”
“I only found out a few days ago, but I couldn’t believe it myself. Sorcha had to convince me. Believing for so long I was barren, aye? And we were no’ our best selves for so long, I fretted at what ye might say or do.”
“Fair enough,” he said breathlessly. Though she had said the words over and over, and her assessment of their relationship was astute, he struggled to believe it was true.
