Page 9 of A Highlander for the English Widow

He didn’t know much about the circumstances of her marriage, only that it never seemed to be an intimate partnership. There were only a few reasons why a marriage of her duration would not result in a child or why a husband would send his wife away. He did not know for sure, but he could make a sure estimation as to why Amanda had been sent here, and that meant that the topic of children would be a sore one for her, just as it was for him.

Silence lingered between them as he dwelled on his thoughts. It had been a long time since he had been alone with a woman like this, and he understood that they shared a certain sense of sorrow, although she did not know it. As soon as he had mentioned that she was good with children, she had a faraway look in her eyes as though she was lost in a memory. Logan knew that look well as he had seen it reflected in his own face often, and he regretted making her feel this way.

He wished he knew the right things to say. Speaking with other people had never come easily to him and he wanted to make sure that Amanda felt at ease. He knew loneliness well, and she had the air of it. She had been abandoned by her husband. It was one thing to be separated from him by distance, but to feel the emptiness in the world left by his absence was something that Logan knew well, and he felt he ought to show her how familiar he was with it. Perhaps it had just been so long that he felt compelled to share the feelings with someone. It was even more difficult now considering the fact that his father was sickly, perhaps approaching death’s door.

There were few people Logan could trust with his feelings, but there was something about Amanda that he knew he could trust.

“I always wondered how I would be with wee ones,” he said, breaking the silence.

Amanda looked up at him, having been lost in thought before he spoke.

“You were quick to protect her,” she said.

Logan nodded and pursed his lips. “I think in a way I did it because I could nae protect my own.” He spoke in a low, grave voice that was shrouded in sorrow. Amanda looked shocked. He did not know if she realized how precious the secret she was about to hear was.

“What happened?” she asked.

Logan inhaled sharply and knew there was no going back now even if he had wanted.

“Years agae, I was sworn tae marry a lass from a neighboring clan. It was nay grand love story. She was a nice enough lass… She fell pregnant and the land rejoiced up until the day she gave birth. It was nae a happy time for her. For most of the pregnancy she was in bed. The baby gave her a lot of trouble; she was in a lot of pain. I always felt bad that there was naything I could dae.

“I kept telling her that it would be well once the baby was born, that all this pain would be worth it. I was ready tae give her a lifetime of love and gratitude for all that she haed been through just tae bear my child. I never… I never thought it could be such a burden.”

He hung his head and wrung his hands together. The guilt somehow would never go away. There were times when he kept telling himself that it was just the natural order of things, that there was no other way for it to happen, but the fact remained that it was still his child. It was still his doing. She would have still been alive had it not been for his poisoned seed, and it was this guilt that made his words heavy now.

“When the time came for the birth, she screamed. I haed never heard anything like it before. The halls of this keep were filled with it. She was a tender heart. She never asked for this pain. Deirdre did what she could, but sometimes God’s will is…well…ye cannae understand it. It was nae long before she was nae in pain any longer. The screams stopped. I went inside, thinking that the baby haed been born. I was all ready tae take my child intae my arms, but they were both still, sae still they might hae been statues.”

Emotion was evident in his words, and his eyes glazed over. He could still see the bloodstained cloth and thighs, a scarlet river that seemed to have flowed over them all. Her chest was still, her arms limp, and he remembered Deirdre standing there with the child in her arms and a grief-stricken look on her face. The baby had been so light that it could barely have been said to have existed at all. It had only enjoyed a flicker of life, had only tasted the air for one brief moment, its life extinguished like a flickering flame.

“The pain was supposed tae hae been worth something. I was supposed tae be able tae help them, but I could nae. I could nae dae anything. All I could dae was watch it happen, and it haes never sat right with me. Children are a precious thing. It’s a miracle that they are in the world at all, sae for someone tae take them and harm them is just…it’s beyond the pale,” he said, swallowing the hard feelings in his throat, trying not to choke on his own sorrow.

He fell into silence after he had spoken and looked away from Amanda, away from the bloodstained clothes that so reminded him of the last image he had of his wife, away from her pitying eyes that reminded him how helpless he had been.

“I’m sorry… I can’t imagine what that must have been like,” she said, her voice as gentle as a summer’s breeze.

Then he felt her reach out to touch him. It was just a caress of a hand on his, but it sparked something within him that had lain dormant for too long. His gaze flicked up and met hers, and in that moment it was as though a lightning bolt flashed within his mind. How strange it was for him to talk about these things with someone who was practically a stranger, but perhaps Amanda knew him better than most. As a duchess, she must have known about the responsibility of those in power to keep a certain amount of distance between themselves and those they ruled. Logan could never confide in members of his clan about these feelings because it would affect his authority and their confidence in him. But with her he could be himself, and he found it was refreshing.

“You don’t have to feel guilty. There was nothing you could have done,” she said.

He had told himself that so many times, but it never quite seemed to work to soothe him.

“If she haed nae been married tae me, she might still be alive. She gave up her life because she tried tae give me a child. I’ll never be able tae change that. She took on all the risk and suffered all of the consequences. It just doesnae seem fair.”

“Life rarely is,” Amanda said.

Her words were imbued with wisdom and experience, and he found himself wondering about the details of her suffering. Was it rude to ask?

They both went to say something, but their words collided with each other and forced them into an uneasy silence. There were so many things he wanted to say, but he wasn’t sure how to get the words out. She seemed inclined toward silence as well. Instead, he went back into his mind to those last days with his wife, the days when she was pale and barely conscious, covered in a glistening sheen of sweat as he clung to her hand, wishing that he had loved her more fiercely, vowing to give her the life she deserved no matter what, but ended up having to say goodbye.

Nobody else blamed him, of course. Her family was upset, but they could do nothing but throw up their hands and accept that these things had happened. That didn’t seem satisfying enough for Logan, though. There was too much sorrow in the world and not enough joy, and despite everything his father said, he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to do that to another woman again. How could he poison her with his seed? How could he ask her to risk her life when he could not take the same risk? It paralyzed him and made him wonder if the great legacy of the Stirling lairds was going to end with him.

7

Amanda realized that her hand had lingered on Logan’s for a moment too long. Her cheeks warmed with a blushing sensation and she withdrew it, taking care not to snatch it back so that she wouldn’t draw attention to her unease. Logan had just confided in her about something so intimate and vulnerable that she wondered what had prompted it, but she was glad that he had done so. Now she understood a little better why he had been protective of her and why he had been so ready to leap to the defense of the girl. It was clear from the way he spoke and the look of pain in his eyes that losing his wife and child had taken a great toll on him. Such a loss was incomprehensible, and in that moment her heart shattered for him. It was painful enough for her not to know the joy of having a child, but to expect one only to lose it before it had barely taken a breath? No… Amanda could not stomach such cruelty.

She was about to tell him of her ills, to share her pain with him. In a world where people often shared their triumphs and their celebrations, it was often just as cathartic to find someone who had a similar sorrow to hers that she could indulge in. There were few people who could understand her pain, and she thought that Logan might have been one of them. Because of this revelation, she softened around him now and did not see him as a brash man who only wanted his own way but as a wounded man who did not want history to repeat itself—and a man who had not learned how to behave around a woman.

However, before Amanda could begin telling him about her own history, the sound of footsteps approached them and Deirdre appeared. Amanda’s heart caught in her throat. Even though the girl’s wound didn’t appear to be anything to be worried about, there was still always the chance that the worst could happen. So she breathed a sigh of relief when Deirdre told them that the girl was going to be fine.