The Highlander Series(291)
At that, Rionna turned in her chair, clutching her cloak tightly around her.
“And what sin have I committed, husband? Are you so displeased at the thought of becoming a father? Did I misunderstand your boasts that I would deliver within a year of our marriage?”
His brows drew together and he stared at her in obvious consternation. “Think you I’m upset that you are pregnant with my child?”
She stood, her cloak swirling around her legs. “You’ve done nothing to make me think otherwise! From the moment you discovered that I was pregnant, you’ve been coldly furious. I’ve done nothing to gain your ire and yet you’ve cut me to ribbons with your gaze at every turn.”
“Nothing? God’s teeth, woman, but you are a test of my endurance. You don’t tell me that you are with child. At what point were you going to confide in me? When I held the point of my sword to your swollen belly? Or maybe when ’twas time for you to push the babe into the world?”
Her mouth fell open as she understood his meaning. “You think I purposely kept secret my condition? You think I would put our babe at risk?”
“You were participating in activities no pregnant woman should ever be doing,” he said through clenched teeth. “You had to know I would have never allowed it.”
“So you think so little of me that you think I would resort to subterfuge so that I could continue to indulge in training, never mind that I was pregnant with the next laird of my clan.”
“Why did you not tell me then?” he demanded.
Tears of disappointment and frustration burned her eyelids. His opinion of her hurt. Did he truly believe she’d be so selfish and foolhardy as to put her child at risk?
“I did not know!” she said fiercely. “I did not know until I awakened and Sarah told me. I would have told you. It would have given me great joy to do so.”
Caelen looked shocked for a moment, as though he’d given such a possibility no thought. “Jesu,” he muttered. Then he ran a ragged hand through his hair and turned swiftly away. His hand fell to his side, curled into a tight fist. “When I think of what could have happened, what almost did happen. When you fell, I thought I had hurt you. I could have harmed our child. I could have harmed you.”
Realization was quick to dawn on Rionna. Her anger and hurt melted away and her heart throbbed a little harder. She crossed the distance between her and her husband and laid her hand on his arm.
“You were afraid,” she said softly.
He jerked around, his eyes blazing. “Afraid? I was bloody terrified! I carried you to our chamber sure that I would find some grievous wound. I looked for blood or a bruise, something to suggest that I had harmed you.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her head against his chest. For the longest time he stood rigid in her arms, not returning her embrace. Then slowly, he circled her shoulders and crushed her to him.
He rested his cheek on the top of her head and held her so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. He trembled against her, and it awed her that this fierce warrior had been afraid. For her. That he shook with it. It shamed her that she’d thought even for a moment that he didn’t want their child, even if it was a logical conclusion at the time.
Now she wanted confirmation. She wanted to hear it from his own lips that he was joyous over her pregnancy.
“So you’re happy about the babe?”
Her question was muffled by his chest, but he went still and then slowly drew her away so that he looked down into her eyes.
“Happy? I think happy is too mundane a word. There are many words that accurately describe my reaction. Wonder. Aye, wonder. ’Tis not something I’ve contemplated until recently, and even then I spoke as a man boasting to be boasting. It didn’t really settle with me that I would become a father until Sarah bore the news to me in the hallway. The image hit me with force enough to stagger me. I had to quit the keep and go out alone lest I completely unman myself in front of others.”
His fingers touched her cheek and grazed along her jaw.
“Fear. I was immediately filled with such fear like I’ve never felt. Fear that I wouldn’t be able to protect our child from men like Duncan Cameron. That if we had a daughter she would be as Mairin had been for most of her life. Always hiding, always living in fear of discovery. Wary of being used by a man for what she could bring through the birth of a child.”
She reached up to palm his cheek and he turned into her hand, brushing a kiss across her flesh.
“And joy, Rionna. ’Tis God’s truth I experienced a burst of joy that is indescribable. I imagined a daughter with your beauty and strength and a son with your spirit and stubbornness.”