“I needed my brother and Sloan. For other than the lad’s curious crescent-shaped hairline, he is all MacGinnis, and I had to make you realize the fact that he is a Douglas cannot be denied. But now…I think we should all fight our battles out alone. Sloan, Sabrina, Hawk, Skylar, forgive us, and excuse us.”
She pushed against him as they exited the room and headed down the hallway and up the stairs for her tower abode. “Laird Douglas, I’m delighted that your intelligent, reasonable brother has met a kind and gentle lass and entered into what appears to be a tender and loving relationship, something with which you are entirely unfamiliar.”
“Circumstances—lass.”
“I’d not destroy his marriage, and I’d never purposely hurt Sabrina?—”
“You’d only destroy the life of your own child to honor the MacGinnis name?”
“Nay!” she cried. “I didn’t know, I swear to you, I didn’t know.”
“Do you deny that the boy is ours?”
“No…I don’t know. It can’t be—except that the lad is…oh god, where is he?” Shawna demanded.
“I’ve seen to him.”
“You’ve seen to him? I must see him. David, you tell me that the child is mine, but you don’t let me see him? David, tell me, where is—Danny?” she demanded in a pained whisper.
The expression on his handsome face was exceptionally hard. “Safe,” he told her.
“Safe—where?”
He leaned toward her. “Safe—away from all who bear the name MacGinnis.”
CHAPTER 21
Tears flooded Shawna’s eyes. She willed them back, furiously blinking. They reached her tower room. He closed and bolted the door before setting her upon the foot of her bed.
Her child lived. All these years, she had been denied the babe. The crudest jest of all time had been played upon her, and now she was being asked to pay for the game!
“David, you don’t understand. You had no right to take the boy!” she cried to him.
“You’ve had him for four years. You’ve not exactly given him great maternal care?—”
Shawna leaped to her feet. “1 didn’t know! I still don’t know, I can’t believe…I?—”
“You didn’t know that you gave birth to a child?” he demanded hotly.
She shook her head. “I?—”
“You ask me to believe that?” he demanded incredulously.
“Damn you, if Danny is our child, how could you take him away?” Shawna cried. She suddenly found herself up and running across the floor to him, slamming her fists against his chest.
He caught her wrists. She was sorry for her violence, sorry that she had touched him. His fingers wound around her upper arms, he lifted her, eyes burning into her, until he had retraced her path from the bed. He dropped her there, pinning her down as he leaned over her.
“You’ve no right to that child.”
“Damn you, David, I didn’t know!”
“How couldn’t you know? You had to know that you were pregnant for a child to come so far!”
“I knew that I was expecting…aye! But I ran away to Glasgow to be away from everyone because I didn’t know what had happened that night. And I didn’t know what I was going to do after, I was just waiting for the babe…but he came early. I—I was in horrible pain, and the midwife gave me something to drink for it. When I came to, the midwife told me the babe had died. And she handed me a blood-soaked bundle, and she suggested that I look and....”
David suddenly pushed away from her, running his fingers raggedly through his hair. He walked away from her, then spun back to her.
“I told you to tell me everything! What more have you lied to me about?”