She winced as she remembered the sounds of the fighting outside the shuttered windows.
“My cousin Lizzie was with me,” she said. “When I started to bleed, she went to fetch the midwife.”
“The midwife?” he asked.
Lost in the terrible memories, she told him about losing the child and William returning soon after. She could not bear to repeat all the horrible things he’d shouted at her, especially the worst one.
At least it was just a girl.
“William was angry and smashed my pendant with his axe.” Such a simple statement could not begin to convey the horror of that moment. Before she could finish her tale, Finn spoke and pulled her out of her memories.
“You were with child?” he asked.
Startled by his angry tone, Margaret turned around to face him.
“I thought ye could not conceive,” he said. “Ye told me so yourself!”
“I never said that.”
“Ye led me to believe it,” he said. “Ye said your husband had your marriage annulled because ye couldn’t give him an heir.”
“Icouldn’tgive him an heir,” she said.
“If ye couldn’t, then how is it ye were pregnant?”
“I lost the babe!” How thick headed could a man be?
“But if ye can conceive,” he said, “that means ye could be carrying our child now.”
Aye, and she would lose this one too. Tears stung her eyes, and she had to bite her lip to hold them back. She started for the door. She had to get out and away from him before she broke down completely.
Finn caught her wrist and pulled her back. “Are ye with child now?”
“I don’t know,” she said, which she knew was a mistake the moment the words left her mouth. Why had she never learned to lie easily? She wrenched her arm free and went to the door.
“Ye can’t go now,” he said. “We need to talk about this…this…situation!”
“There’s nothing to discuss,” she said without turning around. “Ye needn’t trouble yourself about me or thesituation.”
“But we must do something,” he said, his voice full of alarm. “There’s no choice now. Ye must marry me.”
No choice? Shemustmarry? When he used the same words as the men who had controlled and used her before, a burst of anger exploded in her chest.
“Nay, I don’t have to,” she said.
“Ye do,” Finn said, leaning forward with his hands on his hips.
She would not be ordered to wed. She would not put herself under a man’s thumb, to be told what to do and when and how. Never again.
“I’m going to my sister Sybil and the MacKenzies,” she told him. “If you can’t take me, I’ll find someone who will.”
###
Finn was so flummoxed by the news that Margaret could conceive—and might even now be carrying his child—that he was slow to grasp that she still actually intended to leave him.
When he heard her shut the door behind her with a firmclick, he ran to catch her. He was so distracted, however, that he failed to notice his foot was tangled in the sheet.
“Ooomph!” He tripped and crashed to the floor. “Goddammit!” he shouted as he struggled to extract himself. Finally, he managed to wrap the torn sheet around himself and jerk open the door, but Margaret had already escaped into Una and Ella’s chamber.