“I fear that if I continue to support the child, my secret will be discovered.” She paused and licked her lips. “So I brought the child here.”
“The child is here?” Alex thought he must have heard wrong.
“Not here at the palace, of course.” Sabine fanned herself with her hand. “But, yes, she is here in Edinburgh. I thought it wise to speak alone with you first, before you see her.”
“She?” Good God, was Sabine telling him this child was a girl?
“I’m told she is an… unusual… child,” Sabine said.
“You’re told?”
“You can’t believe that the child has been living with me?” Sabine rolled her eyes as if she found him desperately slow-witted.
“Of course not,” he said. “Having a child about would be too inconvenient.”
“Don’t be foolish,” she snapped, her expression suddenly angry. “Men can raise their bastard children if they wish, but for a woman it would be a catastrophe.”
Alex had to acknowledge that there was some truth to that, at least in France.
“So where has your daughter been living?” he asked.
Sabine shrugged one elegant shoulder. “With an elderly couple in the country.”
What did Sabine want? Was it money? Did she think a wee visit with the child was necessary to convince him to pay?
“Tell me why ye went to the trouble of bringing the child here,” he said.
“Why indeed!” Her hand fluttered to her chest. “It was a risk, but it would have been a greater risk to keep her in France.”
It finally dawned on him that Sabine wanted him to take the child. He began pacing the small parlor again, feeling like a trapped animal.
“Ye say this child is a girl?” He could hear the desperation in his voice.
“Why yes, she is,” Sabine said, cool as could be.
“And now, after all this time,” he said, flinging his arms out wide, “ye want to give her away, like some garment you’ve grown tired of?”
“Hardly that.”
Alex felt as if he’d been tossed overboard in a rough sea, and the waves were too high for him to see which way was the shore.
“You must take her, Alexander.”
He ran his hands through his hair as he walked back and forth. “What is the child’s name?”
“I believe,” she said, shifting her gaze to the side, “that the couple she lived with called her Claire.”
“Christ above, Sabine, ye didn’t even give the child a name?” He was incensed, but he may as well be angry with a cuckoo bird for being a bad mother. Sabine was who she was.
Alex felt sorry for the child, having a mother with so little regard for her. While his own parents fought like hungry dogs, he never doubted that they cared for him. They simply cared more about making each other miserable.
“I have provided for her from birth,” Sabine said. “Now you must take her.”
He heard Teàrlag’s voice in his head: Three women will ask for your help, and ye must give it. No, not this.
“What would I do with a wee girl?” he demanded, raising his hands in the air. The notion was ridiculous.
“You must know someone who could care for her,” Sabine said, as if she were talking about a pet dog. “I heard your cousin Ian has wed. Perhaps he could take her? If you’ve no one else, you can always put her in a convent.”