Page 87 of Hard-Hearted Highlander
“Bernadette?” Rabbie asked, but it seemed as if he was at some distance.
Her father had looked at her with such venom in his eyes and voice and had said, “You disgust me,” and Bernadette, who had kept her mouth shut and had accepted his vitriol against her all those months, could bear it no more. She’d said, “And your utter lack of regard for your own grandchild disgusts me.”
What had possessed her? Why that night, what that remark?
To this day, Bernadette didn’t know how it had happened—had she been standing so close to the top of the stairs? Or had he pushed her? What she remembered was that her father had reacted harshly and instantly, backhanding her across her mouth. She didn’t remember the fall at all, only coming to at the bottom of the stairs, the pain in her belly already pressing against her spine and her heart.
She’d started bleeding an hour or so later. The midwife was called. The pain became unbearable and in the throes of it, she’d heard the midwife tell someone that the baby must come out. But it had been too early, and Bernadette had begged them not to take her baby, but her words were only a strangled cry.
What followed was excruciating. Someone inserted something cold and metallic into her that was so painful her heart had fluttered almost dead. She’d felt as if she was being ripped apart, as if someone had plunged daggers into her womb to tear her open.
And then had come that distant, faint voice, saying the baby was dead. How could her baby be dead? They’d said her baby was dead, and Bernadette had found her voice. She’d screamed.
She didn’t remember more than that. Apparently, she’d bled so profusely that she’d almost died herself. When she came to, she would wish she’d died.
It was a boy, her mother had said.A boy.
“Bernadette, for the love of God,” Rabbie said. She felt his hands on her shoulders, pulling her up. Somehow, she had sunk down onto her haunches behind that chair, still clinging to it.
Rabbie helped her around to the chair then squatted in front of her. “Is that why you ran from me? Did you think I’d turn against you if I knew?”
“I ran because I ruined your marriage. And I would ruin your life.”
Rabbie stroked her cheek with his knuckle. “You couldna ruin me,leannan.I’ve told you—you’ve resurrected me, then.”
Bernadette began to shake. She shook with the memory of her loss, with the repression of it. She shook with the desire for this man, and she shook knowing that she could never saddle him with all what had happened. She hadn’t admitted everything to him...she hadn’t really admitted everything to herself. She’d known since that happened that she couldn’t bear children, but until this moment, she hadn’t admitted to herself that it mattered. God, how it mattered. “Please, Rabbie... Please don’t do this. Just let me be.”
He might have argued with her, but there was a knock on the door, and as Rabbie rose to his feet, Frang entered. “The mounts are ready,” he announced.
* * *
THEYARRIVEDATKILLEAVEN, four men and Bernadette, three of the men with bedrolls and muskets. Charles came out to meet them and speak to Rabbie.
Bernadette made her way inside and sat heavily in the salon, staring at nothing. She felt empty. Her heart felt as if it had turned to dust.
Charles and Rabbie came inside eventually; Charles said he would take the men to the stables and see that they had a place to sleep. He left Rabbie standing at the salon door.
Bernadette forced herself to stand on numb legs. This was it, then. They would say fare-thee-well until the end of time. Her heart had turned to dust, but there were still bits and pieces of it clinging to life, apparently, because she couldn’t look at him without feeling agony. “How I wish you would go,” she said. “I can’t bear it.”
“Bernadette, listen to me,” Rabbie said, and moved into the room. “Come with me, now. I donna care about your past, none of it. You’ll find no judgment in me, I swear it.”
“You don’t know what you are saying, Rabbie—”
“Aye, I do—”
“No, youdon’t,” she said angrily, her voice suddenly strong. “You don’t know all of it!”
“Then for God’s sake,tellme.”
“Will you make me relive it? Is that the only way I can force you to leave me in peace?”
Now he looked confused. Alarmed. “Diah,relive what?”
“I’ll tell you,” she said, her vision blurring with her tears. “Prepare yourself for it, for it is not possible for you to repair it or overlook it.”
“Sayit,” he said impatiently.
“I can never bear children, Rabbie. Did you hear me?Never.I can’t give you sons. I can’t fill your house with children. I amworthless.” She pressed her hands to her abdomen and bent over, squeezing her eyes shut against the rash of hot tears that threatened to fall.
