Page 119 of Bride of Fire
When the lad arched his back, turned red, and began to wail, she felt every hair stand on end.
“Make him stop,” Alicia said to Morgan. “Can’t you make him stop?”
“Jostle him a wee bit,” Morgan suggested.
She didn’t want to jostle him. She didn’t want to hold him an instant longer.
“Nay, you take him,” she said, shoving him forward.
“Ye can do it, m’lady. I know ye can.”
She fought the urge to fling the screaming infant onto the floor and let Morgan clean up the mess.
Instead she whimpered, “I don’t want to do it, Morgan. Can you not get Bethac to take him?”
Morgan finally gave in and rescued her from the bawling babe. But she could see he was disappointed.
That was fine. She couldn’t please him in everything. Morgan should be happy she’d come back at all.
Besides, raising infants was what servants were for. The lad had a nurse to feed and change him and a maid to rock him to sleep. What more did he require?
When the lad was seven years of age, she intended to send him to a neighboring clan to foster anyway. And she’d not see him again until he was grown.
After Morgan bounced the babe in his arms for a few moments, the lad quieted. She watched him interact with the child. He murmured words an infant couldn’t possibly understand. He tenderly grazed the lad’s cheek with the back of his knuckle. He gazed lovingly into his son’s eyes.
Jealousy struck Alicia like jagged lightning, sending scalding current through her body.
How dared Morgan show the child the affectionshewas due?
The affection she’d been deprived of for so many weeks?
The affection that ensured Morgan would always provide for her?
All at once she saw the infant for what it was.
A threat.
Originally, she’d imagined a child would forge an unbreakable bond between the two of them, safeguarding their relationship as husband and wife. But now she realized it had only created an obstacle to Morgan’s attachment to her.
She’d made a tactical mistake.
Instead of dangling the promise of fatherhood before him, keeping him in a constant state of longing, she’d simply handed Morgan what he prized most.
A son to carry on his name.
And now Morgan would have no use forher.
Curse her shortsightedness. She’d made herself superfluous. Unnecessary. Expendable.
But she could fix her mistake. She’d fixed her mistake with Godit and Edward, after all. She could do the same with the infant.
How difficult could it be? The thing was much smaller than Godit and completely helpless. She wouldn’t even need a dagger. She could just smother it. Infants died mysteriously in their sleep all the time.
“Would ye like to try again,” Morgan asked hopefully, “now that he’s calm?”
This time when she reached out for the child, there was genuine warmth in her smile.
“Oh aye.”
