Page 140 of Laird of Flint
But Hew ruined that in four words.
“Come away with me.”
Those four words brought the truth crashing down on her.
What they’d just done was not a divine act of love. It was practically adultery.
She withdrew from him, and it felt as if a chill wind instantly rushed in to separate them. A wind composed of remorse and disgrace, of horror and shame.
“I cannot,” she said.
“We can leave tonight. This moment.”
He made it sound so tempting. So simple.
But she knew it wasn’t.
“I can’t.”
“Do you love him?” he asked.
“Gellir?”
“Aye.”
“Nay,” she admitted. “But he’s a good man. I shall be content enough.”
“God’s eyes,” he bit out. “You deserve happiness, Carenza. Do you not know that? You deserve a man you love with all your heart. Who loves you with every ounce of his being. Who will live for you. Fight for you. Die for you.”
His words were like salt in her wounds, for she knew he believed that was true. But she also knew it was not true for her. If a nobleman was the king’s pawn, a noblewomanwas that pawn’s slave. By royal decree, she belonged to Gellir. To defy that would bring dishonor to everyone she cared for.
“Even if ’tisn’t me,” he said quietly, “you deserve to be with a man you love.”
Her heart cracked at that. She loved no one but Hew. But she couldn’t tell him that. She couldn’t enslave his heart in that way. She had to let him go. Give him permission to move on and find a wife of his own.
“I can’t,” she said.
When he would have argued, she seized his forearm to silence him.
“I can’t,” she insisted, “because I’m with child.”
Hew’s heart started racing. It shouldn’t have been racing.
“You are?”
“Aye.”
“Ah.” At least his voice was calm.
But he was particularly grateful for the dark. It hid his ridiculous grin and the tears that were inexplicably filling his eyes. All at once, simultaneously overjoyed and distraught, he couldn’t get words past the lump in his throat.
“I have to wed as soon as possible,” she told him. “This child cannot be born a bastard. ’Twill already be early. I dare wait no longer.”
He couldn’t stop smiling over the idea that their love had made a bairn.
Or weeping over the fact he wouldn’t be allowed to claim the child.
Unless…
