Page 61 of Tempest at Annabel's Lighthouse
“THEY WEREBOLD ENOUGHto come and take her from the lighthouse. Right under our noses!”
Edgar’s growl traveled into the room, where Rebecca lay propped against pillows, feeling useless and shaken still, even though she’d slept safely through the night and under Niina’s ministrations.
“Shush.” Niina spoke louder than the woman probably realized. “Abel says they were looking for papers. Do you know anything about that?”
Edgar’s grunt was his answer.
“If we can help her remember, then maybe he will leave her alone,” Niina continued in a hoarse whisper. “Let her live her life.”
Edgar snorted. “Not with the baby. If he finds out about that, then everything could change.” Hatred laced Edgar’s voice. “We need to tell her. Enough with this addlebrained idea that we’re keeping her safe. We obviously aren’t!”
Guilt over eavesdropping gnawed at Rebecca’s insides. Yet the secrets they withheld from her chipped away at her trust in Niina, in Abel, and possibly even in Edgar—although his confession about Annabel left her feeling a bit of ownership in his own heartbreaking secrets.
“You already know what happened when Rebecca learned the truth the first time! It’s why she’s here, and why she can’t remember.” Niina’s tone grew bitter. “Besides, he doesn’t believe she’s his to begin with, does he? Why would he want the child when it isn’t his either? She’s got enough to worry about with Aaron, so why add to it?”
Silence drifted into the room, and Rebecca strained to hear in case Edgar was responding far quieter than he had been. Instead, she heard his booted steps as they charged from the lighthouse.
The interplay plagued Rebecca. Who was thishethey had referred to? Their insinuations startled her into a vague recollection. A man. The argument on the outcropping. His anger. This time the memory came with words.
“You are not faithful! Not to our name! Not to anyone but yourself!”
Not faithful.
A stifling weight settled on Rebecca’s chest. The kind that sprang from guilt, from shame. She had stepped out on her husband? Was that it? Was that how she’d become with child? From another man?
She could remember now, the betrayal in the man’s voice. While she couldn’t make out his image, or remember who he was, she could hear the oppressive truth.
“You are not faithful.”
Who had she been before this all began? The very idea that she had willingly entered another man’s arms than that of her husband—it appalled her. It tightened her stomach, and the hardening of her womb mimicked what had to have been the hardening of her heart. She was a worthless woman, if that were the case, and her child the result of sin that would forever tarnish her and the child. It would be known as a bastard. She would be identified as a loose woman. That was why she had run, wasn’t it? Why she’d been chased through the woods. She’d found no mercy from her husband, no forgiveness for the sake of her babe, no covering by his name to protect the innocent unborn in light of her deeds. And she must protect whatever remained of the reputation for the sake of her brother. He couldn’t be associated with her if the babe had been illegitimately conceived!
But her flight was somehow compounded by the mysterious papers. What papers? And why would she have taken them to begin with? Why abscond with something this man—to whom she’d been unfaithful—would want? Was it retribution? A form of vengeance in lieu of his rejection?
Rebecca could not fathom that she was so vindictive, and yet here she was, recovering in a bed that was not her own, with child by a man who had no face, being hunted for something she had more than likely stolen, and barely able to remember her own brother, whom she would die to protect.
“Ah, you’re awake!” Niina’s voice was perky as she entered the room, jolting Rebecca from her internal war. She held a tray that held cookies and tea, and her short, rotund figure brought with it the scent of freshly baked bread. It was a smell that Rebecca associated with Niina now. The woman’s own perfume of sorts that lent a motherly nurturing to her persona, one that Rebecca ached to trust.
But trusting Niina brought risks that Rebecca was afraid toface. The risk of knowing the truth about herself. The risk of knowing for certain that Niina and Abel and now, more than likely, Edgar had kept the truth from her as to who she was.
“Do you feel any movement?” Niina rested her hand atop the blankets that covered Rebecca’s abdomen.
Rebecca shook her head. “Aside from a tickling sensation, no. I don’t.” Maybe the baby had died. Maybe she carried within her a lifeless form, having taken the brunt of the consequences of recent events—the brunt of the consequences of her sins. Rebecca’s breath caught.
“A tickling?” Niina’s face split into a smile. “You’re feeling the fluttering of the babe! He’s telling you he’s going to be just fine.”
“He?” Rebecca could hardly believe those little featherlight tickles were the child. Surely she would have known. Surely a mother who had conceived a child out of love would have the sense to know when the babe began to give evidence of its life. Tears of oppressive guilt wadded in her throat.
Niina was ignorant of Rebecca’s feelings. Instead, she busied herself pouring Rebecca a cup of tea from the kettle on the tray. “He or she. We won’t know until the child pokes its little face into the world, and we hear that first cry.” Niina handed Rebecca the teacup. “But I picture him as a boy.”
“Why?” Rebecca asked.
“I ... I just do. My eldest was a boy. Abel. And a daughter”—tears shone in Niina’s eyes—“well, it’s hard to imagine a girl when Kjersti left us not so long ago. It’s selfish of me, I know. I’m sorry.” She lifted the corner of her apron and dabbed at her eyes. “A boy seems hardier. Less susceptible to illness, I suppose. I wouldn’t survive another loss of a child—a babe most assuredly not.”
It was a very personal answer to a child Niina had no claims to. Rebecca could take it no longer. “Niina?”
“Hmm?”
“Who am I?”
