“Aye.” Megan nodded, biting her lip, mentally calculating and realizing that her time of the month should arrive soon, or mayhap was already a few days late.
“She is rarely wrong in these matters.” Sorcha laid a hand on Megan’s shoulder. “The babe. Is it not Holt’s?”
Megan sighed, but didn’t answer.
Sorcha persisted, “If you are with child and that babe is not your husband’s, will he not know it?”
How could she possibly explain? Lord Hagan and his lady had a fine marriage where they teased often, touched intimately, and ruled together as one. Their love was deep and strong, their marriage as solid as the castle built high on this cliff. “I detest my husband and wanted to marry him not, but my father would not hear my protests. Then, on my wedding day, I was abducted …”
“By Wolf.”
“Aye.”
“And you fell in love with him,” Sorcha said as if reading Megan’s thoughts.
Pain clawed its way through Megan’s tortured soul. “Aye.”
“So you gave yourself to him.”
Megan’s spine stiffened and she lifted her head proudly, her hood falling away and her hair waving wildly around her face. “I would do it again if given the chance.”
“Holt will not be pleased.”
“Nay.”
“He might want to harm the child,” Sorcha said, her gaze clouding.
“He will never have the chance!” A fierce new fire grew within Megan and she knew she would do anything to save the life of her unborn infant. Should Holt try to harm her child, she would kill him.
“If, as Isolde says, your father has passed on, you must find a priest or abbot who will annul your marriage.”
She thought of Father Timothy, a weak man with no convictions, a man who only wished people punished, and knew she could not speak with him. Nay, she needed someone with power, someone who understood her precarious position, someone who could strike down the marriage vows.
“Hagan will help you find the right abbot,” she assured Megan. “Now, does Wolf know of the child?”
“Nay.” She shook her head and bit her lip.
“Does he … does he love you, or was your seduction part of his plan to embarrass your husband?”
“I know not,” she admitted, though she clung to the hope that he’d lain with her not because s
he was Holt’s bride, but because he could not stop himself, that he, as she, was compelled to kiss and touch, to caress and bond.
“You must tell him.”
’Twas not the first time the thought had crossed her mind. Wrapping her arms around her waist, as if to protect the fragile life growing inside her, she nodded. Should she meet Wolf again, what would she say? How could she tell him he’d unwittingly become a father of a bastard child? “I will, but not before I am free.”
Instead of condemnation in Sorcha’s gaze, there was silent praise. “God be with you, Megan of Dwyrain,” she said, adjusting Megan’s cowl again and kissing her lightly on the cheek, “and with your babe.”
“ ’Tis time,” Hagan said, astride a large gray destrier. He led a smaller horse, a bay with a notched ear. Climbing down from his mount, he handed Megan the bay’s reins, then kissed his wife so passionately, Megan had to look away. “I’ll be back,” he promised.
“Ride safely,” Sorcha said, kissing him lightly on the cheek and blinking against tears. A blistering howl rose from inside the castle. “ ’Tis your daughter, m’lord,” Sorcha said with a smile. “Methinks she is hungry again.” She shot Megan a glance that said, See what you have to look forward to?
“Take care of her and worry not about me!” With a final look at his wife, he signaled for his small army to move out. Megan climbed onto the bay mare and tugged on the horse’s reins as Bryanna wailed again and Isolde, carrying the loud, tiny bundle, appeared in the doorway. Waving, Megan urged her mount forward and joined the soldiers in their march to Dwyrain. She silently chided herself for leaving the ragged outlaw band, with its well-meaning criminals and brooding rogue of a leader.
What would you do had you stayed with them? Tell Wolf that he will be a father? Hope that he would marry you? Even if you were not already wed to Holt?
Wolf, the outlaw, was not a man to marry.