The Recruit (Highland Guard #6)(68)

He jerked his hand away and stepped back from her as if scalded. Hell, he had been. Burned and betrayed.

“You are with child.” His voice was every bit as harsh and cold as he felt.

This time the fear in her eyes was warranted. Emotion crackled and fired dangerously inside him as he struggled for control. But the battle had already been lost. His hands clenched at his sides, every muscle in his body tensed and flared.

She didn’t say anything, his anger seeming to have rendered her mute. She just stared up at him with big blue eyes, looking so damned vulnerable, so ridiculously innocent. But she was neither.

“How long?” His voice cracked like the whip flailing inside him. He grabbed her by the arm and jerked her up against him. “How long?” he repeated, not caring that he was scaring her. “And don’t think about lying to me.”

“I, I—” Her eyes skittered away, for once unchallenging. But he was too furious to enjoy it.

“It’s mine,” he said flatly. He’d known it from the first moment his hand swept over the soft swell. He didn’t need her to confirm it, but damn it, she would. “Tell me, damn it.”

Maybe if she’d begged for understanding. Maybe if she’d continued her moment of feminine meekness and contriteness, he might have reacted differently. But the defiance and cool challenge that had pricked him from the first returned.

He was angrier than he could ever recall, and she didn’t care. He’d seen fierce warriors quake in their boots when he lost his temper, but she stood toe-to-toe with him, utterly oblivious to the danger. Apparently, she knew just as well as he did that there wasn’t any. No matter how angry, how furious, he would never hurt her. He wasn’t used to fighting without the advantage of physical strength, and it was bloody disconcerting.

“It’s mine!” she shouted, twisting her arm out of his hold. “Yours may have been the seed that took root, but the child is mine. I want nothing from you, as I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear.”

Kenneth flinched as if she’d slapped him. She couldn’t have made her opinion of him—her disdain—more clear. She’d wanted only one thing from him.

Suddenly, another thought struck him cold. It was bad enough to not be taken seriously, to be thought of as nothing more than a ready cock, but what if passion wasn’t all she’d wanted from him? His jaw was clenched so tight he could barely spit out the words. “Nothing but my seed. Is that it, Mary? By God, did you plan this?”

She drew back in shock. “Of course not!”

He stared at her, searching for any sign of deception or guilt. There was none, but he knew better than to be deceived by her air of innocence.

She must have sensed his hesitancy. “It was not I who pursued you, if you’ll recall. This was as much a surprise to me as it is to you. It was an accident. I was married for over ten years with one son. I never dreamed this would happen.”

Unconsciously, her hands had gone to her stomach and a soft expression swept over her features. She looked so lovely and happy, so different from the drab, half-starved nun he remembered. His heart did an odd little start.

He ached to touch her again, to finish what they’d started, but she’d deceived him. “Yet you are pleased that it did.”

It wasn’t a question, though she took it as one. She met his gaze full on. “Aye. My son was taken from me before he was six months old. Can you imagine what that was like? I was only fourteen. I never had a chance to be a mother to him, but this baby—” She stopped, her voice tightening with emotion. “This baby will be different.”

He was aware of the general circumstances of her past, but didn’t realize that her son had been taken from her when he was so young. He remembered his own mother. How she’d doted on him and his brother and sister. How tenderhearted and loving she’d been, so different from most noblewomen. Mary was the same, he realized.

But he didn’t want to feel sorry for her. He didn’t want to think about how she had suffered. Intentionally or not, she’d taken something from him and then tried to hide it.

She gazed at him with her hand over her stomach protectively—as if he would somehow harm them. The gesture infuriated him. She’d cast him in the role of enemy, and he wanted to know why.

“You should have told me.”

She glared at him, not heeding the warning in his voice.

“What difference would it have made? You were in Scotland and I was here. We were on different sides of the war.”

“And now that we are not?”

A faint blush pinkened her cheeks, and her gaze dropped. “I didn’t think you’d care. As prolific as you are in your … uh, relationships, I assumed this was not an infrequent occurrence. I thought you’d thank me for not telling you.”

Kenneth felt his temper spike hot again. She knew nothing about him. “Oh, I care, and your assumptions are dead wrong. I may have had my share of bed partners—which is nothing that I need to apologize for—but I’ve never had an ‘accident,’ as you put it.”

He’d also never allowed himself to take his release inside a woman before, but for some reason he didn’t want to tell her that.

She bit her lip contritely and also, he noticed to his extreme irritation, adorably. She blinked up at him. “You haven’t?”