“Yes, busy, Isla,” he barked. “We cannot all pay social calls and play house whenever we want. Some of us have business to attend to--if you would leave me.”
“Nay! Ye have been pacin’ about the room since we returned from the Arrowfells’. Ye are goin’ to bore a hole in the floor. Somethin’ is botherin ye, and I ken what it is.”
He finally turned as he took up his glass. “It is not your concern.”
“Of course it is me concern,” she said, her voice rising. “Ye have been walkin’ around the house like a ghost! I willnae let ye do this to yerself…”
“Oh, and haunted I am,” he rasped as he drained the brandy in a single sip.
“Oliver only asked a simple, innocent question. There is nae need for ye to react this way. We can talk about it-”
“It is not that,” he said as he shook his head, walking to the small bar cart to refill his glass. “I am busy, Isla.”
“Aye… but it is just that.”
“Isla… Do not push me,” Benedict whispered. “You will not like what you hear.”
“Is that why ye pulled away from me tonight at dinner, and when we came home? We need to be able to talk to each other… I am yer wife!”
Benedict stared at her for a long moment, the silence thick with unspoken history that hung in every corner of the hallowed halls of Ealdwick like cobwebs. He looked impossibly tired and worn, a man defeated by the past. He took a long, slow breath.
“I do not want another child, Isla,” he whispered.
I ken it… I ken it and yet, I was unprepared to hear those words… just as he said I would…
Isla felt a sudden, sharp pain in her chest. She wanted to crawl away, to crouch down and disappear, but she pushed past it. She worked too hard in these weeks with Benedict to back down, to not speak her mind when she so desperately needed to.
“I do,” she countered, her gaze unwavering as her emerald eyes met his. “Ye have yer heir, aye. And what an heir he is. I love yer son. But I am also a young woman, and we have so much to give. Perhaps I am nae that young… but I have me own wants and needs, Benedict…”
“Isla-”
“I would like to have children of me own. A wee lass or lad that I carried in me belly, that I could raise alongside Oliver, like Matthew and Fiona…”
“I cannot give that to you,” he cut in, his voice hardening.
“Ye mean ye will nae give that to me,” Isla corrected, crossing her arms tightly across her chest, pulling her dressing down tight against her body to ward off his icy chill.
“I am not playing with you, Isla. I cannot do that. I cannot give you a child. You will have to be content with Oliver.”
“It is nae about him at all!”
“I will not risk it! There will be no more children!”
“I am nae made of porcelain, Benedict. Look at my scars!”
“I know you are not made of porcelain! Damn it, Isla! You do not know-”
“I ken enough! I understand what happened with yer first wife, and yer poor maither. Tragedies I wish I could wipe away and would in a heartbeat. Aye, I understand that ye fear losin’ another wife.”
She took a step toward him, her heart aching.
“I am not afraid,” he rasped. “It is something I simply cannot and will not do.”
“Love requires risk.”
Love.
The word hung in the air like a feather floating slowly to the ground. Isla watched Benedict flinch, freezing entirely. His blue eyes, already as dark as the ocean, became completely opaque. When he finally moved, it was to throw another log on the fire.
