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“No.”
“Or threaten you in any way?”
“No. He was gentle.”
Jasper closed his eyes. God, he hated this. His hand had stopped moving in her hair, and he was conscious that he was gripping a lock.
He exhaled and carefully unfisted his hand. “Then what is it? There’s something more that you’re not telling me, my heart.”
She was silent so long that he began to think he’d imagined it in a jealous haze. Perhaps there was nothing else.
But in the end, she sighed, a lost, lonely sound, and said, “I found out I was increasing, shortly after he broke the engagement.”
Chapter Fifteen
When Jack returned with the silver ring, he paused only to change into his rags, and then he nipped down to the royal kitchens. The same small boy was stirring the princess’s soup. Jack once again asked him if he might buy a turn at the spoon. Plop! went the silver ring, and Jack was away before the head cook could spy him. He hurried up the stairs and to his princess’s side.
“Why, where have you been all day, Jack?” Princess Surcease asked when she saw him.
“Here and there, thither and yon, beautiful lady.”
“And what have you done to your poor arm?”
Jack looked down and saw that he had a cut from the troll’s blade. “Oh, Princess, I did wrestle a monstrous pill bug in your honor today.”
And Jack capered about until the entire court roared with laughter. . . .
—from LAUGHING JACK
Melisande felt Vale’s fingers pause in her hair. Would he repudiate her now? Get up and walk away? Or would he simply pretend he hadn’t heard her self-damning words and never speak of it again? She held her breath, waiting.
But he merely ran his fingers through her hair and said, “Tell me.”
So she closed her eyes and did, remembering that time so long ago now, and the pain that had nearly stopped her heart in her breast. “I knew at once what it was when I became sick in the mornings. I’ve heard of ladies being confused and waiting months to tell because they were not sure, but I knew.”
“Were you frightened?” His deep voice was even, and it was hard to tell what he was feeling.
“No. Well,” she amended, “perhaps when I first realized my condition. But very soon after that, I knew that I wanted my baby. That no matter what, he would be a joy to me.”
She couldn’t see his face, but she watched his chest rise and fall beneath her hand. There were curling hairs in the hollow of his breastbone. She threaded her forefinger idly through them and let herself remember a bit of that joy. So strong. So fleeting.
“Did you tell your family?”
“No, I told no one, not even Emeline. I think I was afraid of what they would make me do. That they would take the baby from me.” She took a steadying breath, determined to tell him all now, in case she couldn’t work up the courage to talk about this again. “I had a plan, you see. I would go to live with my elder brother, Ernest, until I’d begun to show, and then I would retire to a cottage in the country with my old nanny. I would have the baby, and we would raise him together, my nanny and I. It was a silly, childish plan, but at the time I thought it might work. Or maybe it was simply my desperate wishful thinking.”
She felt the slide of hot tears and knew he must feel their dampness on his chest. Her voice was growing choked. But still he stroked her hair gently, and she found his hand soothing.
She swallowed and finished her sad story. “But I hadn’t been long with my brother Ernest when I woke in the middle of the night with blood on my thighs. I bled for five days, very heavily, and after that it was gone. My baby was dead.”
Melisande stopped because her throat had swelled with emotions and she could no longer talk. She closed her eyes and let the tears overflow, running down her temple and onto his chest. She sobbed once and then no more. She simply lay there and trembled with her grief. This was an old wound, but one that appeared fresh and new at odd moments, catching her off guard with its sharp pain. She’d held the possibility of life once, but that life had been taken away.
“I’m sorry,” Vale rumbled beneath her. “I’m so sorry you lost your baby.”
She couldn’t speak. She could only nod.
He tilted her head up so he could see her face. His turquoise eyes were intense. “I will give you a baby, my dearest heart. As many babies as you wish, I swear it on my honor.”
She stared at him in wonder. She wasn’t ashamed of what had happened—of who she was—but she’d expected anger, not sympathy, from him.
