Page 237 of Wicked Highland Heroes

“Why?”

“Many things can go wrong in the first few weeks.”

“Like falling from a tree?”

She slapped his arm.

“Do you not think it better if everyone knows you are having my child?” he asked.

Rhoslyn looked at him. “Do ye believe your brother is still in Scotland?”

“I have no reason to believe he has left. I wrote my father and Edward. If Dayton returns to England, they will send word.”

She grew tired of hiding from him within the walls of Castle Glenbarr. Never before had she allowed anyone to bully her. Never before have you had so much to lose, a small voice replied.

“I told ye it could be some time before ye caught him,” she said. “How long am I to endure being prisoner here?”

“Until I catch him, especially now that you are pregnant. Make no mistake, Dayton will happily claim my son as his if he believes it will gain him your fortune.”

“Just as you would claim his,” she said more to herself than him.

He glanced down at her, and she glimpsed the hurt in his eyes. The emotion vanished in an instant, but her guilt pierced soul deep.

He looked straight ahead. “Rhoslyn, if you were pregnant with Melrose’s child, I would have claimed you as my wife and taken the babe as my own. I suppose my brother and I are much alike.”

Denial leapt on her lips. He wasn’t like his brother...not wholly. St. Claire had the right to demand that she honor the betrothal. That was the way of things for women like her. When her grandfather betrothed her to Alec she understood her duty and married him. He had been a good man and she loved him. But, in truth, he loved her more than she had him. Her stomach knotted. Hadn’t that always been a niggling guilt—one she had managed to ignore until now? St. Claire made her feel... Made her feel what? Feel. That was all.

Feeling was everything.

Feeling was dangerous.