Page 125 of What a Highlander’s Got to Do

Her hand stole over her stomach and her breath caught. A little boy, just like him.

Did a son need a father more than a daughter?

And then, yet another terrible realization. If she did have a boy, she’d be robbing him of more than a father.

She would be robbing him of a legacy.

The boy who would one day have been a duke would have no title whatsoever, other than bastard.

She’d never cared what people called her, in the years before her mother married Andrew. But for some reason, the thought of them disparaging her son—if, indeed, there was to be one—mortified her.

How dare they?

How dare they?

It took a moment for her to remember this was all supposition, but still, her fury remained.

The world was a harsh place. Even she, as the niece of a duke and a baron, had seen it. Did she have the right to deny any element of safety to her child?

For what?

Her own selfish desire to be free?

She huffed a slightly damp laugh. What was freedom? Was this it? How glorious was it then to be on her own in the world?

Even her beloved family could not fill the void that Nick’s absence created.

Everything about him fed her soul. His laugh. His smile. His touch.

What was it about her that made her want to run?

Ah. She knew and the realization humbled her.

It was fear.

The thing she had always fought, resisted, and despised.

And it lived within her. Coiled in her belly.

Controlled her.

Owned her.

Would she let it?

If she continued on this course, she would have succumbed to it. And she would, ever and always, be alone.

A cold wind blew through her.

Only now did she realize what a fool she had been.

When it was far too late.

But . . . was it?

Her heart stuttered as she realized it was not.

She could leave this coach at the next stop—no matter how brief it was—and catch the next coach back to London.