Page 69 of Exile's Return

She jerked, looking around at him in surprise. He did not seem like the sort of man with the remotest interest in small children.

‘What do you mean?’

His gaze met hers, his eyes the colour of the cold stream. ‘I am guessing that you have never spoken of Henry as you should…as his mother, not his guardian. So, tell me about him.’

She blinked. She had never allowed herself to think of the child in that way. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘All those little things mothers talk about,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘He cut his first tooth at four months, and started walking before he was one.’

He laughed. ‘And who does he look like?’

‘You’ve seen him. He has James’s fair colouring but he has my eyes, I think.’ She smiled fondly, remembering the soft downy hair and the baby smell of her son. ‘He is a typical boy who loves his wooden sword and his toy soldiers. I hope he grows up in a peaceful world where he never has to take up real arms.’

‘Unlike us?’

She nodded. ‘It’s all we know, isn’t it Daniel?’

He sighed. ‘Nearly twenty years of strife, Agnes.’ Daniel bit into the bread and chewed thoughtfully, staring at the water that broke over the boulders.

‘How have you stood it all these years?’ he asked at last.

The old, familiar ache cloyed her heart.

‘I loved my sister,’ she said, ‘but in truth, I have wanted more than anything to hear him call me Mother.’

‘Whose idea was the deception?’

‘Ann’s. I wonder now if she knew her days were numbered and wanted to give James the heir he craved. When she put the proposition it all seemed so very sensible.’

Daniel said nothing, his silence inviting the confidence she had never shared before.

‘Elizabeth’s birth nearly killed Ann. The doctors advised against any more children, but James wanted a son — he needed a son. He told me the last thing he wanted was for Tobias to inherit on his death, so the three of us decided that I would carry James’s child and we would pretend it was Ann’s.’

Daniel cleared his throat. ‘You agreed to this arrangement? Willingly?’

Agnes lowered her head and nodded.

‘I fancied myself in love with James. It was a foolish notion and not…’ She paused, remembering the awful fumbling andJames’s grunts and groans. He had been nothing like Daniel. ‘Not what I had expected. Henry was conceived quickly enough, and as soon as I was sure, James let it be known that Ann was once more with child but the doctors had advised her to remain confined to her bed-chamber until the child’s birth. So Ann and I passed the next few months closeted away, attended only by Peg. When Henry was born…’ She took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Ann took to her bed, lauded as the mother of James’s son. I…’

‘You?’ Daniel prompted as she hesitated.

‘I had to watch my son in my sister’s arms, a wet nurse brought in to suckle him, while…while my breasts were bound.’

She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. The pain, both physical and emotional still raw even after all the years.

‘James bought me presents.’ Her fingers closed on the locket around her neck, James’s gift to her. ‘I told myself that their happiness was reward enough, but we lost Ann within a year to consumption and the children fell to my charge.’ She looked up. ‘I didn’t wish my sister’s death and I mourned her. I still do, but there was a part of me that rejoiced. I had Henry for my own, at last.’

‘What if the child had been a girl?’

It was a question she had asked herself many times during her pregnancy. Agnes shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I assume James and Ann would have acknowledged the child in the same way, but…’

‘What about James?’ Daniel prompted, a harsh edge to his tone. ‘He had his son — was he done with you?’

She let out a deep sigh. ‘James still came to my bed, when it suited him, but God, in his wisdom, did not curse me with another pregnancy. Every month I gave thanks that I had been spared the shame and humiliation, but…’ she bit her lip, ‘…there was a part of me that yearned to hold a child of my own in my arms.’

Daniel rose to his feet, brushing crumbs from his breeches. He stood in front of her and took her hand in his, curling his fingers around hers.