“I lost a bairn. I had but just realized that I carried one and then it was gone. We did try again but I ne’er quickened again. Then Claud had a physician come in to look at me and that mon said I couldnae carry a child.”
“Yet you did get with child once and I cannot believe miscarrying so early would damage anything. Were you very ill? Bleeding a great deal?”
“Nay, I dinnae think there was anything particularly wrong in the way it happened, only that it happened at all.” Arianna slipped her hands out from beneath Jolene’s and wiped a tear from her cheek. “We did try for a year after I lost my baby but naught happened and, after that full year of trying, there were times Claud would try again, usually after his parents made some remarks about his absence from my bed or the lack of an heir. And Claud gave Marie Anne two fine sons so it wasnae a lack in him.”
Jolene sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. “A physician can be wrong. I believe very few of them actually know anything at all about babies and birth and women. They all tend to strongly dislike having anything to do with us. And ’tis not so uncommon for a woman to lose the first child she quickens with. Tell me, how old is the youngest of the two lads?”
“Five, near to six.”
“So for the entire time you were trying to carry this Claud’s child, he was still bedding his mistress and yet she never got with child again?”
Arianna blinked and thought that over for a little while, trying not to let that flicker of hope in her heart grow too large. “I dinnae think so. Do ye think Claud somehow lost his, um, virility?”
“It happens. There are many fevers and such that can steal it. All works as it should but the seed is dead. I should not give up hope of having a child so quickly.”
“The trouble is, Jolene, the only way to be certain I am nay barren is to get with child. It would be best if I do so while married but, if I marry and do prove barren, then I have cheated the mon who married me. Wheesht, I could even be accused of having lied for I would have married him kenning there was a chance I would give him no children.”
“Then perhaps you ought to try without concerning yourself about the marrying part of it all.” Jolene grimaced. “That sounds very devious.”
It did, but the idea stuck in Arianna’s mind as she and Jolene began to talk about their families. It was still there when Brian climbed into bed with her a few hours later and pulled her into his arms. She could not shake free of it, her craving for a child refusing to allow her to give up the idea. Arianna then swore upon her very soul that, if she did find herself carrying Brian’s child, she would not use it to drag him into a marriage he did not want. From what she had heard, the MacFingal clan had no problem at all with having bastard children, and a lot of them. If she was going to test whether she was truly barren or not, there was hardly any better choice than one of the notoriously virile MacFingals.
“We must be back on the horses on the morrow, love,” he said as he removed the chemise she wore and tossed it on the floor.
Arianna grimaced at the thought. “’Tis the last of the journey though, aye?” She slid her hand down his taut stomach, enjoying the smooth warm skin and play of muscle beneath it, actually eager to explore a man’s body for the first time since the embarrassing attempts she had made in the first weeks of her marriage.
“We are done when we reach Scarglas and ye may linger there as long as ye like before going anywhere else.” He hoped she would choose to linger for quite a while before she left to rejoin her family even though he knew it could make parting with her even harder than it would be now.
“Good. I suspect it will be a verra long time before I wish to get back on a horse.”
Brian was about to ask just how long she thought that might be when she curled her long, slender fingers around his erection. He groaned and held her tightly, shifting his hips in a silent plea for her to caress him. When she answered that plea, stroking him, even slipping her hand between his legs to toy with him there, he lost all ability to think.