Chapter One

Tamsin

Early summer, 1316, the Isle of Ulva, Scotland

"You will give me a son this time, or I will kill you." His arm swung in a fast arc, slapping her cheek hard, her head bouncing off the stone wall from the force of the blow. She took a deep breath, heaving a wee bit, something that helped her keep her cries inside.

Tamsin would not react, no scream or tears. If she did, she knew from experience that a second blow would follow.

"My lord, how would I do that?" She was but eight and ten. How did one make a child in your belly a girl or a boy? There must be a way that she did not know. But first, she needed to make herself with child again. Was there a way to guarantee the brute's seed would take again? She was so na?ve about the ways of women and men that the topic embarrassed her.

Every eve she prayed it would happen again soon so he would go to another's bed. She hadn't had her courses in a while, so she was hopeful, but her belly hadn't grown yet. The reprieve she'd had once since she'd had an enormous belly from carrying their daughter was something she hadn't expected.

She enjoyed the privacy immensely. She hated the act. The brutality of it, the way her husband hurt her, tested her strength every time. She'd rather he had three other women to bed if he would leave her be.

The next blow caught her in her belly and came from his fist, so powerful it knocked her off her feet and she landed on the table behind her.

The servants gasped behind him.

Unable to see clearly, Tamsin huddled into a ball, her hands cradling her belly. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

"Extilda," he called out. "Take Alana and send her to my mother's house."

"Nay," Tamsin shouted, attempting to sit, but unable to because of the pain from the blow that still gripped her insides. That she could tolerate—beatings, neglect, starvation, even imprisonment. Her only wish was to not be kept away from their daughter. "Please, my lord. I will keep her quiet." She adored wee Alana.

He grabbed her by the hair and lifted her off the table. "You will not see her again until you bear me a son." Then he shoved her back.

Only this time, she missed the corner of the table and slid off the edge onto the floor, landing on her side. A trickle of blood burst from her womb, a warmth washing between her legs. She cradled her belly, a sudden fear engulfing her. She hadn't even known she was carrying.

A serving woman yelled, "Get the midwife! She will be delivering."

Raghnall bent over and spit on her. "A son. Remember that it must be a boy." The sound of his footsteps on the stone floor told her he was leaving. She peeked around him when the searing pain struck, the kind that told her a bairn was on its way. One she wasn't aware had been inside her.

The servants had called her plump, ungainly, and foolish. Her husband had called her unlovable. Why hadn't she realized she'd been carrying again? If only her mother had lived long enough to explain such things to her instead of having to learn the intimate truths from serving girls.

Blushing, a thought came to her she wished to deny. She hadn't wanted another bairn except to keep her husband at bay. Suppose she had a lad resembling Raghnall. What if her husband raised a boy who resembled him in every way?

"Alana. I want Alana," she whimpered when the woman helped her to her feet.

"Come. You will surely lose this one. You are not far enough along. The midwife is on her way. Do not make matters worse for yourself." The woman pinched her arm as if to enforce her instructions.

Tamsin pinched her back.