“I’m not giving you my baby.”
Iris met this with equal intensity, hissing, “Do you really think I want it?”
Fleur’s lips parted with surprise, although not, Iris imagined, at her words. Iris had already made it plain that she was a most reluctant participant in Richard’s scheme. But Iris’s tone . . . well, it could not have been described as kind. Quite honestly, she was not sure she could manage a kind voice for this particular conversation.
“You are a cold person,” Fleur accused.
Iris nearly rolled her eyes. “On the contrary, I would be a very warm and loving aunt.”
“We want the same thing,” Fleur cried out. “For me to keep the baby. Why are you arguing with me?”
“Why are you making this so difficult?” Iris shot back.
Fleur thrust her chin out defiantly, but she was starting to lose some of her bravado. Her eyes flicked to the side and then down, her gaze settling somewhere on the grass near her feet.
“I want the truth,” Iris demanded.
Fleur said nothing.
“The truth, Fleur.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Stop lying,” Iris snapped. “Marie-Claire told me everything.”
Fleur’s head jerked up, but she looked more wary than anything else. It was then that Iris remembered that Fleur did not know that Marie-Claire knew about Mr. Burnham. And Iris wasn’t going to get any answers without being more specific in her questions.
“Marie-Claire told me about the father of your baby,” Iris said. “She knows. And now I do, too.”
Fleur paled, but still she did not admit to anything. One almost had to admire her fortitude.
“Why didn’t you tell Richard that John Burnham is the father?” Iris demanded. “Why on earth would you want him to think it was a scoundrel like William Parnell?”
“Because William Parnell is dead!” Fleur burst out. Her skin flushed to an angry pink, but her eyes were hopeless, almost lost. “Richard can’t very well make me marry a dead man.”
“But Mr. Burnham is alive. And he is the father of your baby.”
Fleur was shaking her head, although not as if she were denying it. “It doesn’t matter,” she kept saying. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Fleur—”
“I can go somewhere else.” As if to indicate direction, Fleur flung her arm out in a wide, hysterical circle. She did not notice when Iris was forced to hop back to avoid the tip of the shears. “I can pretend to be a widow. Why won’t Richard let me do that? No one will know. Why would anyone know?”
Iris ducked as the clippers swung toward her once again. “Put down the damned shears!”
Fleur sucked in a breath, staring at the shears with horror. “I’m sorry,” she stuttered. “I’m so—I—I—” With shaking hands she set the shears down on the bench. Her movements were slow and careful, as if she were measuring them out in her head. “I’m going to go away,” she with quiet hysteria. “I shall become a widow. It will be best for everyone.”
“For the love of—” Iris cut herself off, trying to control her temper. She took a breath, and then another, letting the air out in a slow tight stream. “You are not making sense,” she said. “You know as well as anyone that if you wish to be a true mother to this child, you ought to be married.”
Fleur hugged her arms to her body, looking away, through the bower’s opening toward the distant horizon.
Iris finally voiced the question that had to be asked. “Does he even know?”
Fleur grew so stiff she trembled. With the tiniest of motions, she shook her head.
“Don’t you think you should tell him?”
“It would break his heart,” Fleur whispered.
“Because . . . ?” Iris prompted. And if she sounded derisive, well, she hadn’t much patience when she’d entered this conversation. Now it was bloody well gone.
“Because he loves me,” Fleur said simply.
Iris closed her eyes, summoning patience and an even demeanor as she asked, “Do you love him?”
“Of course I do!” Fleur cried. “What sort of woman do you think I am?”
“I don’t know,” Iris said plainly. And when Fleur drew back with an affronted glare, she added, somewhat irritably, “Do you know what sort of woman I am?”
Fleur stood stiff as a board, then finally dipped her chin with a curt, “Fair enough.”