“If I thought they were a danger, I’d already have killed them,” I retorted. The words horrified me as they came out of my mouth, because I recognized they were absolutely true.
Any other woman might have been alarmed by what I had said. But I saw Molly relax, comforted. “Then you love her?” she asked quietly. “You aren’t ashamed of her? Appalled that I’ve given you such a peculiar child?”
“Of course I love her!” The question jolted me. How could she doubt me? “She’s my daughter, the child we hoped for all those years! How could you think I wouldn’t love her?”
“Because some men wouldn’t,” she said simply. She turned the child and held her on her knees for my inspection. It woke her, but she didn’t cry. She looked up at both of us with her wide blue eyes. She was nearly lost in the soft gown. Even the neck opening was too large for her, baring a small shoulder. Molly tugged it closed. “Fitz. Let’s say aloud what we both know. She’s a strange little thing. I was pregnant so long; I know, you doubt that, but trust me in this. I carried her inside me for over two years. Perhaps even longer than that. And yet she was born so tiny. Look at her now. She seldom cries, but she watches, just as Tavia said. Still too young to even hold her head up, but she looks so knowing. She watches, and her eyes go from you to me as we speak, as if she listens and already knows every word we say.”
“Maybe she does,” I said with a smile, but I didn’t give any credence to her words. Molly folded her close in her arms again and forced out words. She didn’t look at me as she spoke them. “Any other man would look at her and call me a whore. Hair pale as a spring lamb and such blue eyes. Any other man would doubt that this was your child.”
I laughed out loud. “Well, I don’t! She is mine. Mine and yours. Given to us as miraculously as any child bestowed by the pecksies in an old tale. Molly, you know I have the Wit. And I tell you plainly, from the first time I scented her, I knew her as mine. And yours. Ours. I have never doubted that.” I drew one of Molly’s hands free from the baby, unfolded her clenched fingers, and kissed her palm. “And I have never doubted you.”
Gently I pulled her closer to lean on me. I found a curl of her hair and twined it about my finger. It took a bit of waiting, but I felt her clenched muscles ease. She relaxed. For a short time there was peace. The fire muttered softly to itself, and outside the wind wound through the ancient willows that gave the place its name. We were a simple family for a few heartbeats. Then I girded up my courage and spoke again.