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At twenty-four, she lived in a pretty house on South Main and had three servants of her own Her wardrobe was full of beautiful clothes, and her jewelry case sparkled

It was true she wasn't received by the fine ladies she'd once envied, but there was a fashionable half world where a woman of her station elcome Where she was envied

She threw lavish parties She traveled She lived

Then, hardly inald had tucked her into that pretty house, her clever, craftily designed world crashed

She would have hidden it froht district and end the thing But he'd caught her when she was violently ill, and he'd studied her face with those dark, shrewd eyes

And he'd known

He'd not only been pleased but had forbidden her to end the pregnancy To her shock, he'd bought her a sapphire bracelet to celebrate her situation

She hadn't wanted the child, but he had

So she began to see how the child could work for her As the inald Harper's child - bastard or no -she would be cared for in perpetuity Heto her bed as she lost the bloom of youth, as beauty faded, but he would support her, and the child

His wife hadn't given hiht She would

Through the last chills of winter and into the spring, she carried the child and planned for her future

Then soe happened It moved inside her Flutters and stretches, playful kicks The child she hadn't wanted became her child

It grew inside her like a flower that only she could see, could feel, could know And so did a strong and terrible love

Through the sweltering, sticky heat of the summer she bloomed, and for the first ti other than herself and her own comfort

The child, her son, needed her She would protect it with all she had