Secret Whispers (Heavenstone 2)
“You traitor!” Cassie screamed from the doorway.
“Your sister?” He shook his head. “I don’t understand, Semantha. What do you mean? Why would your own sister do something like that to you?”
“It was after my mother had died. Cassie wanted a baby for my father. She was hoping for a boy, of course, only she couldn’t get pregnant, so she bribed a young man who had begun working for us and arranged for him to sexually assault me when I was under the influence of a drug. It was powerful. I wasn’t even sure it had happened, and when I . . . realized I was pregnant—”
“Pregnant? You got pregnant?”
“Yes.”
He thought for a moment and then rose off the bed and walked to the window. Cassie stepped toward me, smiling.
“Ethan?”
He turned slowly. “Did you give birth? I mean . . . did you get an abortion?”
“No. My sister tricked me. She paid someone to pretend he was a doctor who could diagnose me with something called pseudocyesis.”
“What’s that?”
“With pseudocyesis, women have symptoms similar to true pregnancy. They have morning sickness and tender breasts, gain weight, suffer abdominal distension, and many actually claim they experience the sensation of fetal movement, known as quickening, even though there is no fetus present. Some actually go into false labor.”
“You’re kidding. This really happens?”
“The most famous case of that is Mary Tudor, the queen of England, who believed she was pregnant more than once when she wasn’t. She needed an heir. I read up on it all once I was diagnosed with it.”
“And you really believed this was what was wrong with you? How could you believe such a thing?”
“I told you. My sister brought a doctor to me. I was hearing it from a man I thought to be an honest doctor.”
He shook his head. “This is fantastic. So, eventually, you realized you were really pregnant, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you really gave birth to a baby?”
I nodded. “A girl.”
“Well, what happened to the baby?” he asked.
“My father arranged for her to be given to distant cousins. I’ve never seen her since she was born,” I said.
“So, you have a four-year-old daughter? Will they ever tell her the truth?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think that was part of the arrangement my father had made. He gave them money for her, of course.”
“Yes, I’m sure he did. And this sister, Cassie? She had the fatal accident on the stairway?”
“Yes.”
“Well.” He wiped his face and shook his head. “I guess
all of that helps to explain why you’re so nervous when we’re together and I’m a little aggressive.”
“I’m sorry, Ethan. I don’t want to be. Don’t say you’re aggressive. You’re just doing what any normal man would do and should do.”
“Right.” He thought a moment as he stared at me. “Exactly what happened just now when we . . . when I was about to make love to you?”
“The memory of the date rape was so vivid for a moment that I got confused.”