"Damn the book. Damn it to hell." She did not shout but the repressed rage and self-hatred in her beautiful voice sounded deeply wrong to him.

Straightforward anger would be better. To kick over the rain barrel, take an axe to a tree stump, stand between the stone cairns on the fell and scream at the cruelty of the fates, yes. But that's not where Gemma's rage would come to rest. He could see it happening at that very moment.

"I missed the signs," she whispered. "I looked right past them. All I saw were the words in the book. I missed what was written right on her face."

The vibration became a shiver. She sat so still, her eyes so wide and empty of anything but fury at herself.

"I'm not a doctor. I'm no one. Jennie trusted me, me with my little herb concoctions and my delusional arrogance." She turned to gaze at Lysander for the first time, but he was not sure if she saw him.

"I killed her."

"No. No, Gemma. You didn't." Damn his tangling tongue! He had to speak, he had to reach her through her pain.

"I'm no better than a fraud." She curled against the pain. "Worse, I'm a murderer. I killed her as surely as if I'd poisoned her!"

"No!"

She sneered in his direction, but her hate-filled gaze had turned in upon herself. "No? Is it murder to ignorantly wave a musket about until it goes off? Is it murder to throw boulders blindly into a crowd until someone is struck down? For it certainly was no accident when I used my astute medical knowledge," she uttered the words with vile derision, "to allow a woman with her symptoms to dance all night in a hot, crowded room!"

Lysander grabbed her by the shoulders. "Stop. You're not a murderer. You didn't kill your friend!"

She writhed wildly in his grasp and he released her. He had to stop her before those black thoughts and self-flagellating words began to take permanent root in her soul.

"It … it isn't murder when you try to save someone and they die anyway. That's not … not the same thing at all!"

She pulled away from him, pressing her back to the post of the doorframe.

"You don't understand!" She cried. "I did kill her! I chose the baby!"

Lysander realized what they'd been sidestepping all along. "You saved the baby. How could that possibly harm Jennie?"

Gemma wrapped her arms about her belly and began to rock to and fro, the pain within her making it impossible for the stillness to continue. "I had a choice. To save Jennie, I needed to get the baby out."

Lysander still didn't quite grasp her meaning. "Yes, you had to deliver the baby. That's what you did. Jennie's body just gave out too soon."

"I chose to deliver the baby alive."

Shock rippled through Lysander. He stared at her. "That was an option, to kill the baby?"