She rocked, pale and trembling at the dreadfulness of her own words. "That's what the book said. That it might be for the best, to save the mother, especially if she had other children. I believed I could save them both! Me, an under-qualified nurse with delusions of doctoring! I decided that I could do what real doctors quail before. I'm so brilliant. I'm so special. After all, I'm the bloody damned Lady of the Dale!" She began to strike her fists on her knees, taking her rage out upon herself instead of releasing it into the world.

"I killed Jennie with my arrogance! I did it. I murdered her with my own damned pride!"

Lysander grabbed her hands in his and held them still. This time he did not release her when she struggled in his grasp.

"You did not kill her," he said slowly and firmly, forcing the words to obey and fall from his lips, albeit somewhat haltingly. "Jennie simply died. It's terrible and sad and part of living. But you didn't murder anyone."

"How can you be so sure of that? How can you possibly understand? You've never held someone's life in your hands and had to choose!"

His throat squeezed shut, the words threatened to flutter away again, leaves before the coming storm. And oh, what a storm! He fought the choking silence. He willed the words forth. He forced his stupid, reluctant tongue to speak. For her. Anything to help Gemma.

"I know. Because I … killed my closest friend." The words. Find the words, make them come. "I didn't choose to let him die." The panic nearly overwhelmed him. His throat began to close. He spat the truth out quickly, before his mind could coerce him to silence again. "I murdered him with my own hands."

For the first time Gemma looked at him as if she knew him. But the confusion and tinge of awakening distaste in her eyes was almost worse than her flat, inward stare.

Almost. "It happened during the war."

She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "You aren't talking about accidental death on the battlefield, are you? When someone is shot by their own side?"

He could see that she somehow knew it wasn't. He shook his head.

Gemma shivered. "You were confounded? Your mind was overwhelmed?"

He reached a hand out but stopped when she twitched away from it. "Gemma, you cannot absolve me. Please, just listen. Can you listen?"

At her wary nod, he began. At first his words threatened to choke off. His throat tightened. The words took desperate frantic flight — and he knew then that his stumbling tongue and incessant urge to flee was because something inside him had tried to protect him from the truth he must now tell.