Sloan couldn’t respond. He felt gut-punched. Heather actually meant to leave him and his daughter. He knew he was greatly to blame, but it still struck him like a blow. He sat there numbly, holding his daughter, unable to manage a word.

“What about Janna?” he said finally. “You mean to desert her now? After she’s come to love you?”

She glanced down at Janna, who was happily smacking her lips as she ate her breakfast. “I love her as well. But the longer I remain, the harder it will be for both of us to part when the time comes. Children are resilient. She’ll forget me in time.”

What about me? he wanted to demand. How am I to forget you?

His mouth twisted in a thin smile. “Sure, duchess. She’ll get over it. She’s too young to have feelings. She’s only a half-breed, after all.”

An angry flush stained Heather’s cheekbones. “Must you use that term to describe her?”

“Why not? That’s what Janna is.”

“Perhaps so, but she isn’t to blame for her Cheyenne ancestry. She cannot help who her mother was.”

His quick, indrawn breath was loud in the silent room; a slap would have been less hurtful.

In the awful pause, Heather bit her lip hard. She wished she could take back the words. She didn’t know why she had lashed out at him like that, except that he had wounded her so deeply by rejecting her love. “I… I’m sorry. I should never have said that.”

He ignored her apology. For a span of several heartbeats he didn’t answer. When Heather risked a glance at him, Sloan’s lean face was shuttered, set in harsh forbidding lines. His next question took her breath away.

“You could be pregnant, have you thought of that? You think I’ll let you leave if you’re carrying my baby?”

The question slipped into her heart like a knife. “I’m not… My courses came last week.”

“Yesterday could have changed that.”

When she remained mute, he stared at her. “Even leaving that aside for a minute … just how do you propose to support yourself in Denver? I can’t afford to do it.”

“I told you, I’ll find a job.”

“There may be horns on that bull, duchess. For a woman alone it won’t be so easy to find honest work in a strange town.”

Her chin rose at his disparaging tone. “Who says it must be honest work? Perhaps I’ll apply for a position at a saloon, dancing for money. I’ve noticed that gentlemen have a great fondness for that sort of woman.”

His expression went dangerously still. She might have been bluffing, but it outraged him to think of his beautiful wife dancing for money in a gaudy saloon. “Like hell you will,” he said softly.