Iris shook her head sadly. “Maybe after . . .” She glanced down at her belly, where her empty womb hid beneath her clothes. “Maybe I will fall in love with Fleur’s baby. And maybe then I’ll decide that this was all worth it, even that it was God’s plan. But right now . . .” She swallowed, trying to find compassion for the innocent child at the heart of it all. Was she so unnatural that she couldn’t even manage that? Or maybe she was just selfish, too hurt by Richard’s manipulation to let herself ponder what might be the greater good.

“Right now,” she said softly, “it doesn’t feel like it.”

She took a step back. It felt as if she were snapping a rope in two. She felt empowered. And infinitely more sad.

“You should talk to your sister,” she said.

His eyes flicked toward hers.

“Unless you have finally gained her agreement,” Iris said, answering his unspoken question.

Richard seemed to be vaguely perturbed that she was questioning this. “Fleur has not argued with me about it since the day she arrived.”

“And you perceive that to be acquiescence?” Really, men could be so stupid.

He frowned.

“I would not be so sure that she has come around to your way of thinking,” she told him.

Richard looked at her sharply. “Have you spoken to her?”

“You know very well I have spoken to no one.”

“Then perhaps you should not speculate,” he said in what Iris found to be an unbecomingly snippy voice.

She shrugged. “Perhaps not.”

“You do not know Fleur,” he persisted. “Your interaction has been limited to a single conversation.”

Iris rolled her eyes. “Conversation” was not the word she would have used to describe that awful scene in Fleur’s bedroom. “I don’t know why she is so determined to keep the baby,” Iris said. “Perhaps it is the sort of thing only a mother could understand.”

He flinched.

“That was not meant as a blow,” she informed him coolly.

Richard’s eyes met hers, then he murmured, “Forgive me.”

“Regardless,” Iris continued, “I don’t think you should consider yourself secure until Fleur gives you her explicit consent.”

“She will.”

Iris raised her brows doubtfully.

“She has no choice.”

Again, so stupid. She gave him a pitying look. “So you think.”

He looked at her assessingly. “You disagree?”

“You already know that I don’t approve of your scheme. But that hardly matters.”

“I meant,” he said through clenched teeth, “do you think she can raise the baby on her own?”