Lucas stopped walking and faced her. "What do you mean, if you're not around? Where the hell do you think you'd go?"
Celia swallowed and told herself to be calm. Hysteria was never helpful. "If I die in childbed, I mean."
He turned deadly pale. "Don't ever talk that way again, understand? I won't hear of it."
"It's a possibility. I don't like the thought any better than you, but we can't just ignore it."
He looked chalky with horror. "Celia-"
"Listen to me. If our baby is a daughter, even if I survive the birth, I still may not be safe. Tobin will probably annul our marriage and seek another wife. I'll be sent back to my father in disgrace or I'll be forced to take the veil. Either way, I won't be around to protect our child."
Lucas waved his hands like he wanted scatter her words away, like an unpleasant swarm of flies. "But the child would still be his heiress….in everyone else's eyes, at least."
