"Only chance?" he repeated incredulously. "Don't be ridiculous. It isn't as though the world is running out of women," he snapped. Something about what she'd said had made him a little irritable, but he wasn't sure what it could have been. The recollection of the role that he'd played in her almost-demise, even if she didn't know the full extent of it? Or the reminder of her own fragility, particularly when it came to pregnancy and childbirth? A miscarriage could kill her, it was true — the same had happened to other women — but it still seemed exponentially safer than going through nine months of pregnancy and then a traumatic labor, only to quite possibly end up with something he didn't even want — another daughter, for instance, or a deformed mess.

"You might miscarry anyway, at any point," he pointed out. "The earlier it happens, the safer it would be."