As she began speaking Emrys was ready with an answer. Her place in this was clear, from his perspective: she could continue on as they had been, or she could leave. He could offer her nothing else, and the choice was ultimately hers to make. When she brought up a delicate situation, however, it brought him up short. He hadn't considered the possibility. Why hadn't he considered the possibility? He thought he'd looked over this from every possible angle. He was always so careful to think things through. But it had been so long since Trystan had whispers of a bastard, so it hadn't been at the forefront of his mind. Emrys had been living under the same rules for so long that he had blindly trusted they would continue to protect him, and hadn't realized he'd been breaking them all with her. He didn't have affairs with fresh-faced debutantes; previously, he'd always seduced married women, where it hardly mattered if they found themselves pregnant. In his mind he must have grouped Angelica with them, rather than the debutantes — or perhaps in a category all her own. Certainly, he had never evaluated the risk.

Stupid. So stupid. It wasn't the first time he'd made a bad decision in the heat of the moment, but that was exactly why it was so crucial to think through everything beforehand — so that even in the heat of the moment, you couldn't ruin everything with one bad choice. That was how he'd survived so long with the lifestyle that he had. He set rules and protected himself from his own impulsive choices. At least, he always had before.

"I'm sorry," he managed, and for a moment couldn't think what else to say.

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