Lynna's Rogue by Kitty Margo Page B

Johnson inquired about you.”
                  For the first time , Lynna looked up, showing eyes that were red-rimmed from her afternoon of crying. Suddenly, she leapt from the bed like a woman possessed and began to pummel his broad chest with all the force she could muster. “How could you?” she sobbed as scalding tears of abject misery coursed down her cheeks.
                  Joshua grabbed her small hands in his and held them gently to his chest to still their fluttering. “How could I what, Lynna?”
                  “You know very well what! Do not pretend ignorance with me, Captain Jordan!”
                  “So it’s Captain Jordan again , is it? No, Lynna, I can assure you that I do not. Pray tell , enlighten me.”
                  “I will be a disgrace!” She wept, heartbroken. “My dear father will be humiliated! He will turn me away , unable to witness my shame!”
                  “What shame, Lynna? Will you please…”
                  “The enfant !” she shrieked, covering her burning face with her hands. “I am speaking of your child, which I now carry in my womb!”
                  “ My… child? In your… womb?”
                  “ Oui , your child. I am enceinte ,” she whispered, switching from madwoman to a tortured child in a matter of seconds. “Oh, Joshua, how could you do this to me? It will be ever so scandalous and you do not give a fig about me in the first place. And my dear father will be so hurt and shamed.”
                  “Not to mention t he hurt that Nathan Rhodes will bring upon my head if what you say is true.”
     
     
                  “You? You! Is that all you can think about at a time like this? You? And what my father might do to you? Which , I can assure you , will not be pleasant!” she took great pleasure in adding. “What about me?”
                  “There is no cause for undue alarm, Lynna. I will see that both you and the child are well taken care of. What was he saying? What child? Let me amend that, if indeed there i s to be a child. But, please clarify one minor point for me. How did you come upon this information so soon, when we only made love three nights ago?”
                  “Had sex,” she reminded him.
                  “Very well then, since you have become an authority on fornication, Lynna, perhaps you can clarify one point. H ow can you be sure that you are carrying my child?” W hy, the idea was preposterous, pure conjecture.
                  Of a sudden, a sad thought struck Lynna and she chided herself for berating the obviously uninformed man before her. Why , it was entirely possible that he wasn’t even to blame for his thoughtless conduct. For had he not spent most of his adult life onboard ship? Perhaps he was as unversed in such matters as she herself had been. It had most likely been his inaugural venture into relations as well. And he, like her, evidently did not have the slightest notion that their drunken encounter… well… perhaps she was the only one who was intoxicated, would result in the delivery of an enfant . Oh, bless the poor , unsophisticated man.
                  “I am truly sorry, Joshua,” she spoke slowly, as she would to one dim-witted. “You were unaware of the consequences as well, weren’t you? Sit down and let me explain what the disastrous result can be when a man and a woman take indecent liberties.”
                  “Lynna,” he declared abruptly , and massaged his temples in an attempt to ease a sudden pounding, “trust me; I am well aware of how babies are made.”
                  “Then why in God's name did you not inform me?” she cried, not wishing to believe that he could be mindful of the outcome and still perform the act without heed to the