#DailyLines #MOBY #WrittenINMyOWNHeartsBLOOD #Book8 #OutMARCH2014 #thelimitsofknowledge

So many gory details didn’t show up on those tidy genealogical charts, I thought. Brianna was Frank’s daughter—on paper…and by love. But the long, knife-blade nose and glowing hair of the man beside me showed whose blood ran through her veins.

But I’d thought I _knew_. And because of that false knowledge, I’d prevented Jamie killing Jack Randall in Paris, fearing that if he did, Frank might never be born. What if he _had_ killed Randall then? I wondered, looking at Jamie sidelong. He sat tall, straight in the saddle, deep in thought, but with an air now of anticipation; the dread of the morning that had gripped us both had gone.

Anything might have happened; a number of things might not. Randall wouldn’t have abused Fergus, Jamie wouldn’t have fought a duel with him in the Bois du Boulogne…perhaps I would not have miscarried our first child, our daughter Faith. Likely I would have—miscarriage was usually physiological in basis, not emotional, however romantic novels painted it. But the memory of loss was forever linked to that duel in the Bois du Boulogne.

I shoved the memories firmly aside, turning my mind away from the half-known past to the complete mystery of the waiting future. But just before the images blinked out, I caught the edge of a flying thought.

What about the child? The child born to Mary Hawkins and Alexander Randall—Frank’s true ancestor. He was, in all probability, alive now. Right now.

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