Reginald Rutherford was cold, controlling, and obsessed with the family line — the same poison he would later pour into his son. He needed an heir. He made that Priscilla’s entire purpose. And year after year, there was no child, and Reginald grew colder, and crueler, and made very sure Priscilla understood that her failure to produce a Rutherford heir made her worthless.
What Reginald never knew — what he went to his grave never knowing — was that the problem was not Priscilla.
It was him.
Reginald Rutherford was sterile. A childhood illness, most likely, though he never would have lowered himself to find out. He simply assumed, as men like that do, that any failure must be his wife’s.
Priscilla, desperate and frightened and running out of time before Reginald discarded her, did a quiet, dangerous, human thing.
There was a man — a kind one, for once, someone who saw her — and Priscilla made a choice. She has never told me his name and I have never asked. She got pregnant, and she let Reginald believe his miracle had finally come, and she gave the Rutherford dynasty the heir it demanded.
