“You’re divorced?”

“No.” She gave a half smile but it didn’t reach her eyes. “My husband…Peter is dead.”

“Oh.” It was hopelessly inadequate. “I’m sorry.”

“He died seven months ago,” Jenny said tonelessly. “I’m used to it now.”

“Seven months isn’t long.” Michael thought back to the death of his partner on the police force. Was it two years already since Dan had died?

Grief and shock stayed with you forever, he thought, and the emotional damage lasted a lifetime. No, seven months wasn’t long at all.

Jenny was studying him curiously. “You look like you understand.”

“I don’t know how it feels to lose the person you love,” Michael said. “But I’d guess it must be just about as bad as it can get.”

“It is,” she said forcibly, staring at the river. “One minute I was telling him I was pregnant and watching his face, and he…” She shook her head as if shaking off a nightmare. “No matter. The next thing, the hotel phone’s ringing and they’re telling me Peter’s plane crashed and I’d best get to the hospital because he’s dying.” She flinched, and her eyes looked inward. “Peter died four days later, but in the hospital we talked about the baby… And his mother came from England and he told her…told Gloria…”

“Told Gloria what?”

“That I was pregnant.”

He frowned, still not understanding. “So there’s a problem with that? I’d imagine it might have been the only piece of good news in the whole tragedy.”

“But you don’t know Peter’s mother. She’s Gloria Hepworth-Morrow, eighth Duchess of Epingdale,” Jenny said bitterly. “The title makes a difference.”

“I imagine it might.” Then he shook his head. Maybe he couldn’t imagine. “No. I can’t. Why does it make a difference?”

“Because Gloria wants my baby.”

SHE LOOKED DESOLATE.

It took sheer, Herculean effort for Michael not to lean forward and take her in his arms.