By Winter's Light

by Stephanie Laurens

  Claire let the words sink in. After a moment, she murmured, “Thank you.”

  Melinda chuckled softly; the covers rustled as she settled deeper in her bed.

  Claire continued to stare upward as—inevitably—she replayed her discussion with Daniel in her head. She’d managed to convey to him the gist of her problem—that she didn’t believe enough, didn’t trust enough to marry again. She hoped he’d understood that it wasn’t him she distrusted but herself. After her first marriage, she didn’t trust herself to love—not properly—ever again.

  He’d then thrown all her careful certainty into chaos.

  Would your late husband have wanted that? Would he have wanted his memory to hold you back for the rest of your life? To prevent you from having any happiness, regardless of what life sends your way?

  It had never occurred to her to see her reaction in that light, but Daniel putting the matter like that—casting her position in those terms—had turned her perceived foundation of both her life and her future on its head.

  Only a fool made the same mistake twice. She’d fallen in love and married, and that path had led to disaster. She’d been very certain that she did not need to go that way again.

  Yet what she had felt for Randall had been…a girl’s dreams, something light and airy—ultimately insubstantial. She hadn’t known that at the time, but she could own to it now. In contrast, what she felt for Daniel—the instant focusing of her senses, of her awareness whenever he was near, the intensity and depth of sheer feeling he evoked, the connection between them—that was something she’d never before known.

  Only a fool didn’t learn from hard experience, but had she learned the right lesson? Had she misconstrued the message, making it into a justification to mask her cowardice—her refusal to risk ever being hurt like that, damaged like that, again?

  She would be damned if she allowed Randall, that dissolute deceiver—he who had single-handedly wrecked her life—to reach out from the grave and keep her from…what? Happiness and love with Daniel? Was that what he was offering? If so, was Melinda’s sage advice the path Claire should follow?

  She’d told Daniel the truth; she felt as if his words had ripped apart the fabric of her understanding of herself and left her adrift.

  As if she had to find her compass, her true north, her lodestone again.

  As if she hadn’t actually been able to sense it and follow it, not over the years since Randall’s death.

  If Melinda was correct—and the sensible, rational part of Claire’s no-nonsense psyche recognized wisdom when she heard it—then if what Daniel was offering was love, it behooved Claire to set aside what she now saw was simple fear—fear of being hurt, nay, devastated again—and chance her hand by taking Daniel’s.

  By accepting his suit, his proposal, if and when he made it.

  But all that hinged on the question of whether he truly loved her. She’d thought a gentleman had loved her once, but that had turned out to be a foolish fiction.

  Regardless of Melinda’s advice, Claire would be foolish indeed to make that mistake twice.

  So…did Daniel love her?

  How could she tell?

  Perhaps if she asked him why he wanted to marry her? Perhaps he could convince her that his regard was love, well enough at least to allow her to believe enough to take the chance and accept him.

  But did he love her? How could she truly tell?

  She fell asleep with that question revolving, unanswered, in her head.

  CHAPTER 7

  The sounds emanating from behind the blanket-screen were enough to make the bravest man blanch.

  Thomas, at least, had to be there and, regardless, could not have escaped the ordeal, but the three male Cynsters had ended up being trapped in a small space with a woman giving birth and a storm blocking all routes to relief through no fault of their own.

  He had to give Sebastian, Michael, and Marcus Cynster credit for not retreating to the stable-barn. Earlier, Marcus had done his best to distract Jeb by getting him to show off his long-haired ewes, but now Jeb sat across the table from Thomas, his hands clasped tight about a beaker of whisky—the better to stop them from shaking. Jeb’s face was as pale as a winter’s moon as he stared in mounting horror at the blanket that screened his wife.

  Who had progressed from incoherent screams to partially discernible curses—several of which were directed at Jeb. Others were directed at men in general. Several were highly inventive.

  Thomas had heard that such things happened in even the most content of marriages. Menfolk were not intended to hear—because they were not intended to be within hearing.

  Sadly, that was not the case tonight.

  At least they were warm. Reminded by the other girl—Prudence—when she’d brought out the empty trenchers, to keep the fire built up and to ensure there was a good supply of water brought to a boil, then left to cool to useable warmth, Thomas and the three Cynster males had duly obeyed; despite the storm, the air in the cottage was approaching livable.

  Surreptitiously, Thomas checked his watch. An hour, perhaps more, Lucilla had said; by his estimation, they were most of the way through that hour.

  Hesta had stretched in silent somnolence to one side of the hearth; suddenly, she raised her head.

  Thomas saw, tensed.

  The shutters at his back tore free of their latch and whisked open, slamming against the cottage wall.

  Icy air carrying snow and sleet swirled inside, whipping around and diving past the blanket.

  Three female voices shrieked.

  Thomas was already at the door. Pausing only to tell Hesta, “Stay!” he hauled the door open and plunged into the night.

  The door swung free behind him, but he didn’t stop; he’d glimpsed the Cynsters racing after him—they would hold the door until he returned.

  He had to get the shutter closed and secured again, or the baby, when it came, would freeze, or at the very least take a lethal chill.

  The fury of the storm was waiting. The wind slapped into him and sent him staggering back a step. But he leaned into it, dug his boots into the snow, and pushed forward. Then he pivoted and bulled his way along the front wall of the cottage.

  The drifts reached nearly to his knees. Every step was a battle.

  Then he reached the first shutter, grasped the edge, and ignoring the cold stinging his fingers, forced the shutter away from the wall. Fighting the wind every inch of the way, he shifted his grip and, clinging to the edge with near desperation, used his entire weight and shoved the shutter back into place.

  He glanced at the second shutter; he couldn’t reach it while simultaneously holding the first in place.

  “I’ll get the other one.”

  Thomas turned his head to see Sebastian Cynster moving past him, plowing through the drift toward the other shutter.

  He watched as Sebastian tried to tug the shutter away from the wall, but the power of the wind defeated him.

  Sebastian, Thomas had gathered, was eighteen years old. Thomas was nineteen, nearly twenty. Although they were the same height, the eighteen or so months’ difference showed in their weight; Thomas was the more heavily muscled, especially across the chest.

  Sebastian was the heaviest and strongest of the other males in the cottage, but Thomas was stronger still.

  Moistening his lips, already badly chapped, Thomas yelled over the wind’s whine, “Come and hold this one. I’ll get that one.”

  Sebastian hesitated, but thankfully only for a moment. Accepting that Thomas could do what he could not wouldn’t have come easily; Thomas could only be grateful that the eldest Cynster had sufficient self-assurance that he didn’t need to cling to his dignity.

  Sebastian reached Thomas’s side and threw his weight against the shutter. Thomas released it; stepping around Sebastian, head down against the strafing wind, he forced his increasingly heavy feet the extra paces to the other shutter.

  He gripped it—and could barely feel anything th
rough his fingers. Gritting his teeth, he set himself and pulled.

  Tugged. Inwardly swore and threw his weight fully against the wind—which suddenly paused.

  Thomas stumbled and nearly fell as the shutter, no longer held back by the force of the gale, slammed over and closed.

  Sebastian slapped a palm onto the second shutter, pinning it in place while Thomas regained his balance and his footing.

  As soon as Thomas leaned against the second shutter, Sebastian reached for the latch. And swore. “The anchor-point’s gone. It’s been wrenched off.”

  Thomas glanced up. The iron circle the latch hooked into had been ripped away. But the arctic gale was blowing again; they had to secure the shutters, and neither of them could stay out much longer. Struggling not to breathe too deeply—to invite the frigid air to sear his lungs—he let his gaze fall…to the thick wooden sill. And the narrow gaps at the base of the shutters.

  Lifting his head, Thomas screamed against the wind, “I have an idea. Can you hold them closed by yourself?”

  Leaning into the shutters, Sebastian met Thomas’s gaze and simply nodded.

  Thomas hauled in a shallow breath, pushed away from the cottage wall, and headed around the corner to where he’d left the sled. He gave thanks that that side of the cottage was better protected from the blast and the snow hadn’t drifted quite so high; despite his numbed fingers, it took him less than a minute to pull out what he needed from the box in the sled’s base.

  He shoved the chocks used to stabilize the sled into his pockets and hefted the mallet that went with them. Ducking his head, he rounded the cottage. The wind struck him anew, and he had to battle against the icy blast.

  Sebastian was simply holding on, holding the shutters closed. He watched as Thomas fought his way to his side, fleetingly grinned when he saw the chock Thomas pulled from his pocket and wedged beneath the second shutter.

  Two minutes later, Thomas had bashed all four chocks into place, two to each shutter.

  Sebastian pushed back, removing his hands from the shutters. They both waited, but although the wind ripped and tugged, the chocks held firm.

  Sebastian caught Thomas’s eyes and tipped his head toward the door. Stuffing the mallet in his pocket, Thomas nodded. Speech was beyond him.

  They started off—and Thomas staggered.

  Sebastian stopped, then reached back and linked his arm with Thomas’s. “Together,” Sebastian rasped. “Easier that way.”

  It was; their combined mass stabilized them both and gave them added momentum when they moved.

  They regained the door and fell against it; immediately, it opened, and they were both grabbed and hauled bodily inside.

  Thomas found himself manhandled to the table and pushed down to sit on a stool; it was Marcus who did the handling. Beside Thomas, Sebastian was likewise shoved onto a stool by his brother.

  “Hands first!” a female voice ordered from behind the blanket-screen.

  “Yes, we know,” Marcus muttered. Grabbing Thomas’s hands by the wrists, he thrust them one after the other into a bowl of barely warm water. Or was it cold water? Thomas couldn’t tell.

  Before he’d fully absorbed what had happened, Marcus caught his jaw and angled his face upward; standing alongside Thomas, Marcus started smearing some ointment onto Thomas’s skin. Thomas tried to pull away but Marcus growled, “Don’t. If you want to try arguing with Lucilla, you can attempt it later.”

  “Indeed.” Somewhat grimly, Michael was slathering the same concoction onto Sebastian’s face. “Just be thankful we didn’t eat the butter. If we had, this would be made with lard.”

  Thomas was still trying to find his breath, along with his ability to think. As the coldness of his coat registered, he started to shiver.

  “The instant they start shivering, get them in front of the fire.” Lucilla’s voice rang out, loud and clear. “And get their coats off, too. Wrap them in the blankets I threw out there.”

  Thomas and Sebastian were relieved of the basins in which their hands had been thawing, stripped of their coats, swathed in blankets, and duly bullied to sit on two stools set before the fire. Hesta came to sit by Thomas; she leaned her heavy head against his thigh and looked up at him almost accusingly. If hounds could frown, she frowned. Thomas reached down and ruffled her ears. His hands, while reddened from the cold, showed no sign of frostbite.

  Sebastian, too, was examining his long fingers. “Just as well we weren’t out there too long.”

  They’d been outside long enough. Thomas made a mental note to remember the trick with the water and the oily concoction.

  Both Michael and Marcus were working to build up the fire.

  Prudence erupted from around the screen. “Warm water—quick!” She pointed to a bowl left half full by the hearth. “That one.”

  Michael leapt to obey. “The baby?” he asked as he placed the bowl in Prudence’s hands.

  “Nearly here.” She whisked herself and the bowl back around the screen.

  Behind the curtain, Lucilla crouched by the end of the pallet and prayed harder than she ever had in her life. She had one of the baby’s tiny, slippery feet, but she quashed the impulse to pull on it; she needed the hips, or both thighs at least, to pull the babe free.

  But she didn’t want to dally—the baby didn’t have much time. As Prudence set down the bowl, Lottie gritted her teeth over a tortured wail.

  “Push now!” Lucilla ordered. “Come on, Lottie—one big push and we’ll be done.”

  Lottie hauled in a huge breath. Supporting Lottie’s shoulders, Prudence pushed in behind Lottie’s back to give her something solid to push against.

  Lottie strained.

  Lucilla, eyes on the emerging babe, waited… As she sensed Lottie easing back, Lucilla pushed her fingertips up the baby’s tiny legs, reached—and found the hip bones. Gripping as lightly as she could, she started easing the babe free.

  Fraction by fraction, as fast as she could, she drew the babe—a tiny girl—free of Lottie’s body. Then in a slithering rush, the infant was in her hands.

  Working frantically, Lucilla unwound the cord that was wrapped once around the child’s neck; the baby’s face was puce, but not blue. As fast as she could, she cleared the babe’s tiny mouth, then gripped her feet, raised her, and smacked her tiny bottom.

  Nothing happened.

  Lucilla met Prudence’s eyes.

  “Harder!” Lottie gasped. She stretched forward and gave her daughter’s bottom a resounding slap.

  The child jerked, then drew in air and a thin, high wail issued forth.

  A cheer came from the other side of the curtain, followed by clapping.

  Lucilla slumped with relief. She grinned at Lottie, then looked at Prudence.

  Buoyed by welling elation, they grinned at each other.

  Then they set to, to clean up the babe, to help Lottie, and generally tidy up.

  The next hours flew by, punctuated by vignettes that Lucilla suspected she’d remember all her life. The moment she laid the babe, cleansed and wrapped in warm swaddling, into Lottie’s arms. The look of maternal joy on Lottie’s face. The corresponding look of awe and wonder in Jeb’s.

  While they were still working behind the blanket-screen with Lottie and the babe, Lucilla had remembered and looked out at the now much more relaxed gathering before the hearth to ask, “What time was the baby born? Is her birthday Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day?”

  Perhaps fittingly, it had been Thomas Carrick who met her eyes. “She was born at ten minutes past midnight, so her birthday is Christmas Day.”

  Lucilla’s lips had already been curved, but she’d felt her smile deepen. “Thank you.” Christmas children were a source of extra special joy, of extra special hope—at least in their communities.

  At some point, the storm moved on. Finally, with Lottie absorbed with nursing her tiny daughter in an ancient rocker in the corner by the bed, and with the pallet itself stripped and remade and all else in the area tidy and
clean, Lucilla and Prudence stood and watched Lottie for a moment, then they smiled, met each other’s eyes, and turned and left mother and infant in peace.

  Stepping into the main part of the cottage, Lucilla was all but pounced on by Jeb. “Can I go to them again?”

  Lucilla couldn’t stop smiling; she nodded. Jeb had come in earlier, but had retreated again to allow Lucilla and Prudence space to tidy up.

  On cautious feet, Jeb approached the hung blanket and peered around, then, with a look of reverence stamped on his face, drawn and clearly helpless to resist, he went forward.

  Standing beside Lucilla, Prudence sighed. “That’s so sweet.”

  Smiling still—Lucilla wondered when she would stop—she turned to face the others and realized… She looked at the front door. “The wind’s died. Has the storm passed?”

  Now that she was listening, all she heard was silence.

  Her menfolk—and Thomas Carrick—had been standing before the fire, beakers in their hands. Marcus, Sebastian, and Michael all cocked their heads in near-identical fashion, listening, too. Like Lucilla, Thomas looked at the door; she suspected that he was assessing with all his senses, as she had.

  Sebastian set down his beaker and walked to the door. He cracked it open, looked out for a moment, then reported, “It’s still black as a—black as ever. There’s no wind, but snow’s still coming down, and the clouds are still thick overhead.”

  “We’re in the aftermath,” Thomas offered. No one argued.

  Redirecting her attention to the males, Lucilla swiftly took stock—of them, Prudence, and herself. None of them had slept a wink, yet, carried on a wave of triumph and elation, not one of them was showing any sign of tiredness.

  Good—they had work to do before they could leave and head for their beds.

  Switching her attention to the table, Lucilla surveyed what was left of the provender Thomas had brought. Moving forward, she said, “I want to make what meals I can from what’s left, so that Lottie won’t have to stir on that account.”