by Pamela Clare
Her voice was muffled by the closed door, but Nicholas could still hear her fear. “Nay. No one. Please! Leave me in peace!”
He tried to do as she asked. He fed the horses, the chickens, the geese, the cattle, the hogs. He spread fresh straw for the horses and the milk cow. He fidgeted with his traps.
But he could not keep his eyes off the cabin. Nor could he prevent himself from hearing her moans, which had grown louder and more frequent.
If there was one thing he understood, it was pain.
But she was not his wife nor his lover nor even kin. She was little more than a stranger, a woman whose path he’d chanced to cross at an unlucky time. Why should her anguish distress him so deeply?
Had he become so hard-hearted that he could even ask himself that question?
A sobbing wail.
He swore under his breath, threw the trap he held aside, stomped to the door. He could not sit idly by and do nothing. “Mistress Stewart, if you don’t open this door, I’ll break it down!”
Chapter 6
Then it occurred to Nicholas that perhaps she was in trouble or too weak to reach the door. He stepped back and was about to kick the door in, when a better idea came to him. He slipped his knife from its sheath, strode to the window, and cut away the parchment.
She lay on her side on the bed clad only in her shift, eyes closed, whimpering as another pain came over her.
He quickly hoisted himself over the sill, went to her side.
She opened her eyes, glared at him. “Nay!” But the word became a wail as her pain reached its peak, and she closed her eyes again.
Now that he was beside her, he was not certain how to help her. If she were a broodmare, he would know how to make her most comfortable, how to check her progress, what to do in case of trouble. But she was a woman, and he was at a loss. He tried to remember anything his father might have told him, tried to remember what he had seen.
Bereft of any better idea, he turned toward the hearth, found the bucket half full with water, carried it to the bedside, sat beside her. Then, taking up a strip of linen, he dipped it in the water, pressed the cool cloth against her furrowed brow.
As the pain subsided, Bethie felt the blessed coolness of the cloth against her cheeks. She hadn’t the strength to shout at him. “You shouldna . . . be here.”
“Are you thirsty?”
“Aye.”
In a moment she felt the tin cup touch her lips. He lifted her head, and she drank.
Then she felt it begin to build again. Though she would not have thought it possible, the pain was still getting worse. She heard herself whimper.
“Take my hand, mistress.” He placed her hand in his much larger one.
She held it fast as pain and fear assailed her. Why was it taking so long? Was something wrong? Was the baby still alive?
Slowly, too slowly, the pain passed.
“You should be sitting up.” His voice was deep, soothing, as he again bathed her brow.
She was too tired to answer him, began to doze.
The scrape of a chair on wood made her eyes open. Master Kenleigh stood, removed his boots. As the next pain began to take her, he slipped his arms beneath her, lifted her into a sitting position, slid into the bed behind her.
“Wh-what—” The pain cut her off, turned her words into a moan.
“Easy, Bethie. Let me help you. Rest against me.”
She would have fought him, would have pulled away. He shouldn’t be near her like this. She didn’t want him in her bed. She didn’t want him touching her. But he was insistent, and the pain was so bad.
No longer in control of anything, she sank against his chest, felt him take both of her hands in his. She bit her lip, tried not to cry out. How much longer?
His breath was warm on her temple. “Breathe deeply. Don’t fight it. This one will soon end.”
Before long, Bethie had lost all track of time. Relentlessly, the pangs came one upon the next, giving her little time to rest, shaking her apart. She was aware only of how badly she hurt and of Nicholas—the reassuring sound of his voice, the strength of him behind her, the mercies he showed her as he held her hand, pressed cool cloths on her cheeks, or gave her sips of water.
Nicholas looked down at the face of the woman who dozed against his chest. She looked so young, her sweet face lined with suffering, her hair damp with sweat. Not for the first time he found himself cursing her husband. The man was lucky he was already dead. Otherwise, Nicholas would have been sorely tempted to kill him with his bare hands. As it was, he might still dig up the bastard’s grave just to kick his worthless bones.
It was past midday already, and if her pains had started when she’d gone to bed last night, as she’d said, that meant about sixteen long hours had gone by. If she’d been a mare, she’d have been in deep trouble and he would have intervened hours ago. He would have reached inside her to make certain the foal was positioned correctly to allow birth, then he’d have tied a rope around its hooves to help pull it from its dam’s body. But she wasn’t a mare, and even if she allowed him to check her, he wasn’t entirely sure what was normal for human babies. And what exactly would he do about it if something were wrong? Babies didn’t have hooves, and a woman’s body was far more delicate than that of a broodmare.
She shifted in his arms, began to whimper. Her head rolled from side to side on his chest. “Nay! Please! I cannae take this!”
Nicholas pressed his lips to her ear, tried to speak with a certainty he did not feel. “Yes, you can, Bethie. You’ll get through it. Don’t fight it. Just let it roll over you. Breathe. That’s the way. It will pass.”
Her body trembled. She squeezed his hands, and her moan became a desperate cry.
After what seemed an eternity, she relaxed and began to doze again.
Nicholas tried to remind himself that women endured this all the time. He told himself this was only natural. Still, her suffering tore at him. He wished he could somehow take the pain upon himself or speed her release from anguish.
“If I die, promise me you’ll bury me and say a prayer for me and my baby.”
Her voice—and her words—startled him. He’d thought her asleep.
“You’re not going to die.” He smoothed a strand of damp hair from her cheek, hoped with all his heart he was right.
“Promise me. Dinnae leave me for the animals.”
The image her words conjured turned his stomach, and he spoke more harshly than he’d intended. “I’m not a barbarian, mistress.”
“Promise me?” She sounded weak, exhausted.
For the first time Nicholas truly began to fear she might not survive. “Aye. I promise.”
“Stay with me. I’m so afraid!”
He ran a finger down her cheek, wondered at this strange tenderness he felt for her, a woman he barely knew. “I’m not going anywhere.”
At his words, she seemed to relax, her body melding limply into his.
And for the first time in six years, Nicholas prayed.
* * *
Lost in a fog of pain, Nicholas her only succor, Bethie felt a dark eternity had passed, when in the midst of another pang something felt different. She found herself suddenly bearing down, compelled to push with all her might. Though it still hurt horribly, there was more pressure than extreme pain. “Ooooh!”
“Bethie?” Nicholas’s deep voice sounded softly in her ear.
She fought to catch her breath. “I think it’s coming.”
“Are you sure?”
“Aye. I can feel it. What should I do?”
For a moment he said nothing. “Do whatever your body tells you to do, love.”
And so she gave in to her body’s demands. Knees bent, she pushed again, felt her baby move down through her body. Again and again she pushed, until pain began to spread between her thighs like fire. “Oh, God, it hurts!”
“Reach down, Bethie. Can you feel your baby?”
At his urging, she reached between her thighs,
felt a small portion of the hard curve that could only be her baby’s head. Despite her pain, she couldn’t help but smile. “Aye, I can feel it.” But then her fingers touched something else. She knew little about birth, but she knew enough for her heart to fill with fear. “The cord!”
In an instant Nicholas had slipped out from behind her, laid her gently back on the bed. His face was lined with worry.
“Wh-what are you going to do?”
She got her answer when he sat on the bed just below her bent legs and started to lift her gown.
“Nay!” She tried to slap his hand away.
He caught her wrist, held it. “Listen to me, Bethie. I’m sorry if this violates your sense of modesty, but I must move the cord if your baby is to have any hope of being born alive. I’ll do my damned best not to hurt you.”
She closed her eyes, felt him lift her gown, and she fought the desire, so instinctual, to kick at him or run.
“Let your thighs fall open, Bethie.”
Tears sprang into her eyes, but they were not tears of pain.
“Whatever you do, you must not push. Do you understand? The cord is caught above your baby’s head. If you push, you’ll cut off your baby’s blood supply for certain, and you might well break the cord. Then you’ll both be lost.”
She felt another pang begin to build. She tried to do as he asked, but the urge was overwhelming. She arched her back, panted, tried not to bear down. She felt his fingers slip inside her, and she screamed.
“Now, Bethie. Push, and push hard.”
She tried to forget that he was sitting between her legs, gave herself over to her body’s commands, pushing with all her might. She pushed again and again, until the fire between her thighs was unbearable. The pain consumed her. She was being split in two, ripped apart. She could not do this! A scream tore itself from her throat.
And then the pain abruptly lessened.
“The head is out, Bethie. You’re almost there.”
With the next pang, she pushed, and in a final surge of fire and water, felt her baby slide free. Out of breath, relieved, exhausted, she lay back on the pillow, awaiting the child’s first cry.
But no cry came.
She opened her eyes, dread in her heart, watched as Nicholas, his face grave, held and massaged her little baby. It was blue, limp. Tears blurred her vision, rolled down her cheeks.
Then abruptly the baby’s arms jerked as if in surprise, and it gave a tiny wail. In an instant its skin turned a bright shade of pink.
Nicholas looked up, and his gaze met hers. The tenderness in his eyes, so unexpected, stole her breath.
He smiled. “It’s a girl.”
* * *
Nicholas rose from his bedroll, stole silently across the floor, quietly added wood to the fire. He knew Bethie was exhausted after her long ordeal and he didn’t want to wake her or the baby. When he was satisfied with the blaze, he turned back toward his skins in the corner.
He was surprised to find his feet carrying him toward the bed instead. He stopped beside it, gazed down at the baby, still in awe. She lay next to her sleeping mother, swaddled in linen, a tiny miracle.
To his surprise, her eyes were open, and she seemed to examine the world around her with keen interest. But then, as if on cue, she began to fuss—a little squeak more than a cry. Moved by some irresistible impulse, he reached down, lifted the baby gently into his arms. Perhaps he could rock her back to sleep, win Bethie another hour or two of rest.
He strode silently to the rocking chair, settled himself, stared down at the bundle in his arms. She was so tiny—her pouty lips, her toes, her fingernails all perfect, but unbelievably small. Her little head was covered with hair so golden and so fine that it was almost invisible. She had her mother’s features.
Bethie had named her Isabelle.
Isabelle turned her head toward him, her little mouth open like a baby bird, and he knew she was seeking her mother’s breast. He loosened the swaddling and, as he’d once seen Jamie do, guided her tiny thumb into her mouth. She sucked greedily, and her eyes drifted shut.
Nicholas felt an overwhelming swell of protectiveness, and he thought he understood something of what his father and Jamie must have felt. Bethie’s suffering had been agonizing to witness. And yet this—the tiny creature he held in his arms—had been the result. And although he was not the baby’s father, he was proud to have played at least some role in her birth. The cord had been looped over her head and wrapped once around her little neck. She had come close to suffocating before she’d taken her first breath.
Those seconds when she’d lain in his hands, blue and seemingly lifeless, he had found it hard to breathe. He’d done what he would have done with a foal—cleared her throat, wiped her face, rubbed her skin. But then she had drawn that first weak gulp of air and seemed to come to life in his arms. And he’d known Bethie’s anguish had not been in vain. His relief had been overwhelming.
Did saving one life atone for causing the loss of another? He hoped that perhaps in some small measure it might. He had not meant for his baby to die.
As he watched Isabelle suck her thumb, Nicholas was surprised to find himself feeling some sense of regret that he would not be around to watch her grow. He cursed his foolishness. He had long ago given up all hope of a life with a wife and children. He’d already spent far more time in this cabin than he had planned.
But even as he mocked himself, he knew he would not feel truly free to ride west again until Bethie and her baby were somewhere safe, perhaps with her family back in Paxton. The last thing he wanted to do was to ride east; the very idea left him feeling trapped, smothered, agitated. And he tried one last time to tell himself that the two of them were not his problem. But gazing upon the newborn baby’s sweet face, watching Bethie sleep, he knew he could not abandon them.
Then Isabelle’s thumb escaped her, and she began to cry.
“Is she hungry?” Bethie’s sleepy voice interrupted his thoughts. She lay on her side facing him, concern in her eyes.
“I was hoping to lull her back to sleep so that you could rest.”
She gave him a weak smile, tried to sit.
“Let me help you up.” He rose, walked to the bed, tucked little Isabelle into the fold of one arm, held out the other.
“I can do it.” She pushed herself up, winced.
She’d be sore for a long time, Nicholas knew. That part of a woman’s body was very tender, exquisitely sensitive. He’d seen what Isabelle’s birth had done to Bethie.
And men thought they were brave.
Nicholas slipped a pillow behind Bethie’s back as she undid the front of her gown. Then he placed her baby daughter in her arms.
Bethie bared a creamy breast, tickled Isabelle’s cheek with a rosy nipple, gasped when the baby latched on and began to suckle.
A torrent of tangled emotions surged up from Nicholas’s gut, so intense and raw that he wasn’t even sure what he was feeling. Sexual attraction? He must be an animal to think of sex knowing how much Bethie had just suffered. Regret that he would be leaving them soon? ’Twas best for them. He was no longer a gentleman and could only bring them grief. The desire to be a husband and father? The kind of life he led was unfit for women and children. Envy that he wasn’t Isabelle’s father? Clearly, he was out of his damned mind.
He felt sweat bead on his forehead, felt his heart pound. He turned his back, walked away, and, needing something to do, took up the poker and jabbed angrily at the fire.
“Nicholas?” Her voice was sweet, like music.
“Aye.”
“Thank you.”
He said nothing.
“If no’ for you, I dinnae think I’d have made it. You were my anchor. You saved Isabelle. You saved us both.”
He fought to subdue the maelstrom inside him, forced himself to speak. “I’m glad I was able to help.”
“How did you know what to do?”
He hadn’t spoken of his past to anyone, not for six long years. H
e hesitated, feeling that he stood upon some kind of perilous edge. “I . . . used to breed horses. The same thing sometimes happens with foals. It can be fatal.”
“You must think me weak and cowardly. I—I couldna help cryin’ out.”
There was shame in her voice.
He turned to face her. “No, Bethie. You were very brave.”
She started to say something else, but he could take no more.
“I’ll be outside if you need me.” With that, he turned and strode out into the darkness.
Chapter 7
Bethie stirred shavings of lye soap into the steaming cauldron, careful to keep the hems of her skirts away from the fire. The sun was shining brightly today, not a cloud in the April sky, and with the warm spring breeze the laundry would dry in no time.
In the month since little Belle’s birth, laundry had become an almost daily chore. There were Belle’s many diaper cloths. There were also the linen cloths Bethie used to staunch her flow. There were bed linens stained with blood and milk and Bethie’s shifts, which, too, were stained.
Nicholas had cleaned and rehung the heavy iron cauldron, which was suspended over a fire pit dug midway between the cabin and barn. Now Bethie was able to boil a large amount of laundry at once. There was only so much she could do over the hearth fire, and it took time away from cooking.
She reached down, picked up the pile of bloodstained linens, dropped them in the cauldron, glad Nicholas was off in the forest setting his traps and not here to see them. She felt somehow uncomfortable that he should see something so private. And yet hadn’t he seen everything?
Aye, he had. He had even put his fingers inside her.
Heat rushed into Bethie’s face, and her stomach turned. She fought the nausea, fought the clammy sense of dread that threatened to close over her. Nicholas was nothing like her stepbrother. He was nothing like Richard Sorley. He’d done what he’d done for her sake and that of her baby, not to slake his own lust.
She stirred the contents of the cauldron, forced her mind along different paths.