Still gripping her stomach, Martine laughed. “‘Oh?’ Is that all we two learned women can think of to say at a time like this?”
Corliss laughed, too, more from nerves, she knew, than any other reason. When she looked back toward the two men, she saw them running full-speed in their direction. By the time they arrived, Corliss and Martine were laughing so hard, they had to hold on to each other to keep from falling down.
Thorne and Rainulf exchanged a look of utter bewilderment. “What’s wrong?” asked Rainulf. “We thought perhaps...”
“Martine’s in labor,” Corliss managed.
Thorne turned white. “Oh!”
The women burst out laughing, much to Thorne and Rainulf’s evident puzzlement. Regaining his composure, Thorne swept Martine up in his massive arms. She groaned and clutched at his tunic. “Thorne! I think the baby’s coming!”
“Yes, I know. I’ll send Peter for the midwife...”
“No, I think” —she broke off, her body stiffening, her teeth clenched— “I think it’s coming now.”
“Oh, my God,” Corliss moaned, suddenly sobered. “She’s been in labor since last night and didn’t realize—”
“Can you help her?” Thorne asked. “Do you know anything about—”
“Me? Nay, I... I...” Corliss grabbed Martine’s hand and squeezed it tight, “But I won’t leave your side.”
“We’ve got to find someone who can help.”
“Felda,” Martine rasped. “Go fetch Felda, too.”
“Get her maid,” Thorne commanded as he wheeled around and carried his wife toward the keep. “Get Felda.” A whimper escaped Martine, and he added, over his shoulder, “Fast!”
* * *
“You did it, Martine!” Corliss held the baby—an enormous boy—to her chest for a moment and then placed him into the arms of his pale and trembling mother.
“You did it,” Martine corrected, with a look of affection that filled Corliss with pride and gladness. “And you, too, Felda,” she added quickly.
Felda shook her head. “I had nothin’ to do with it, milady. ‘Twas Lady Corliss saved that baby. The midwife couldn’t of done no better, even if she had gotten here in time.”
Martine, recovering from her trial with remarkable speed, pried the little mouth open and cleared it out, then briskly rubbed the bluish infant’s feet. “His collarbone is broken, but ‘twill heal on its own.” She massaged his back. “Come now, you troublesome little man. Have you nothing to say after this ordeal?”
Opening his mouth wide, the baby let loose with a loud and lusty howl.
The door flew open and Thorne burst into the room, his eyes, wide with wonder, riveted on his son. Rainulf, who’d been standing vigil outside the bedchamber door with him, froze in amazement, then beamed. Slumping against the doorframe, he crossed himself. Behind him, servants anxiously craned their necks to see into the room.
“Milord! Master Fairfax!” Felda hastily yanked the bedclothes over Martine as Thorne crossed the room in two swift strides; Rainulf stepped into the room and closed the door. “Go away! Wait till I’ve had a chance to get them both cleaned up—”
“I’ve waited long enough,” Thorne declared. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he gathered his wife and child in his arms, rocking them and murmuring things—in French, Corliss noted with surprise—that she couldn’t make out. How touching, she mused, that he would think to comfort his wife in her native language, when he’d made such a point of banning it from his barony.
Rainulf leaned back against the wall as if he could no longer support his weight. He looked drained, but relieved. Catching Corliss’s eye, he smiled. A sweet tide of warmth spread through her, and she smiled back... until Rainulf’s gaze lowered to her bruised jaw. His smile faded, and hers followed suit.
“I need to bathe that baby,” Felda announced.
“In due time,” said Thorne, as he counted his son’s fingers and toes. The babe’s skin had turned a healthy pink, Corliss noted with relief. He blinked his puffy eyes open and grimaced, making him look like a small, angry man.
When Thorne had completed his inspection, Felda wrapped the infant in a length of linen. “Don’t want him to catch cold within minutes of being born.”
“Wulfric’s much too robust to get sick,” Martine said.
Corliss grinned. “A good Saxon name. Your inspiration, Thorne?”
He nodded. “‘Twas my father’s name.”
Martine untied her shift to expose a breast, seemingly indifferent to Rainulf’s presence, although he averted his gaze. She gently tickled Wulfric’s cheek with a fingertip. He instinctively turned toward it, mouth wide open, head shifting back and forth as he searched for the nipple. Thorne chuckled as his son latched on and began suckling with an expression of dreamy contentment, his eyes rolling up before they closed completely. “The boy knows what he wants,” he said, covering his wife’s bare shoulder and breast with a shawl.
Turning her back on the intimate tableau, Corliss helped Felda to arrange the soap and clean cloths and swaddling clothes next to the little, carved wooden bathtub.
A knock came, followed by Peter’s urgent voice: “I’ve got the midwife!”
“Bring her in,” Thorne said.
Peter guided a small, elderly woman into the chamber. When he saw the baby at Martine’s breast, he grinned delightedly and excused himself, closing the door behind him.
“Milady!” squawked the midwife. “What are you doing? You ought to let the wet nurse do that. It’ll only make it harder for your milk to dry up.”
Martine sighed. “I don’t intend for my milk to dry up, Hazel. I’m going to nurse him myself. I told you that.”
“Aye, but I naturally thought you’d change your mind. The idea! A baroness givin’ suck to her babe like a cow in the field. It ain’t natural.”
Martine exchanged a wry smile with Thorne as the old woman opened her satchel and began laying out tools and flasks and mysterious packets on a chest. “Did the babe come easy?” Hazel asked.
“Hardly,” Martine replied. “Wulfric’s got his father’s shoulders, and they got stuck inside me. Corliss reached in and freed them. He broke a collarbone, but if it weren’t for her, I think we both might have died.”
“Christ,” Thorne whispered as his face drained of color.
Rainulf stared at Corliss as if she had just sprouted wings and a halo.
“Tight swaddling will set that collarbone,” Hazel said.
Martine cradled the infant protectively. “Nay! No swaddling.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” the midwife growled. “I’ll just swaddle the one arm, then, to keep it still so the collarbone heals.”
Martine nodded grudgingly.
Rainulf still hadn’t taken his eyes off her. It’s as if he’s never seen me before, Corliss thought.
“Now, milady...” Hazel poured something that looked like wine into a cup and stirred a bit of whitish powder into it. “You realize you oughtn’t to have any more babes. They’re all bound to be just as brutish as that one, and you’ve obviously got too tight a womb. This here birthwort will help to bring away your afterbirth. Once it’s out, I can pour a handful of barley into it, and you’ll be barren as a stone.”
“Absolutely not!” Martine exclaimed.
“Martine,” Thorne began gently, “shouldn’t you consider it? I mean, not the barley, but something that might actually work?”
Hazel sputtered indignantly. “It works! Perhaps not every time, but often enough.”
“Is there something that will work every time?” Thorne asked, ignoring Martine’s furious glare.
“Aye. The most effective method is to cut the testicles from a weasel—leaving the weasel alive—and wrap them in the skin of a goose, tying them up tight. If milady wears that around her neck day and night, she’s guaranteed not to conceive.”
Thorne just stared at the midwife while a slow smile crept across Martine’s face. “You know,” she said, “I do believ
e that one might work.”
Thorne shot her a baleful look. She leaned forward carefully—so as not to disturb the nursing babe—and kissed him soundly. “I love you, Thorne Falconer. I intend to fill this castle with enormous baby boys who look just like you, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
“But, Martine,” he pleaded, “you could... you could die. And it would be my fault for letting it happen. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, knowing I’d sired a babe too big for you to give birth to.” He lowered his voice, but Corliss was close enough to hear. “We don’t have to rely on Hazel’s methods. I want to be certain this never happens to you again. I’ll do anything—do you understand?—anything, make any sacrifice—”
“Well, I won’t!” she declared, loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I’m your wife, in more than just name. That means sharing your bed and giving you children.”
“But the danger—”
“Is far less than it might seem.” She grinned and looked in Corliss’s direction. “Especially if we make sure Corliss comes visiting when the babies are due.”
Thorne met Corliss’s gaze. “This is the second time I’ve come close to losing Martine,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. His eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “I’m forever in your debt.”
There was a heavy moment of silence. Rainulf and Thorne and Martine were all looking at her. “I hardly know what to say,” Corliss murmured.
“Well, I do!” Hazel thrust the cup of dissolved birthwort at Martine, then turned to scowl at the onlookers. “Everyone out! Everyone but Felda. We’ve got to get milady and this babe tidied up.”
Thorne didn’t move. “I’m staying.”
An expression of outrage crossed the midwife’s face. “I beg your pardon, milord, but you are not! I’ve never heard of such a thing. You get out of here right now. Go!” She swatted at him with her bony little hand. “Shoo! Go!”
Corliss and Rainulf watched from the doorway as Thorne rose slowly, towering over the birdlike woman, who prodded him ineffectually in the chest. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said quietly. “Tell me what I can do to help.”
“You can get out, that’s what you can do!”
“It’s no use, Hazel,” said Felda. “If Thorne Falconer don’t want to do something, he don’t do it. You’d best give him a job so he keeps out of your way.”
Hazel grunted and rolled her eyes, then uncovered the baby and tied a piece of string around his umbilical cord. “Soon as I’ve cut young Master Wulfric loose from his mum, you can help Felda bathe him.”
The midwife produced a knife from the pouch on her belt. Rainulf closed the door and guided Corliss into the stairwell.
You’re alone with her now, he thought. Ask her. Just ask her, for God’s sake.
She began descending the stairs, but he said, “Wait!” and she turned around. As he looked down on her, his gaze lit once again on her bruised jaw. He backed up a step, and when he spoke, his tone was formal, wary. “I don’t remember much of last night, but I’m deeply sorry if... if I did anything—”
“You needn’t apologize.”
He paused. “What did I do? Tell me the truth.”
Her brows drew together.
“To you,” he said softly. “What did I do to you, Corliss?”
“To me?”
“You were in my bed, I know that, but I don’t know anything else. Except that I hit you. Did I...” His hands curled into fists. “Damn it, Corliss, just tell me what I did!”
Her eyes slowly widened as she stared at him. “You think...” She surveyed his face, and the anguish he knew must show on it. “Oh, Rainulf...” She smiled sadly.
They stared at each other. Rainulf didn’t know what to say, what to think. She came to stand on the step below his. Taking his fists in her hands, she forced his fingers open and caressed his palms soothingly.
She looked up at him. “You had a nightmare last night. You started throwing punches, and my face got in the way—that’s all. You could never hurt me, Rainulf. You could never... try to force yourself on me, if that’s what you think happened. Drunk or not.”
He squeezed her hands. “Thank God.”
“You should know that. And you would, if you only knew yourself better. Father Gregory was right. I once told him that you were a mystery to me, and he said you were a mystery to yourself as well.”
She released one of his hands to reach up and lay her cool palm against his cheek. He closed his eyes, savoring her touch. “If you’d just listen to your instincts,” she gently berated, “instead of making everything so damn complicated, you wouldn’t jump to such asinine conclusions.”
When he opened his eyes, she was grinning at him. As usual, her good humor was infectious, and he found himself smiling back.
“You scrutinize everything,” she said, “question everything, dig and dig, searching for answers. Your torment is self-induced. You can make it stop. You can. Don’t turn all that doubt in on yourself. Save it for the lecture hall, where it belongs. Where you belong.”
“Do I?”
“How can you question it? When I watch you up there, engrossed in your disputatio, it’s as if you come alive, as if you’re doing what you were born to do.” She took his face between her hands. “Try accepting who you are. Everyone has the right to that much.”
Rainulf couldn’t think of anything to say, nothing to match her guileless eloquence, at any rate. Instead he encircled her with his arms and drew her close, burying his face in her fragrant hair. They held each other for a long time without speaking, a healing, silent embrace. She felt so warm beneath the thin wool of her kirtle, so human. God, how he needed her.
He stiffened. He couldn’t afford to need her. What was happening to him? What was he letting happen?
Corliss looked up at him, questioning him with her eyes. When he avoided her gaze, she released him. She chewed her lip for a moment, and then smiled enigmatically. “You’ll get used to it.”
“To what?”
“Being in your skin. Feeling what you feel and” — she shrugged— “not fighting it.”
“I’m too old to get used to anything new. And some things” —like you, like how I want you and need you— “ought to be fought.”
She held his gaze for a moment. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.” Turning, she continued down the stairs, and he followed her to the great hall, where the rest of the household was finishing its noon meal. She began walking toward the high table, but he stilled her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Thorne’s not the only one who’s in your debt, Corliss. I am, too. Forever. Anything you need, anything you want, you need but ask me, and it shall be yours. I couldn’t have borne Martine’s death. She’s all the family I’ve got.”
“What of your brother in Rouen, the baron?”
“Etienne?” Rainulf’s face lost expression. “I doubt I’ll ever see him again. That’s for the best. He and I are... We’re very different. Martine was always... close to my heart. She was always special.”
He searched her eyes, struggling to come up with the right words. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You’re letting me live in your home,” she pointed out. “You’re keeping me safe from Roger Foliot. That’s thanks enough.”
“There will never be thanks enough.”
“There you are!” Peter said, joining them. “You must be hungry, my lady. Come sit.” His expression brightened. “Or perhaps you’d prefer to take some bread and cheese with you while we go hawking.”
“Ah...” She glanced quickly at Rainulf. “I’m sorry, Sir Peter. I’d quite forgotten about the hawking.”
“Little surprise,” he said. “It’s been such a trying morning for you. I hope you haven’t changed your mind, though. A bit of fresh air will serve you well.”
“Yes, I suppose it will,” she murmured.
“Would you care to join us?” Peter asked Rainulf blandly.
R
ainulf shook his head, knowing that it was common courtesy, not a desire to make the afternoon a threesome, that had prompted the invitation. “Nay, I think I’ll go to St. Dunstan’s, as I had planned.” He ducked into the stairwell, adding, “I’ll be back in time for supper.”
* * *
It was late afternoon when Corliss returned from hawking with Peter. She washed quickly and exchanged her dusty kirtle for an emerald brocade tunic suitable for supper.
Rainulf had been right; Peter was good company. He was quick-witted and charming and an excellent conversationalist. It impressed her that he spoke little of himself, trying instead to draw her out with questions, mostly about her family and background. She deflected them as smoothly as she could, bearing in mind Rainulf’s advice to offer as little as possible about herself until Roger Foliot was no longer a threat.
Although she knew Peter fancied her, he didn’t attempt any liberties or say anything inappropriate. She was grateful for his chivalric reserve, for although she liked him, there was no question of any kind of romantic involvement. For one thing, her feelings for Rainulf, ill advised though they were, prevented her from being seriously attracted to another man.
Even had that not been the case, such an attraction would be pointless. She and Peter were almost as far apart in rank as she and Rainulf. If the attentive young knight knew that “Lady Corliss of Oxford” was actually the daughter of a Cuxham villein, he surely wouldn’t waste any time courting her. More likely he’d toss her onto the straw in an empty stable stall, throw her skirts up, and be done with it. For, despite his affability, he was, she reminded herself, a highborn Norman. With the exception of Rainulf Fairfax, they were all alike. They used women like her for sexual release, saving their lofty affections for ladies of their own rank.
Felda came to lace her up and dress her hair. “Milady and the baby are asleep,” she said. “I finally talked milord into going downstairs for something to eat.” She shook her head as she settled a jeweled circlet onto Corliss’s veiled head. “I never thought to see a baron bathe his own baby. You wouldn’t believe how gentle he was. I’ll remember it to my dying day.”
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