The Golden Dove

by Jo Ann Wendt

  Dove gripped his beer tankard so tightly John listened for the wood to splinter. Dove sent him a look fraught with emotion.

  "Did you marry her?" he demanded belligerantly.

  John chuckled and shook his head.

  "No such luck. I asked, but she wouldn't have me."

  Dove relaxed a little. "Then she's not married?"

  "Nay," John said, eyeing him. "But she's fixin' to be."

  He might as well have stabbed him. The reaction was the same. When Dove recovered, he looked up with bright eyes.

  "Who to!"

  John scratched his scalp. He loved Dove like a brother, but he wasn't above enjoying this. "Damn me. Why can't I remember the fellow's name? 'Tis on the tip of me tongue. Ah, well, I'll surely recall it by 'n by." He'd known Dove all his life, and he'd never seen him so upset. Dove stared at his beer foam as if he wanted to kill it.

  "Is he titled?"

  "Ay. An earl's son, I b'lieve."

  Shocked, Dove's blank stare went back to his beer foam then came up again, twice as fierce. "The decent sort? Someone who will treat her well?"

  John took a languid swallow of beer. "There's the rub. Lord Aubrey don't think much of him. He's a handsome devil. But if you want my opinion, he's a self-centered son- of-a-bitch who'll likely lead her a merry chase for the rest of her life."

  "How could Uncle Aubrey approve someone like that!" Agitated, upset, Dove scalded the room with hot looks, as if looking for a fight, looking for someone to slit from stem to stern. John hid his smile in a sip of beer.

  "He didn't. Lord Aubrey stands opposed to the match. But Jericho's in love with the fellow, and what do you know? She has gone and slept with him and got herself with child."

  "With child!" Dove shot straight up from his chair. He stood, sat, stood, paced to the wall and back, then sat again and slumped. "I . . . never thought ... she would sleep with anyone but me."

  "Ah, well. Women are fickle creatures, and that's a fact. There's no accounting for what they will or won't do."

  If John'd had any doubts about Dove's love for Jericho, he lost them now. The man who sat strangling his beer tankard was plainly heartbroken. John let him suffer a little longer. Dove had given Jericho plenty of grief. He ought to suffer. Just a little. But when several minutes had gone by and Dove still sat there in shock, John took pity on him.

  "I wonder if you would do me a favor, Dove. There is a bondslave I brought along on this sailing. I want her to have a good master, a good home. I wonder if you would do me a favor and buy her indenture, take her in, give her a home, keep her."

  "What?" Dove looked up blankly, stunned by his loss. John bit back a smile, repeated the request, and when he did, Dove quickly shook: his head.

  "I can't, John. Hell, it would remind me too much of. . . of Jericho. I can't."

  John took a swallow of beer. "Ay, I suppose that's so. Ay, she would. The wretch even looks a bit like Jericho. With all them freckles. With that flaming red witch's hair."

  Dove lifted his head, eyes bright, alert, hot.

  "Ay, you're right, Dove. 'Twould hurt. It would. Even her eyes likely would remind you of Jericho. They're dark blue. As blue as pansies ..."

  Dove shot to his feet. His chair hit the floor with a crash. He was gone in a leap, springing across the room, leaping for the door, shoving gamesters aside right and left.

  Jericho heard Dove coming. She knew his step, knew it as intimately as she knew her own heartbeat. She shoved the dog away and clutched her cloak shut. She didn't want to shock him with her belly. She held her breath, her heart pounding.

  The tap-house door crashed open, jumping in its leather hinges and smashing into the wall, just the way it had done on a day in May, ten years earlier. The golden Dove sprang out on to the stoop. He saw her and drew an enormous breath. Jericho drew one, too.

  Does he still love me? Does he still want me?

  She got her answer a hundredfold. Dove's smile blazed with love. There was so much love shining in those bright jewellike eyes that she felt weak from it. Heart banging, lips trembling, she smiled back.

  "Dove," she cried out, leaping up the stoop step and into his arms. "Dove, marry me!"

  "Jericho, you silly little grubworm." He crushed her in his arms and kissed her, and then, with a jubilant laugh, scooped her up in his arms and swung her.

  "Dove," John shouted. "Open your eyes."

  "Dove," she gasped, dizzy.

  It was then Dove suddenly noticed her bulk, noticed how heavy she was in his arms. Startled, he set her down so fast she had to catch the porch rail.

  "Dove!" John scolded.

  Dove took a stunned step backwards and stared. Her cloak flaps had fallen back over her shoulder. "Holy Hannah," he said, "what in hell have you done to yourself, grubworm? Is all of that youV He stared at her belly as if he'd never seen anything so big and huge in his life. As if she were big as a whale. Jericho felt herself growing vexed. It was his baby, too. Not just hers.

  "No, Dove de Mont! Half of it is you. You."

  He stared at her blankly. For possibly the first time in his lordly life, Lord Dove de Mont's mercurial, lightning-quick mind worked slow as a snail.

  "You don't mean . . . Wattling Street?"

  She shook her head happily. "No. Not Wattling Street. The second time. That night at the inn. After the fire."

  "Oh, for God's sake."

  His delight was unmistakable. Shining like a golden Dove, he glowed. He was glad. Glad there was to be a baby! Bursting with happiness, she scarcely had a moment to savor it when a pain slammed her in the back, hard as a pickax. She doubled over and clutched the porch rail. John and Dove jumped for her.

  "Jericho!"

  "Grubworm! Oh, for God's sake." Wild-eyed, panicking, Dove scooped her up in his arms and whirled this way and that, scared and bewildered and befuddled for the first time in his life.

  "Hell! Don't just stand there," he roared at John. "Do something. I'm having a baby!"

  Jericho became Lady de Mont in bed, saying her vows between labor pains, with Dove standing at her side, holding her hand. The honeymoon was a quick kiss. Then, Dove and other unessential persons were unceremoniously shooed out of the room, and Jericho, Daisy, Maritje Ten Boom Anders, and the midwife got on with the business of having a baby.

  Dove found himself not only shut out but ignored. As if he were no more than the barnyard rooster who'd performed a perfunctory and barely essential barnyard chore.

  No one asked how he felt. And he felt like hell. His head pounded, his stomach ached, and a ball of fear the size of an iceberg had become lodged permanentiy in his throat.

  The hours crawled by. Lonesome and more scared than he'd ever been in his life, he wandered the house alone, with only the sound of his own footsteps for company. John—the lousy traitor—had callously gone off to check out Lizzie. So whenever Daisy or Maritje came marching importantly down the stairs, going to the kitchen on some mysterious mission, he pounced on them.

  "What is she doing up there? What's taking so damned long?"

  "She's having a baby, Lord Dove."

  He shook a warning finger in Maritje's face. "You just march up there and tell her to hurry. Tell her I can't take much more of this. Tell her my head hurts, my stomach hurts. Tell her I can't even swallow!"

  Maritje smiled. "I'll tell her, Lord Dove."

  To his vexation, Jericho didn't pay the least bit of attention. An hour later, she was still at it. Frantic, Dove pounced on Daisy when she came down.

  "What is she doing up there," he demanded. "Having twins? Hell, one will do. Better yet, tell her to forget it. Forget the whole damned thing. I don't want to be a father. Hell, I don't even like babies."

  "Then keep your breeches buttoned, Lor' Dove."

  Dove glared at Daisy as she tramped past him to the kitchen.

  "Daisy? You've a mouth as big as a bucket. And a head twice as empty."

  "There, there, sir," Daisy returned cheerfully. "Don't fret. Jer'
cho will be fine. You'll see. She's a strong healthy girl. Only a few more hours."

  "Hours!" Dove wanted to pull his hair out. He grew frantic. He paced the rooms of his house, raking a jeweled hand through his hair while the hours crawled by. When a muted yelp rang out—Jericho's first yelp of pain—he fled the house. He sat under a tree in the backyard and covered his head with his arms. Jericho in pain. Pansy Eyes in pain. His grubworm in pain.

  Glancing up to see the ugly mutt that had followed Jericho home, he grabbed a stone. Then he changed his mind and put it down. Jericho wouldn't like that.

  Time crawled. Darkness came, lighted only by the swath of light that spilled out the open kitchen door. Samuels drifted into the yard from the tap house and sat with him.

  "The first one be the hardest, Lor' Dove."

  Dove gave him a withering look. " 'First'! This is an only. There's not going to be a second. I'm not putting myself through this again."

  "Jer'cho'll want more. Females do."

  "Then she can do it by herself, damn it. She's not getting any help from me."

  Samuels chuckled and hunkered down to help him wait. Fifteen years went by. Possibly twenty. When John—that callous traitor—finally drifted into the yard, Dove looked up crossly. "Well?"

  "We're going to be married."

  "That was quick work," Dove said, surprised.

  John lowered himself to the grass to sit and smiled wryly. "Then I haven't wasted my time, all them years in your company, watching you womanize, have I."

  Dove didn't smile back. He was too sick to smile. Jericho, suffering. He covered his head in his arms and waited. Another fifty years went by. Finally—finally!—Maritje stepped out the ltitchen door onto the stoop.

  Dove sprang up. "What happened!"

  She smiled broadly. "The usual thing, Lord Dove. Congratulations. You're a father. It's a beautiful little girl."

  The news struck him as astonishing. He whirled to John and Samuels. "I'm a father!" Then he whirled back to Maritje.

  "Jericho! Is she . . . is she all in one piece?"

  Maritje chuckled. "She's just fine, Lord Dove. Give us a few minutes to pretty up your wife and daughter. Then you can come up and see them."

  A half hour later, when he fearfully opened the door of his bedchamber and went in, he found the room in firelight. He'd expected to find Jericho laid out half dead. But there she sat in his bed, propped up amongst linen pillows, wearing one of his nightrails and looking so beautiful his heart thundered with love.

  She was holding a bundle in her arms as carefully as if it were the crown jewels. It jolted him. The first time he'd seen her, she'd been holding a bundle that way. A ragged bondslave bundle.

  He closed the door behind him and stood there. She looked up, her vivid blue eyes positively shining. Her brushed hair glowed like copper in the firelight.

  "Hello, grubworm."

  "Hello, Dove." She spoke very softly. As if she didn't want to disturb the thing in her arms. He swallowed. He supposed he should say something. But what did a man say to a woman who'd just been through hell to have his baby? She preempted him.

  "You're not disappointed, are you, Dove? That she's a daughter and not a son?"

  He was. He was also a bit insulted, if he took time to think about it. De Mont men sired males, not females. But she looked so proud and happy about what she'd done that he hadn't the heart to throw cold water.

  "No, no," he said quickly. "No, not at all, no. A daughter's fine. Hell, you know I like women."

  Her radiant smile widened. Her bosom lifted and she drew a happy breath. "Well then. Come over here and meet her."

  "I can see her from here," he assured her.

  "No, you can't." She wrinkled her nose at him. "Silly. Come over here."

  Dove shook his head.

  "She wants to meet you, Dove."

  "She does?" He craned his neck. From where he stood, it looked like she'd given birth to a cooked lobster.

  "Oh, yes. Ever so much. She wants to meet her father."

  "How-how can you tell?"

  Jericho blinked in amazement. Lord Dove de Mont, stuttering? She covered her astonishment with a tender smile and said gently, "Well, I can tell because she's turning her pretty little head every which way, listening for her father's voice. She already knows my voice. But she's intelligent enough to know there should be two voices—her mother's and her father's. So, come."

  Though he nearly broke his neck craning it, he refused. Jericho was mystified. What was wrong? He wanted to see the baby. That was plain. Suddenly, understanding burst through.

  "Dove, are you afraid of your own daughter?"

  "No! Hell, no." He denied it vehemently, then asked, "but what if . . . she doesn't like me?" He said this so plaintively that Jericho stared, astounded. Who would have thought it, Lord Dove de Mont, humbled and brought to his knees by a tiny baby. Her heart melted and flowed toward him in waves of love.

  "Oh, Dove. She will absolutely adore you."

  "How do you know?"

  "Because I adore you, and she is my daughter. She will adore you, too. Together, she and I are going to love you, adore you for the rest of our lives."

  The anxiety faded from his handsome features, and he came forward hesitantly. When he reached the bed, he sat gingerly and studied the baby with such intense concentration that Jericho nearly burst. "Well?" she prompted.

  He dragged his eyes from the baby. "I don't mean to insult her, Jericho," he whispered, "but isn't she a slight bit ugly?"

  "Dove, she's beautiful!"

  "She's squashed."

  "She's not squashed. All babies get a bit squashed being born. Their features plump up in a day or two. Besides—" Jericho smiled at him. "Daisy and Maritje swear she looks exactly like you."

  "Like me?" Surprised at that, he looked back at the wriggling infant with eagerness. "Now that I study her, I can see she has possibilities."

  "Of course she has."

  The baby's tiny red hands clawed the air. Jericho held her breath as Dove gingerly extended a finger. Love her, Dove. Love her! The tiny hand came in contact with Dove's finger and clamped onto it like a clam.

  "Look at this/' Dove said excitedly. "Jericho, look. She reached right out and grabbed my finger. Hell, she knows me! She blows I'm her father. Hell, this is no ordinary baby. She's a genius."

  Jericho smiled ecstatically. "Then you do like her?"

  "Like her! Grubworm, she's fantastic. She's going to be the most beautiful, most intelligent young woman in the world.'' He added, "And if anybody says she's not—I'll knock his block off." In his excitement, he'd raised his voice. Startled, the baby began to wail. Dove's eyebrows shot up and down in alarm.

  "She sounds like a crow."

  "All newborns sound that way. There, there, sweetheart. There, there." Jericho cuddled her daughter and soothed her, crooning to her, telling her how wonderful she was and how much her father and mother loved her. The baby stopped crying and burrowed with her tiny head, mouth ^working. Dove watched in total fascination.

  "What is she doing?"

  "She wants to suck."

  He glanced up in alarm. "Well, give her something! Don't you have anything in—in there to give her?" He gestured at her bosom. Jericho gave him a soft smile that was partly amusement. He was going to be a wonderful father. And a demanding one. Just like Lord Aubrey. She hoped her daughter could endure it.

  "My milk won't come in until tomorrow. Daisy says newborns don't need anything until then."

  Dove gave her a fierce look. "Jericho! My daughter is different. Give her something, damn it. Hell, she's starving."

  To placate him, she loosed the ribbons on the nightrail with one hand and uncertainly brought the baby to her breast. With Dove watching intently, the tiny head nuzzled and rooted, then, finding what was wanted, struck like a trout.

  "Ouch."

  Dove turned white. "Does it hurt?" he demanded.

  She shook her head. "It just feels . . . differ
ent."

  Their daughter sucked noisily for a minute, then sank into contented sleep. In the quiet firelight, Dove leaned forward and with exquisite gentleness kissed the wet breast his daughter had suckled and retied the ribbons of her nightrail. Then his warm moist lips found her willing ones and clung softly.

  "Grubworm?"

  "What, Dove?"

  "Belong to me? Be mine? Stay with me forever?"

  Full of joy, she rested her cheek on his. "Oh, Dove. I belong to you. I always have. Didn't you know? I belonged to you heart and soul and body from the moment a scared little girl-bondslave saw a golden Dove throw her mean master into the canal. That same little girl has waited so long for just one thing ..."

  He lifted his head, his hazel eyes bright as jewels.

  "For what?"

  "For you to belong to her."

  He gazed at her for a long time. Then the corners of his handsome mouth twitched. A smile flickered in those jewel- bright eyes.

  "I suppose you would like that in writing. An indenture of sorts?"

  Her lips parted in surprise. She gazed at him, startled.

  "W-would you?"

  "Oh, for God's sake." Smiling, he wrapped his arms around her and the baby, gathering them close and warm. "Kiss me, grubworm. And you, too, little grubworm. I've a feeling this is going to be one hell of a long indenture."

  Her heart jumped with joy.

  "Oh, Dove," she said, kissing him. "The very longest indenture. The longest in the whole history of the world!"

  * * *