Maiden Bride
Page 27
“Nor I,” he admitted, his smile too deep to ever die. He pushed back the damp hair from her face and saw her lips curve in response. For a moment, their gazes held, the love that was so strong flowing between them like a river, and then he looked up to find Edith handing him a small bundle.
“A boy,” the old servant said, tears of happiness running down her face. “A de Laci heir.”
Nicholas held out his arms to take his son, and he felt as if he would burst with the force of his own joy.
“Why, Nicholas,” Gillian teased. “Your dimple is showing.”
Epilogue
Nicholas did not even bother to wait outside the door this time, for he had been through that before, and liked it not. Besides, it went against his very nature to give even token agreement to the demands of the old midwife, who by all rights ought to be dead by now. The woman looked to be a hundred years old, and her temper had not improved with age.
She did not even bother to scold when he marched into the great chamber, having learned her lesson well, but he soon heard his wife’s shout from the bed. “Nicholas!”
He strode easily to her side and leaned over to kiss Gillian’s flushed cheek. “Why is that old crone still alive? She grows scarier by the year,” he whispered.
“Hush! I need her. Stop starting trouble with your foul moods! You are always causing problems. ‘Tis your fault that I am here right now,” Gillian grumbled.
“I do not seem to remember you being unwilling,” Nicholas answered. It was an old game between them, one that kept them together and heartened during the worst of times.
“I am never going through this again! How many times do I have to tell you?”
Nicholas thought of his three strong sons and two lovely daughters. “I do believe this is the sixth instance in which you have told me.”
“Well, I mean it now!” she cried, reaching for him, and Nicholas let her take his hand in a fierce grip that sometimes actually managed to hurt him.
And even though he had been through this experience before, the fear was always with him that something might go awry… “Never again,” he promised fervently. “I swear I will never touch you again.”
“What? No fighting?” the gnarled old creature at the foot of the bed taunted them.
Gillian smiled. “We hardly have time for it anymore. Each child comes—” she paused to take a deep breath and give a great push “—quicker.”
An infant’s wail filled the room, and the old crone shook her head, as if baffled by the behavior of the lord of Belvry and his lady.
“A girl!” Edith shouted, and as if her words were a signal, the five children who obviously had been listening at the door burst in to greet their new sibling. They swarmed past the dismayed midwife to join their parents on the rumpled covers.
“We have a beautiful family,” Gillian whispered, as the baby was placed in her arms and its sisters and brothers crowded around to get their first look.
“Aye,” Nicholas said, his heart as full as the great bed.
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eISBN 978-14592-7542-3
MAIDEN BRIDE
Copyright © 1996 by Deborah Siegenthal.
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