by Nicole Locke
‘I’m staying,’ he said.
Bess rubbed Matilda’s back. ‘We’re here now. You shouldn’t be.’
Matilda clenched his arm; he wasn’t about to pass her off like some satchel.
‘The baby’s coming,’ Bess said. ‘You can’t be here. Not even a husband would be allowed.’
He didn’t care for the custom. What husband would not be in this room? He could do nothing for her, but if she wanted to walk, if she wanted to use his arm for support and dig her nails in until his limb was numb...he could do that.
‘She needs me.’
‘I swear before God, you’re not allowed to see this,’ Rohesia barked. ‘You’re harming her by staying.’
‘When all this is done she won’t want you here,’ Bess said more quietly. ‘You’re not her husband.’
Not her husband. Not his wife. He had never felt it more than now. Because if he was...if she was...he’d defy custom and God to be by her side.
He kept his gaze on Matilda’s. Her face was flushed red, sweat dripping from her temples. Her breath came in short gasps with her cries of pain.
He had demanded to stay. God, the midwife and society demanded he go. As far as he was concerned only one person in this room had the right to make the decision.
‘Matilda, do you want me here?’
She licked her lips, took a few quick breaths.
He bent at the knee to keep her face in his sight. Bess and Rohesia had backed away from them and he saw nothing else but her.
‘Do you want me here?’ he asked again.
She kept her eyes on him. Showed all her emotions. And, wanting to take them away, to share them, he absorbed every one of them until his heart was no longer his own.
He waited.
‘Yes,’ she said, as if answering the question in his own soul. Yes, she’d allow him to share the burden, the pain and the joy to come. Yes, she’d allow him to be in this room and defy custom and God.
Kneeling before her, he took her hands. ‘Then I’ll stay.’
She squeezed his fingers—not in pain, but in comfort. ‘Only until—’
Suddenly she ripped her hand away, walked around the bed.
Nicholas stood. ‘Matilda...’
‘She’ll need to squat soon,’ Rohesia said, scrubbing her hands and arms in the buckets near the fire.
Matilda put her hand to her belly. ‘A few more moments yet.’
To see her like this, strong in her vulnerability, he had no doubts of his heart—he had no doubts of her. There were words to be spoken, but today was not that day. Today he was there if she wanted him.
She walked around the bed again, and then took his arm. He put the other arm around her waist.
‘Walk with me until it’s time, and then go.’
Her lips parted and cracked. He swiped the cup from the table. She laid her hands on his as he gave her watered ale. Slowly he lowered the cup, watched as her breaths sped again.
Not his place, not his wife, but he wanted to be here—and by some miracle she wanted him here.
Bess and Rohesia stayed out of the way. As the sun fell, and the shadows in the room changed, Bess took to sewing, Rohesia to resting.
He walked with Matilda, gave her comfort, his strength, whatever she needed. Few words were exchanged. Few were needed.
All the time he’d spent here—all of it came to this.
‘It’s time!’ Matilda cried out.
She released his arm, and blood rushed to the limb again. What else could he do? He wasn’t a midwife. He knew no man was allowed in the birthing chamber. Yet everything inside him demanded to stay by her side. His unsteady legs and even more vulnerable heart were unable to work properly because she hurt.
Stepping past Bess and Rohesia, he gazed at Matilda, who sat with her head tilted down as the pain inside her eased. He brushed back her damp hair and looked into her hazel eyes. He could see everything there. And there was so much.
‘The baby will come,’ he told her, as if it were a vow. ‘You will both be well.
He had never moved more slowly, reluctant to leave her side. This wasn’t right—it wasn’t. Custom and God said he shouldn’t have stayed even this long. But Matilda had asked him to stay and he was realising that he’d fight God to stay by her side.
‘Come back,’ she said. ‘When the baby’s swaddled, come back.’
Opening the door, he turned to hold her faltering gaze. ‘I will.’
Striding down the hallway to the stairs, Nicholas shook his throbbing arm. He should be glad to be out of there, but he felt only loss. Of what? There were too many contradictions inside him.
Nothing was resolved between them, and perhaps it never would be. He could bury his past, and yet he couldn’t see clearly enough to understand what he was feeling. Did he hate her or love her? Why had he demanded to stay?
He had been betrayed. Rejected by this woman in the harshest way. Nonetheless, everything in him knew it didn’t matter. She had trusted him to bring her here, showed herself at her most vulnerable.
The Great Hall was filled with excited chatter, but it did nothing to drown out the cries upstairs. He didn’t make it down the steps before Louve came striding in.
Nicholas didn’t appreciate the excitement, nor the candied almonds and other confections gracing the tables in celebration. However, he was grateful for Louve’s appearance.
‘Let’s walk outside,’ he said.
‘What do you want to do? Look at the new gates?’
‘You think I’ll leave?’ Nicholas asked, not hiding the bite behind his words. He couldn’t stay here—not with the past the way it was, not with the future and no Matilda. He had to find another future for himself. It couldn’t be here, and yet everyone expected him to stay.
Startled, Louve stepped back. ‘I meant no harm.’
‘Then why do you talk of the gates?’
‘Because we’ve talked of everything else except for Spain and how you lost your eye.’
‘And what about the gates?’
‘They were paid for by your Spanish coin.’
‘You think this will lead the conversation to talk of where I lost my eye?’
‘Would you rather talk of Matilda? No, I thought not. Let’s go for this walk you want.’
Another cry came from upstairs and their heads swivelled in the direction of the sound of distress.
Nicholas shared a look with Louve.
‘She’s strong,’ Louve said.
‘We’ll stay in the courtyard,’ Nicholas said. Away from the celebrations, but close enough for any news.
Outside, the air was cold. The day was turning to night. No sooner was he outside than he wished to be inside again. But there was no distraction there—only a future he imagined that he could not bury.
‘Tell me about the gates,’ Nicholas said.
‘The gates?’
‘Rather an excessive use of my coin, given we aren’t near any coast and have no warring neighbours.’
‘I didn’t know what you’d be bringing home with you when you came.’
‘What I’d be bringing home?’
‘Mercenary bands or some enemy after you.’
‘But only I arrived.’
‘A disappointment—but your missing eye provided entertainment.’
He wanted to laugh. It was Louve’s gift to make upheaval appear normal. However, he recognised the clever change in the conversation.
‘You won’t get the story,’ Nicholas said. ‘Not today.’
‘It would provide distraction.’
‘The gates are enough for now.’
‘Because at any moment a band of mercenaries or the enemy will be riding through?’
‘Not likely,’ Nicholas scoffed.
No gate would hold back his enemy, Reynold, and
he couldn’t shake the vague sense of unease that Reynold would search for him here. Why he would, he didn’t know. However, a man that powerful didn’t let anyone who crossed him live a peaceful life.
‘No mercenaries, no enemy...’ Louve said, his eyes darting over his features. ‘I wonder on that...’
Louve’s observational skills hadn’t diminished. He had always been the better huntsmen out of all of them. But Nicholas didn’t need him to be hunting and finding his secrets. He’d promised Rhain he’d stay the winter. He was beginning to realise how difficult that would be.
Too many ghosts. Too many regrets and memories.
He’d left for a reason and not simply for the coin to be earned.
Nicholas shrugged a shoulder. ‘There’s no reason for such a visit. The group disbanded. Some went up to Edward’s camp, the others I left in London when I travelled here.’
‘So you were not alone with all our coin?’
‘Worried for the coin?’
Louve nodded. ‘Of course. One man to defend wealth like that? I like having the command of the purse, of building and making costly changes.’
‘To a home that belongs to someone else?’
‘Too true.’
Now that he could see all Louve’s accomplishments he understood his lack of ambition even less. Louve excelled at maintaining the manor. He was exceptional on budgeting to make the changes.
Louve wasn’t a knight, but he was as skilled as one. He wasn’t rich, but he wasn’t a pauper, and long ago he’d bought his own land. He should be running his own estate, or at least his own farmstead. He had women chasing him and yet he’d never married.
A recurring thought kept pricking at him. ‘I gave you the responsibility intending to return within two years.’
‘And you didn’t. But I kept my responsibilities and stayed.’ Louve held up his hands. ‘I made my position clear in my letters. You knew where Matilda and Roger stood, too.’
He had known. However, returning here was getting under his skin. He understood Louve and Roger more. And Matilda—It wouldn’t do to think of Matilda.
‘You didn’t need to stay,’ Nicholas said. ‘I would never have trapped you here.’
‘You think I felt trapped?’
How could he not have? He didn’t sound it, and yet there was no reason for him to have stayed.
‘You mentioned a widow in your letters...’
‘Mary.’
‘Is she still...?’
Louve’s eyes softened. ‘I’m still lying with her, and eating her food when she invites me.’ He sighed. ‘I love her, if that’s what you are asking.’
That surprised him. Louve had mentioned her, but said nothing of love. When he had wondered why Louve stayed he’d wondered if it was for her. Louve’s confession now proved his guess right, but still...
‘But you won’t marry her?’
‘She won’t—
‘It’s a girl!’ Bess shouted out of the window.
Nicholas bounded up the staircase.
Chapter Ten
The storm had battered the manor since dawn. Now it was the afternoon, and Nicholas had hoped it would end, but it was relentless. The manor was quiet, all the work inside completed. The weather outside impeded everything but the most critical of outdoor tasks regarding the livestock and horses. He’d been with Louve, securing the animals until everything and everyone was covered in mud.
Louve had escaped to Mary’s, so he knew he’d have no one to while away the evening with warmed ale or wine by the fire in the Great Hall.
So his feet had brought him up to his own room, which he’d been avoiding. Avoiding because Matilda was still in the adjoining room, though he hadn’t seen her since he’d brought her here instead of taking her to her own home.
For almost three weeks Matilda had hidden herself in that room. Food was brought in, but most was taken out uneaten. If she used the garderobe down the passage, he had never seen her.
The baby, Julianna, was there too, and he heard her cries. They were infrequent—most likely because Matilda was holding her and caring for her every need.
Every day Rohesia and Bess came. Gave soft knocks on the door, opened it though no one answered. Sometimes he saw them take the sleeping baby down the corridor to walk around the manor, or bundled her up for a trip outside. Some days Agnes would be with them.
Matilda was in still in his private rooms. Rooms she’d made homely in his absence. Rooms to recover from childbirth. But she’d been there overly long.
He’d heard Rohesia and Bess talking. The servants whispering. It was as if the arrival of her daughter had heralded the return of her grief for Roger. At least that was the fear. That she was not progressing as a new mother should.
He, no doubt, was someone she didn’t want to see. More, he had no right to go into that room. She was not his wife or sister. Not even, he was mostly sure, a friend.
He had a whole list of reasons not to go in there, though it had been weeks and she wasn’t eating. Weeks and he wasn’t certain whether the room was too cold or too warm. Whether she needed extra blankets or other comforts as she held her baby. A baby that, no matter how he looked at her, surely look like her dead husband.
Yes, a whole list of reasons not to go in. To protect her, her reputation, her privacy. To protect himself. For all the changes he’d begun to make about his past hadn’t included her.
He heard her make a sound—something like a muffled sob—and he opened the door without a knock.
* * *
Too much. Too much emotion within her heart, in her head, in the very depths of her. Feelings roiling over her, burying her. Furrowing her heart, gouging through her soul.
It didn’t matter what she did to occupy her time so that she might forget. Or at least have a momentary reprieve. She’d sleep all day, but her dreams were about Roger, Nicholas and the baby. She’d be awake, pacing the floor, requesting to read lost ledgers. None of it occupied her long enough for any true escape.
Bess would come to tell her the gossip, or talk about the general upkeep of Mei Solis. Rohesia would examine her, make sure she was healing from the birth. Both of them didn’t have much else to say, or any valid reason for visiting her.
Bess had her own family obligations, and Matilda regretted it that her friend felt she had to visit her. The same for Rohesia, who had no real reason to see her about her health. She was healed from Julianna’s birth. There were changes to her body, but as with other mothers they were permanent, and in that way, the markings and loosened skin was something she drew comfort from.
Still, Rohesia brought healing teas and tinctures. Acidic broth and choice cuts of meat. She knew the food and the drink would give her strength—the strength she needed to feed Julianna. She didn’t know whether she’d ever feel strong again.
Sitting on the bed—the only piece of furniture in the room—Matilda clenched her fists. No tears. None. Only unending pain. It was worse when Bess took Julianna. Bess who had at first balked at taking the baby. Yet, Matilda didn’t want her only seeing her mother like this.
All through Roger’s burial and the months leading up to the birth, Matilda had held in her grief. She wanted her child only to know happiness. Not to feel the raw swinging of emotions, but to feel the calm assurance of her parents. It should have been Roger, too, but Julianna had only her.
She could barely hold any emotion in.
Worse, Julianna cried. And Matilda swore she did it because her mother couldn’t. So she had begged Bess to take her out—just for a bit, just enough so her daughter would know the world didn’t only encompass grief.
Even though her mother didn’t believe it.
Grief. Again. She’d lost her mother a few years ago, and her father was slipping further away from her every day. She missed them both.
Yet, this.
..this hurt. Down to the very depths of her bones, which no longer seemed to want to hold her upright, so she spent her days around this bed, sleeping, sitting, pacing around it.
Today she’d had a different routine. Bess had brought in a bath and different clothes. Wanting, needing distraction, she’d accepted them. But she had found no comfort in the warmth of the water against her aching bones or her skin that felt so raw. No pleasure in the washing of her hair and the softness of the new clothes.
Now dried, and dressed in a loose chemise, she sat waiting for Bess to return and take the tub away, to bring back Julianna.
There were windows in her room, but she wasn’t interested in the outside world. She didn’t want to be reminded of the outside world.
‘Is this how it’s been?’
The deep voice, the familiar voice, whirled her around.
‘Nicholas!’
She frantically wiped her face, aware acutely of her wet and unbound hair, her lack of a gown, the puffiness and redness of her cheeks.
‘What are you doing here?’
He didn’t look as if he would answer. His brow drew in and he had a tightness about his face. There was also a look of surprise and hesitancy, as if he didn’t know how to answer, or didn’t understand himself what had brought him here.
‘I heard you, Matilda. I’ve been hearing you.’
She’d thought herself alone in her grief. Ridiculous. Of course the whole manor knew she was grieving. Rohesia and Bess were her constant reminders that she was holed up in this room. Their eyes checked her constantly for tears or moments of weakness.
She had been crying. Just these echoes of heaviness deep in her heart that forced themselves out of her. Those she couldn’t stop. Most times she’d thought she had a hand to her mouth, or she’d bitten down on Julianna’s blanket, or pressed her lips to Julianna’s cheek.
Heard? She didn’t even want to hear herself.
‘Sorry.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
Nicholas in her room...this room. Nicholas who had brought her here.
‘Then what did you mean?’
He opened his mouth, closed it, and she knew that Nicholas was perhaps for the first time in his life uneasy.