Unbidden (The Evolution Series)

by Jill Hughey

  When the house came into sight, she unwound her arms, a silent bid for him to stop. She straightened and looked into his eyes, the green of her own flat and lifeless. “Thank you,” she said. She turned to awkwardly lift her leg over the pommel so she could face front.

  Marian and Gilbert were on the front porch with torches. David lifted her down and she headed for the door. “My horse broke his leg. He is dead,” she said as she walked stiffly into the house. Marian watched her go by, openmouthed.

  “Marian, how can I find Ardo?” David asked.

  Rochelle went to her room. She sat on the edge of the bed with her back to the door, not surprised when her mother entered to rush to her side. “David said ye had a nasty fall. Are ye hurt?” she asked while nonsensically touching her daughter’s forehead for fever.

  “I will be stiff tomorrow. Otherwise, I am fine.”

  Marian put her hands on her hips. “He was a good horse, but an animal is not worth grieving over. It will not do for ye to mope about on David’s last night here.”

  “I know, Mother. I am more stunned than anything. Do you think things happen for a reason? Are we punished for our actions?”

  Marian’s mouth opened and closed several times. “No, I do not believe that is the way of it.”

  Rochelle nodded, accepting her answer.

  Marian walked to the door. She turned. “But if it is the way of it, if this did happen for a reason, I hope it was to knock some sense into that hard head of yers.”

  Rochelle twisted on the bed. Her mother held a single finger to indicate a number. “One, Rochelle. One impetuous act can change everything in the course of yer life, never to be taken back. Never to be fixed.” She shook her finger slightly in a silent reprimand, then left the room.

  Chapter Twenty

  Dinner was subdued by the events of the day and David’s impending departure. Rochelle carefully kept her physical distance from him. He watched her, the emotion behind his eyes inscrutable. He followed her on her walk after dinner, saying nothing when she merely tested that the stable door was latched. She couldn’t bear to open it. They parted early, each to an empty room and a chilly bed.

  Rochelle’s guilty thoughts kept her awake at least an hour. It seemed as though she’d barely gotten to sleep when a distant pounding roused her. She ran to the gallery just as David reached the front door, his tunic unlaced and his spata gleaming in his hand. He pointed to her and said, “Stay there.”

  She nodded, finally understanding someone was at the outside gate. She waited while Marian joined her at the rail, already blotting the corner of her eyes.

  In a few moments, David returned with a stammering Terence in tow. The expectant father was rambling and stuttering so that Rochelle couldn’t make anything out.

  “Tell her,” David said, the authority in his voice bracing the young man.

  Terence looked up at her beseechingly. “The baby won’t come. She’s been pushing all night and it won’t come out.”

  “I will be right there,” Rochelle said. She returned to her room for her clothes and healing bag. With great relief, she saw David at the front door when she came downstairs. Marian gave her a quick hug at the door.

  “I sent Terence back home,” David said as they hurried toward the stable. “We can both ride on Woden. I do not like the idea of you on an unfamiliar horse in the dark.”

  She soon found herself astride the stallion again. They rode in silence except for the terse directions Rochelle gave for the shortest, safest way to the little cottage. Neither of them noticed the perfect pinpoints of stars against a silken black sky or the sharpness of the cold on this clear fall night.

  The house was aglow when they reached it, Terrence pacing in front of it, out of breath. He’d obviously run all the way back.

  “Stay here,” Rochelle said to both men as she entered, though she left the door cracked. Terence walked to it then shrank back when he heard a weak moan.

  He turned to David, one hand pulling at his hair. “She’s been laboring over a day. Over a day! The screaming! Oh sweet Jesu! She is so tired. She’s wearing herself out, that is what her mama said. Lord have mercy, it is not supposed to happen like this.” He slumped down against the wall with his knees drawn up, his head resting on his forearms.

  David leaned on the cottage next to the poor man, trying to remember what Marta looked like. The only parts of her he could recall were her large shiny eyes. He was surprised to find himself patting her husband on the head. Marta cried out and the man jerked like he had been touched by a hot poker. David heard Rochelle softly asking questions, and another woman’s tremulous answers.

  Then he heard Rochelle again, speaking with loud authority, “Marta, we are going to have that baby soon. Do you hear me? Try not to push for a little while. I want you to rest and not push until I tell you to. Can you do that for me?”

  Rochelle came out the door like a general, closing it firmly behind her. She looked around in confusion, finally finding Terence seated and staring up at her like a frightened child. David stepped back as she marched over to the young man. “Terence, the babe is breech. Some women can deliver thus, but not Marta.”

  “Oh sweet Jesu!” he cried, throwing his hands over his face.

  “Stop it,” she hissed, boxing him lightly on the head, belying her harshness by quickly kneeling in front of him. “I will try to turn the baby.”

  Terence lifted his hands to look at her hopefully.

  “It will be…difficult. The babe is small because it is coming early, but even so, I may not be able to save them both.” She stared at him, a sad, sympathetic question in her eyes.

  All hope left Terence’s face. He aged years in front of David’s eyes. “Save Marta, my lady. Please, save my wife.”

  Rochelle nodded curtly. “I will try. Can you hold her down for me?”

  He gaped at her. “Hold her down? Is it going to hurt her that much? Can’t you give her something?”

  “Yes, it is going to hurt that much, and no, I cannot give her anything that will not affect her when I need her to push.” Rochelle sighed. “If I cannot turn the babe, then I can give her something so she does not suffer.”

  Terence gulped. “I would take the pain for her if I could, my lady.”

  Rochelle stared at the young father for a second, and David wasn’t sure if she wanted to hug him or slap him. “You cannot. The only thing we can do is end this as quickly as possible. Do you want to hold her, or do you want David to do it?”

  David felt his stomach lurch. He had watched men die in agony, he had punctured the throat of a horse just today, but the thought of the sloe-eyed pregnant girl undergoing…whatever she was going to undergo…made his knees weak.

  “I will do it,” Terence said.

  “Good,” Rochelle said rising quickly. “I need as much light as you can give me and some grease.”

  He blinked up at her.

  “Now!” she shouted at him.

  He scrambled to his feet and dashed into the house.

  David found himself standing at attention, waiting for his own orders.

  She came to him. She leaned her forehead against his chest. He could barely make out her whisper. “I only saw the healer do this once. It did not end well.”

  He resisted the urge to hold her, instead gripping her upper arms to straighten her. “You can do it better,” he said firmly.

  She took a deep breath and stepped back. “Will you wait here for me?”

  “I will.”

  He watched the iron come back into her spine. She returned to the cottage, to her duty, to her people. To her life’s calling at Alda.

  “Marta,” he heard her say firmly. “It is time to have that baby. You must not push until I tell you. Breathe, scream, curse me and your husband to hell and gone, but do not push.”

  A small voice, faint with fatigue and hoarse from screaming, barely came through the crack in the door. “Yes, my lady, I will try.”

  “Do not try.
Do it,” Rochelle said bluntly.

  The shrieks were horrific. Marta found renewed energy in this heightened pain. Terence was calling out his love for his wife. Marta’s mother was sobbing. David couldn’t bring himself to look through the crack in the door and barely stopped himself from covering his ears. The sounds were too awful and too intimate.

  Rochelle shouted above them all. “Marta, I told you not to push. Now stop it or I will kick you off your land.”

  It seemed like hours passed though David knew it could only be minutes when Rochelle yelled again, apparently at the unborn child. “Turn, damn you! Turn!” then in seconds, “There! There! Push, Marta, push now!”

  The woman gave a mighty groan.

  Rochelle praised her. “Good. One or two more like that and you will be done. I am so proud of you, Marta!”

  When the weak sound of a baby’s cry barely seeped through the night air, David slid down the wall of the cottage, hitting the ground hard with his legs bent up in front of him.

  “Here is your baby!” Rochelle said happily, as if nothing out of order had transpired. “Here is your son! I will put him on your stomach while your mother and I attend to you.”

  The sounds in the house softened and David let his mind drift as he watched a thin scud of clouds start to veil the stars. The events of the day and night spun similarly across his mind, soft moments mixed with sharp pinpoints of despair.

  Is this what it means to love, he wondered. The man watches his woman suffer, wanting to take the burden off of her, wanting to bear the pain for her, but not able to. Only able to lance it so it peaked more quickly or hold her still while she endures?

  And love Rochelle he did. He had known it when he’d watched her flying off Denes’s back and through the air this afternoon. He had known he was watching his own life end, because what would his life be, here or anywhere else, without her?

  Somehow in the few weeks of knowing her, she had become his rock and his touchstone. The gentle solidity of her mind. The comfort of her physical presence next to him. The apparently unending strength to face every challenge placed before her by this estate. She would be his home more than this place. And perhaps, with time, if she came to return his love, then what a palatial home it would be.

  He rose and dusted himself off. Love was painful, but it was also fortifying. When she emerged from the cottage, he would be ready to carry her home.

  He watched the door as though guarding Louis’s treasury. She finally walked into his open arms. He gave her a bracing hug and rested his chin on her head.

  Terence called from the door in a quavering voice, “God bless you, my lady. You saved them. And God bless you too, sir. God bless you both.”

  Rochelle pulled away, discomfited by her tenant seeing her in David’s embrace.

  He calmly answered for them, “And may He continue to bless you and yours, Terence.”

  He got them settled on Woden’s back to start the slow journey home, her spine still straight as his lance. “You saved them, Rochelle,” he echoed Terence admiringly.

  “The baby is early and very small. I am not sure he will survive,” she said dully.

  “Yet tonight he and his mother live only because of you.”

  They rode in silence for a short time before she commented, “I hope he does live. I am not sure Marta will conceive again. I had to be quite rough with her.”

  “Stop being such a pessimist. Marta will probably have a dozen babies and weigh 15 stone in a few years.”

  Rochelle choked back an unexpected laugh. “A dozen babies in a few years? Do you know anything about pregnancy?”

  Her laugh encouraged him. “Nothing at all. Will you explain it to me?”

  “You are impossible,” she scolded, but she relaxed against him, tipping her head to look at the sky. “The clouds are returning,” she observed.

  He liked her there, and he held her against him until they reached the stables. She stayed with him while he unsaddled Woden.

  “With everything that is going on, perhaps I should wait another day before returning to Ribeauville,” he ventured as he hung the bridle.

  No answer.

  He turned to grip her hand. “If you need me to stay, I will. Your burdens seem particularly heavy right now.”

  She would not meet his eyes. “You have burdens of your own, tasks set before you by those you should be able to trust. And I am growing to depend on you too much. It frightens me.”

  “No!” he said harshly. “It should not frighten you. My strength is yours, and I hope that some day yours will be mine.”

  “You do not know how weak I can be.”

  “I love you, Rochelle. If a day comes when you are weak, I will be with you to lift you up.”

  She stared at him then whispered, “What if I hurt you, or disappoint you?”

  “Then I would have to forgive you, if you asked.”

  “I do not deserve you.” She sighed. “I certainly do not deserve your love.”

  He kissed her, and she returned it. But where his was a kiss of newly declared love, hers was a kiss of desperation. She clung to him and she tried to forget. How could she though? She had hired a man to defeat him and drive him out of her life. What would she have if he lost? Even more frightening, what would be left of his love for her if he won but knew the truth?

  Rochelle woke in the predawn to the sound of male voices outside the house. She walked to the window, the wooden floor cold on her bare feet. Through the gray dawn, past the courtyard wall, she could barely make out David, Ardo, and a few tenant men, each holding a rough implement for digging. Hoisting the tools over their shoulders they set off toward the southwest.

  David returned a few hours later, sweaty, dirty, and carrying Rochelle’s saddle. He had seen Denes buried for her. Even if it was just a horse, even if time and carrion-eaters would have slowly destroyed and scattered the remains, she’d hated to think of Denes like that. David had known and he’d acted to ease the way for her, asking of her tenants something she never would have.

  David bathed in the kitchen. Rochelle waited in the hall, sick to her stomach. If she asked him to stay, he would. But she knew she must let him go. For them to have any chance, even one blighted by her betrayal, he must win the hateful tournament.

  He readied to leave. It seemed only seconds until he was tying a small parcel of clothing and food on his saddle. He turned to Rochelle.

  “Here,” she said, extending her hand. Three small cloth sacks landed in his palm. “It is for your head. Just in case. You know how to brew it?”

  “I do,” he answered gruffly.

  “I hope it is enough, until you return.”

  He smiled. “Keep Magnus with you. I have taken the liberty of giving Gilbert and Ardo a few instructions, but you have the final word in ensuring your own safety. I will see you in Ribeauville soon.”

  Her eyes widened. “I do not want to come.”

  “Louis will want you there. I want you there. I will send someone for you.”

  Her head shook negatively as he mounted Woden, but then she remembered something else she wanted to say.

  “David,” she said, touching him softly on his knee, “I am grateful for what you did this morning.”

  Woden pranced sideways so she backed away from him. David’s gaze already looked to the open gate. “Denes was a good steed and a faithful friend.”

  “I wish I had been more careful with him. And with you.”

  “It was a badger hole, Rochelle. It was not your fault that Denes fell. As for the other, I was harsh with you yesterday at the river, but I am fine. We are fine. I must go for now, but trust me. All will be well.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Rochelle was weary. She found it difficult to eat or sleep since David’s departure a week ago. Now that harvest had ended, the more mundane preparations for winter filled all her days. Buildings were repaired, firewood gathered, and animals brought in to pens to be fattened for butchering. The trees release
d their last leaves and the bite of cold settled into the air more heavily each day. Today she’d been riding the estate on the old farm cob, checking the condition of the outbuildings and the peasants’ homes with Ardo, whom she’d just left at his house nearby. This task did not require her attention, but she searched for diversions to fill the time and keep her growing unease at bay.

  She and David had not parted well. Even if his words said otherwise, she’d sensed an eagerness in him to leave. She couldn’t blame him considering the pressure of the tournament, her uneven moods, and her repeated refusals to become his wife.

  He’d told her he loved her. It was not a sentiment she reciprocated. Or, if she was being truly honest with herself, the love of which he spoke — the kind shared between a man and a woman — was not an emotion she would immediately recognize. Even if she did love him, she’d never admit it with the black cloud of her betrayal hanging over her head like a funeral shroud. Love, as she pictured it, required honesty, did it not? The ideal marriage would meld that love with the everyday, year-to-year business of life. That combination of love and business demanded absolutely sterling truthfulness between two people.

  She’d already failed.

  As she crested the rise near her house, she sensed the emptiness in the buildings just as she sensed it in her own heart. An unexpected symptom of an undiagnosed disease. Was it only dependence she felt for David, as she’d claimed? Did she really yearn to share his strength and wisdom? Or did she only want him to assuage the guilt that nearly crushed her with its weight?

  Magnus yipped beside her. The silhouette of a person on horseback moved down the road toward the house, another horse being led behind. A frisson of excitement went up her spine. “No, no, no,” she schooled herself quietly, knowing David would not have returned for her himself. The rider reminded her of him.