by Maren Smith
"Good girl!” Bess crowed in encouragement.
"Again!” the gruff doctor said. “Push!"
Hurt built upon hurt. Mallory drowned in it. She screamed and sobbed at once, the salty taste of her sweat and tears stinging her lips where she had bit into them. She pushed again, eyes squeezed tightly shut, until finally, mercifully, the force of the pain began to ebb and the contraction died away. In the lull that followed, Mallory wilted back upon the pillows while Bess again bathed her face with the cool cloth.
"This isn't happening,” Mallory told her, so weary she could barely keep her eyes open.
"You are doing fine,” Bess said as she pressed the soothing cloth to Mallory's cheek. But to the doctor in a softer voice she said, “There's too much blood."
"She'll be fine.” Doctor Wilcox spared neither woman so much as a glance. “The baby has crowned. One more good push and, God willing, it will be over. Have fresh water brought, Bess, please."
"She will get nothing more from me,” the old woman by the fire announced. “The servants in this house do not cater to her whims alone."
Wilcox rounded on her furiously. “Confound it, Abigail! She is still family, despite what she has done! Do you wish both her and your grandchild dead?"
"Yes!” Abigail hissed back. Her wrinkled mouth pursed in anger and defiance. Her dark eyes flashed with it.
Cursing, Wilcox stalked from the bed, threw open the door, and shouted down the hall for fresh water and linens.
Abigail thumped her cane twice against the stone floor. “How dare you!"
"Madame,” Wilcox said briskly, “you have no idea the lengths to which I'll dare."
"This can't be happening,” Mallory said again, her voice cracking. She had traded Heaven for the fiery pits of Hell. Her distended belly rippled as another contraction began and the pain came, a tide of pitiless agony. “Oh, please not again.” Twin tears slipped down both cheeks and she screamed, “Oh God, help me!"
Wilcox immediately returned to the bed. This time Mallory did not wait for the order to push. She bore down with the cresting pain, pushing for all she was worth and sobbing with relief as the child was expelled from her body into Doctor Wilcox's waiting hands. He said, “We have an heir!"
Abigail cursed loudly.
"Thank God!” Bess laughed. She released Mallory, who collapsed atop her pillows too weak and hurt to move.
In the brief silence that followed, the frowning Abigail leaned back in her chair. “Did it live?"
"Yes, he moves!"
While Bess hurried to take the baby from Wilcox, Abigail angrily thumped her cane against the floor and swore a second time.
Mallory stared up at the canopy curtains over the bed. Her body shook. She alternated between sobs and laughter as she heard her son's first lusty wail. For a brief moment, exhilaration conquered her exhaustion and pain. And in that moment, all she felt was intense, overwhelming happiness.
"I did it!” Mallory laughed breathlessly. “I had a baby!"
And then she laughed again, because she finally understood what was happening.
A dream. This was all a dream. Monica, the Crossroads—all part of Mallory's twisted imagination and the result of too much pepperoni pizza on her lunch hour break. Maybe the Parmesan cheese was old, or she had eaten too many of those spicy, crushed red peppers.
Whatever the cause, she was better now. The taxi had hit her, impregnated her, and she was now ... Where? In a hospital?
If it was, it was the strangest hospital she had ever dreamed up. The room looked like a dungeon, with stone walls, floor, and a mammoth fireplace at one end. Even the arched, poured-glass window was framed in cold, gray rock. All that was missing was a set of bars, a torture rack, and maybe a whip or two, and the image would be complete.
The power must be out. The room was dark despite the efforts of three candle lamps and a bon-fire-sized blaze roaring in the fireplace, around which were set two box chairs, a sewing basket, and a white- and green-striped settee. A huge armoire dominated one wall while, next to her bed, a three-legged table supported an elaborately painted porcelain pitcher and bowl. Rushes were strewn across the floor.
With a room like this, it made sense for the people to be dressed like something straight out of a Renaissance Fair. Mallory supposed she ought to be glad that her fevered brain hadn't conjured a man in a chicken suit to cluck, flap, and dance all around her bed throughout her labor.
She heard splashing water and her son bellowed. Which brought to mind another question: since when did hit-and-run automobile accidents leave a woman pregnant? From what Mallory remembered, she hadn't been pregnant yesterday. But then, from what she did recall, she was dead and lying under a sheet in a hospital morgue, so the idea of having a baby without the standard nine-month pregnancy hardly seemed worth the effort of a raised eyebrow.
She definitely had to be dreaming, Mallory thought. There was simply no other explanation.
The doctor leaned over her to set a small bottle on the bedside table next to the pitcher and bowl. He said, “Take no more than a dose of this laudanum. It will help you rest."
Wrapping the afterbirth in a cloth and removing it from the bed, he then helped to pull the hem of her gown modestly down again and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. Despite the stifling heat of the room, Mallory was shaking and her teeth had begun to chatter.
"Where's m-my b-b-baby?” she managed to ask.
There was a whispered rustle of cloth as Bess approached the bed with the baby bundled loosely in a brown blanket in her arms. As Bess bent to lay him next to her, somehow Mallory managed to roll onto her side and wrap her weary arms around him.
Her son looked nothing like the newborn babies depicted in the movies or on any of the soap operas Mallory used to watch on her days off from work. In fact, the poor thing hardly looked human. Though Bess had made an effort to clean him, he really needed a bath. His skin was still blotchy, covered in patches by a downy white fuzz. His misshapen head was sparsely peppered with dark strands of hair. His nose looked squashed, his movements jerky and completely without coordination. As Mallory touched him, the baby gazed up at her with unfocused blue eyes. His head wobbled weakly in the crook of her arm.
Nothing could have been more beautiful.
Tears pricked her eyes. If only she had dreams like this more often. With a little less pain, maybe. That was just too realistic.
And the next time she went into labor, she was going to be in a real hospital with a working air conditioner, plenty of epidurals, and enough morphine to knock her on her butt for a good week afterward. Enough of this ‘natural’ nonsense. Mallory wasn't like other women. Pain hurt her.
Counting his fingers and toes, Mallory quickly checked to make sure he came with all of life's essentials before turning her attention to freeing her breast from her nightgown. High-necked, the entire front was nothing but tiny pearl hooks that refused to come unfastened. That brief euphoria was fading and exhaustion rising quickly to take its place. Her hands would not stop shaking. Though she managed the ribbon bow at the top of her gown easily enough, the hooks that came after that were another matter, entirely. In her next dream, Mallory decided to wear something easier to get off. Elastic, at this point, would have been a godsend.
Were her dreams always this life-like? Mallory could not remember, but the struggle to unhook the front of her nightgown rapidly consumed what little remained of her strength.
"Here, Your Grace. Let me help you.” Bess bent to finish the task and helped to pull the sweat-dampened fabric off her left shoulder.
Rooting instinctively, the baby nuzzled against her before latching on with a force that was surprising for one so tiny.
Absorbed as she was in the antics of her dream infant, Mallory almost missed seeing the blonde man enter the room. He came in behind a maid bearing fresh water and linens and, after a brief pause in the doorway, reluctantly approached the bed.
He was handsome, in a rugged sort of way. Ba
ck stiff, broad shoulders straight, as if so accustomed to the constraints of heavy armor that he seemed ill at ease without it. His white shirt was of a finer quality than Doctor Wilcox's and his tan breeches fit snugly on narrow hips and muscular thighs. His hair was tousled and windblown and extended down slightly past his shoulders. Unbrushed, it was long, and so bleached by the sun as to be almost white. As were his eyebrows—bright, thick, white-blonde lines that stood out against a sun-bronzed, weatherworn face. Amazed that she was capable of dreaming up so fine a man, Mallory's gaze danced over his features, the wide cheekbones, cleft chin, and strong square jaw. The muscles there pulsed as he repeatedly clenched his teeth. What color were his eyes? Her gaze flicked up to check and unconsciously her grip on the baby tightened. Unsmiling, he stared at her with hard and narrowed eyes.
Blue. Her dream man had eyes that were an ice-cold shade of blue.
Her subconscious mind must be trying to tell her something. Perhaps this was all a premonition of future wealth and happiness with a hitherto unknown Mister Right. She had never had such a happy dream before, even though her dream man did seem a bit grumpy.
Of course, she might just as easily be demented, sick in the head, a lunatic bound for a straightjacket and her own private, padded room in Bellevue.
Or, perhaps even...
"I'm going to marry a sun-bronzed surfer and have lots of children,” Mallory said aloud, then smiled because she was a practical girl and that was really the best explanation that she could think of for this kind of a dream.
Instantly those blue eyes mirrored a hurt comparable to the worst of her labor pains. Then, like a door slamming shut, his expression closed against her and the dream man stepped back from the bed. “I doubted he was mine. Thank you, Madame, for your cold, brutal honesty."
With one last, lingering look cast down at the baby in her arms, he turned and headed back out the door. More than a little confused, Mallory watched him go. She had just hurt his feelings, but how could that be? He was a dream, after all. It wasn't as if he were real.
Wilcox threw back his head with a harsh bark of laughter. “Claire, you are despicable!"
He flung the cloth he had been using to clean his hands into a basin on the bedside table. Bloody water slopped over the rim and onto the rush-strewn floor.
"What did I tell you, Robert?” Abigail stood, the cane apparently serving as an object of decoration since she did not lean upon it. “A whore. And you condemned me for wishing her dead."
Mallory stared at the doctor, her eyes widening as she realized she was the ‘Claire’ in question. She looked down at the very realistic baby in her arms. She touched his tiny hand, letting the fingers close around the tip of one of her own. She noticed the fan of auburn-red hair splayed in damp and tangled tendrils across her pillow.
The red-haired woman from the Crossroads...
Could it have been real after all? Mallory's chest tightened. For a moment, she couldn't breathe.
"I've done all I can to help you,” Wilcox said, leaning over her. “You have a son again. For once, Claire, try to think of someone other than yourself."
Gathering his bag, the doctor followed her dream man from the room.
"I don't understand,” Mallory said to no one in particular.
Abigail arched her gray eyebrow. “What is there for you to misunderstand?"
Mallory touched the baby's face. Had she really died? Could the Crossroads have been real? Or Monica? Had she really, literally stolen another woman's life so that she could have a second chance at life? She must have. As she traced the baby's round features, it hit her. This wasn't a dream. She really was holding a baby—her baby—in her arms.
Abigail smirked. “I am going to enjoy this, you know. I never wanted you here, I have made no secret of that. But now even Varden, fool that he is, has seen you for what you truly are. Take a good, last look around, Jezebel. Your stay in my house is at its end.” She looked at the baby in Mallory's arms. To Bess, Abigail said, “You can take that ... that thing to the nursery, but tell the wet-nurse she needn't bother to unpack. It won't be staying long enough to require her."
As Bess approached Mallory's bedside, she averted her eyes. For a moment, she looked as if she might apologize. But then, before Mallory could tighten her arms, the baby was lifted from her grasp.
As Bess passed by, Abigail backed from the infant as if it were an abomination. But when baby and midwife disappeared out the door, she seemed to collect herself. “Grete will continue to attend you. Although I must admit, I am rather hoping that you bleed to death during the night, thereby solving half my problems for me."
Mallory tried to sit up, to protest, but there was simply no strength left within her. Stunned, she could only follow Abigail with her eyes as she swept after Bess, her cane clasped tightly in one bejeweled hand.
Mallory wasn't alone for very long before a tall, stocky woman, perhaps ten or so years younger than Abigail, arrived. As she placed strips of cloth on the bedside table, her stern face showed only disapproval, which she directed solely at Mallory. “Here are some rags for the bleeding. The water is beside you. I assume you can clean yourself."
"Are you Grete?” Mallory asked, her voice hardly more than a whisper.
"As if either of us could forget the other.” Grete stood back from the bed, her hands clasped before her. “Will you be needing anything further tonight, Your Grace?"
Mallory pulled the blanket that much tighter around her. “No."
"Good.” Turning on her heel, Grete found a comfortable chair by the fire and took a piece of mending from the basket on the floor beside it.
Mallory lay on hot, damp sheets, thirsty and shaking. Her body ached. The majority of her—or rather, Claire's—blood was drying on her skin, and the coppery smell of it, combined with the stuffy heat of the room, turned her stomach. On the bedside table, the water basin was inches beyond her reach and Mallory was simply too tired to get it. Finding a dry spot on the mattress was as painful as it was futile. After only two weak attempts, she gave up trying and managed, gingerly, to roll onto her side, putting her back to the unfriendly lady's companion.
Where was she? Great Britain would be a good guess, considering the accents. But when? That she had gone back in time was obvious. At least it was an English-speaking country. She should be grateful she hadn't dropped herself into France or Siberia or someplace equally foreign.
Mallory stared at the huge red and gold tapestry that covered the dark stone wall from floor to ceiling directly across from the bed. Shaking violently, wondering if she were going into shock, Mallory watched golden dogs leap across a crimson field after a family of deer.
The dream had become a nightmare.
* * * *
When Varden first heard that riders were coming, he immediately strapped on his sword and rushed out into the rain to meet them. Unfortunately, he doubted he would get the opportunity to draw the weapon. Godfrey was too clever for that, more's the pity. And, of course, Abigail was standing beside him, waiting impatiently for the portcullis to be raised so the long procession could ride across the moat, through the iron gate, and into the cobblestone bailey. And there in the lead rode his brother, beside his man-at-arms.
Icy rain trickled from the tips of Varden's wet hair into his collar and then down his back. Wishing he had taken the time to don a coat, Varden made no move to greet Godfrey, though Abigail more than made up for his lack of enthusiasm.
"Godfrey!” She ran out to meet him with arms flung wide apart, receiving him with a jubilance she would never have bestowed upon Varden. “What are you doing out in this weather?"
"I could not bear to be away from you another day,” Godfrey said as he dismounted. The soldiers that accompanied him remained cautiously in their saddles, eyeing Varden and his fully armed and armored soldiers, who crowded the bailey walls above and all around.
"Foolishness and poppycock,” Abigail laughed. “See how wet you are!"
Covered nearly
head to toe in thick, leather, riding armor, Godfrey accepted his mother's clucking with little more than a tolerant smile. He looked at Varden, studying him before bending to buss Abigail's cheek with a greeting kiss. “It was either come here or sleep another night in the mud. I admit the siren's call of a warm, dry bed was difficult to resist. Court sends its fondest wishes for your well being. The old crony circle wasn't the same without you."
Abigail lovingly smoothed her hands across his face, her usual sobriety gone with his arrival. “You should have stayed among them. Things have not improved here. You know, sometimes I wonder if you have as little sense as Varden."
Godfrey looked stricken. “Mother, you wound me!"
While Varden pretended to ignore the exchange, Abigail linked her arm through Godfrey's. “Come inside now. I'll have a hot bath and meal brought to you. Ah, my baby is returned; I am so happy!"
As they neared the bottom of the steps, Godfrey flashed Varden a sharp smile. Though slightly smaller and leaner than Varden, he was his near image in appearance.
"Hello, brother,” Godfrey said, as though nothing had ever happened between them.
Varden did not move.
"You are being rude,” Abigail said, her tone as icy as the rain that dripped down the back of his neck. “You cannot leave him out here in this awful weather!"
"I can do however it pleases me,” Varden stated bluntly, and everyone present knew it.
With one foot raised on the bottom-most step, Godfrey shrugged. “You cast me from our house six months ago. Surely your anger has been appeased by now."
"This has gone beyond anger."
"You're right, of course. But I am tired of riding, and we are all quite thoroughly drenched. I stand before you a humble man. Would you have me beg, brother, for entrance to our father's house?"
"I would rather you left here entirely. Go back to court. Go to the devil for all I care. So long as you are gone, it matters not to me."
Abigail thumped Varden on the chest with her fist, though not hard enough to move him. “He is your brother, curse your black heart!"