Choices of the Heart (42 page)

Except it wasn’t the sparkle of moonlight on water; it was the glow of banked coals and an occasional flame shooting from them.

She drew up. “Who’s there?”

A rustle, a grumble, and the click of a gun being cocked answered her.

“I’m unarmed,” she said.

“Then you’re a fool for admitting it, lass.”

“Uncle Rafe?” Esther flung herself from her horse and ran to greet her father’s oldest friend and her honorary uncle. “What are you doing here?”

“Coming after you.” He closed his arms around her.

And other arms joined his—Phoebe’s, slim and strong—the two of them nearly smothering her.

At last Rafe let her go enough to rest his hands on her shoulders and give her a little shake. “What do ye think ye are doing out here at the back end of night?”

“I had to leave. I had to. They know everything. And I’m just not good enough for him.” After her jumbled speech, she burst into tears.

Rafe led her over to a fallen log for a seat. Phoebe knelt to build up the fire and set a kettle on to boil.

“That wee explanation made nae sense, lass,” Rafe told her, “so I am thinking you need to start from the beginning.”

Esther looked at Phoebe across the rising flames. “I was standing by a fire in a place like this, and a man came walking through the trees.”

Rafe groaned, and Phoebe hushed him with a glance.

“He looked like something out of a James Fenimore Cooper novel—a little wild. His accent was so thick I could hardly understand him, and his grammar would make Papa shudder. But he walks like he owns the mountain, which he rather does, and he has a smile . . .”

“Yes,” Phoebe drawled in her genteel plantation accent, “Janet about swooned when she met him.”

“Met—” Esther pressed her fingers to her lips. “Of course. How could I forget? Then you know why I—why I—”

If she said it, it would make the feeling too real and then it might not go away.

“Why you love him?” Phoebe supplied.

Esther bowed her head. “I didn’t think I could. I knew I shouldn’t. He deserves so much better than me.”

“Oh, Esther.” Phoebe had her arms around Esther again, holding her, cradling her while she wept, drank coffee as black and hot as lava, and told the rest of the story.

Dawn was breaking as she finished with, “And so I left.”

“Then he will be coming soon, nae doot,” Rafe said.

“No.” Esther shook her head. “It’s not Griff’s way. He’s spent the last ten years of his life seeking peace. He won’t find it if he marries me.”

“Aye, that is for certain.” Rafe grinned at her.

“Ignore him,” Phoebe said. “If Griff prefers peace to a little struggle for the lady he says he loves, then perhaps he just doesn’t love you that much.”

“From how I am seeing it,” Rafe said, “Esther’s trying to force his hand and make him come after her just like she is so fond of doing, you ken.”

Esther’s head shot up. “I didn’t—I’m not—”

But perhaps she was.

Quivering inside, she asked, “What should I do?”

“Only you ken your heart, lass.” Rafe rose and reached for the rifle. “Or perhaps you do not have the choice after all.”

Esther heard it then, the hoofbeats pounding down the trail too fast for the lack of light, too fast for the rough terrain. A tendril of early sunlight flashed off a red hide, a roan coat.

“Griff.” Esther clasped her upper arms with her hands.

But it wasn’t Griff. Mattie Brooks slid from the horse’s back and staggered into the camp. “Miss Esther, thank the Lord I catched you.” He seized her hand.

“Griff?” Esther clung to the boy’s fingers. “Is he all right?”

“Yes, it’s Bethann. Her time has come, and she’s . . . bad.”

“Her time has come already?” Esther glanced at Phoebe and Rafe. “She can’t be more than six months along.”

Their faces reflected her concern. That far in advance rarely meant good for baby or mother.

“What happened?” Esther asked Mattie. “Did she fall?”

Or was it a result of too much laudanum?

“Yes’m,” Mattie said. “She shot Henry Gosnoll, and the recoil knocked her off a ledge.”

36

Esther slid off the mare and started running before both feet hit the ground. Jack and Ned, Brenna and Liza tried to greet her as she raced through the gate and into the house. She didn’t pause long enough to return a word, simply tossed out, “Where is she?”

“Her room,” Liza called. “Griff carried her there.”

Griff, who had sent a boy after Esther instead of coming himself. No time to think of that now. She must see to Bethann. Phoebe was coming too, a little slower. And Rafe, a doctor. He would have forceps if he’d brought his medical things.

Of course he had. She never traveled without her satchel. He wouldn’t travel without his.

She gathered her skirt up to her knees and took the steps two at a time, the soles of her boots loud on the bare treads, announcing her presence. Mrs. Tolliver emerged from Bethann’s room, her knuckles bulging as she twisted up her apron.

Esther made herself slow down and walk sedately into the patient’s chamber, composed. Bethann lay on the bed, her body so thin she barely made a ripple in the quilt spread over her, and Griff sat beside her, holding her hand.

His gaze met Esther’s, and he offered her a half smile. “I knew you’d come back for Bethann’s sake.”

“I was going to come back for yours, not that you asked me to.” She approached the bed and brushed her fingertips over Bethann’s brow. “Tell me what’s happening, Bethann.”

“My pains.” Bethann’s teeth sank into a lower lip that was already bruised. “I know it.”

“Then you know you can have false pains.” Esther smiled and made her voice sound a bit too cheerful. “I think it’s a little soon for you to have that happening, but—”

“Her water’s broke,” Mrs. Tolliver interjected.

“Ah, I see. Well then.” Esther grew brisk, though she watched Griff from the corner of her eye.

Not so much as the pink tip of his ear showing through a curl.

“It could be quick this time. I need to examine you.” She glanced about for a washstand, clean towels, soap. They stood in one corner of the room. She headed for it, then glanced at her blistered palms.

She shouldn’t be doing this with her hands such a mess. She never thought she’d need them pristine as usual again. She would have to let Phoebe do the examining.

But Phoebe wasn’t there yet, and a woman’s second child often came within an hour after the water broke.

“Griff, you should probably leave.”

“She won’t let me.” He kept his gaze on his sister’s face.

“All right.” She could examine beneath the quilt. Doctors did it all the time to preserve the woman’s modesty.

She washed her hands, then performed the examination. The baby was small. So was Bethann. The baby appeared to be further along than Esther guessed. But Bethann was weak, her contractions close together yet not as strong as they should be. Internal bleeding? Perhaps she had been injured in the fall that had commenced the travail.

Falling off a ledge after shooting Henry Gosnoll.

He was dead. She’d used Griff’s shotgun on him, Mattie had told Esther and the Dochertys before parting from them to head home. Gosnoll had been sneaking home after an assignation with one of his women. Bethann waited for him on the path and pulled the trigger.

“Were you injured in your fall?” Esther asked.

“No.” Bethann’s voice was as weak as a newborn’s.

“Maybe,” Griff said. “I heard her scream.” A shudder ran through him. “Nothing’s broken.”

Not on the outside. Insides could break too—parts that caused a body to lose blood inside, where nobody could fix it.

If only Rafe would get there. Doctors knew so much more about the workings of a body’s insides. Esther had some knowledge but mainly about the working of a woman’s particular parts.

“Have you felt the baby move recently?” Esther asked.

“Yes’m,” Bethann said. “Before the pains started.”

That was good as far as it went, but the baby couldn’t keep moving outside the uterus. Never had Esther seen a six-month, let alone younger, infant survive. She could only hope to save the mother.

Save her to hang for murder?

“There was a struggle,” Griff said, still looking at his sister and not at Esther. “She said Gosnoll hit her belly.”

Mrs. Tolliver started to cry.

Esther gasped. “Self-defense then?”

She and Griff exchanged a glance, swift, full of understanding.

He nodded. “If you find evidence she’s been injured thatta way . . . I won’t look.”

She knew he wouldn’t. He was a gentleman for all his homespun clothes and rough speech.

She drew up the quilt and Bethann’s night dress. A purpling bruise marred her belly. It could have happened in the fall. But it was the size of a man’s fist.

“Yes,” Esther said. “There’s a bruise I can testify to.”

Griff’s free hand curled into a fist on his thigh, and a muscle in his jaw bulged. “If Gosnoll weren’t dead, I’d—”

“No, Griff.” Bethann spoke more strongly. “It’s done. Let it be done.”

“And let’s get this baby born.” Esther brought back her smile. “It shouldn’t take long now.”

But it did. The morning wore into early afternoon. Phoebe and Rafe arrived, and still Bethann’s labor pains continued, but weaker. Bethann was weaker.

“Will you examine her?” Esther asked Phoebe. “Perhaps I’m missing something.”

“I doubt you are.” But Phoebe performed the same examination. When she straightened, she shook her head, then jutted her chin toward the door. “I’m going to get my husband.”

“Why?” Griff asked the instant Phoebe departed. “Why’s she going after Dr. Docherty?”

“Because this calls for a doctor, not a midwife.” Esther dropped to her knees beside the bed and took Bethann’s other hand in hers. “Your travail is going on too long, and your pains aren’t strong enough to bring out the baby. So the doctor is going to use his forceps.”

“Can’t you?” Bethann asked.

“I’m not allowed to as a midwife. I’d have to be a doctor.”

“She don’t want no strange man touching her,” Mrs. Tolliver said from the far corner of the room.

“He’s a fine doctor, trained in Edinburgh, Scotland,” Esther said. “He’s helped many bairns, as he calls them, come into the world. He helped at the births of his own children—”

“Esther,” Griff said quietly, “be quiet.”

She was talking too much again, masking anxiety behind a spate of words.

She substituted actions for words—wetting a cloth and wiping Bethann’s perspiring brow, laying her hand on the too-small mound of Bethann’s belly and counting the minutes before the feeble contractions, washing her hands. She dropped the soap, picked it up, and started to apply it to her palms again.

Until it disappeared from her hand. “Sit down, Esther.” Gently, his hand beneath her elbow, Griff led her to the chair he’d occupied.

“But where will you sit?” Esther protested.

“I can stand. She wants you.”

“Me?” Esther dropped onto the chair and leaned toward Bethann. “What is it?”

“I’m a-dying,” she whispered. “Must . . . tell . . .” A stronger contraction left her sweating and gasping.

Esther sponged her brow. “Good girl. Keep that up and we’ll have that baby here in no time.”

“Dead.” Bethann’s lips formed the word without sound. Then aloud she said, “I thought he killed it. So I . . . shot him.”

Momma had never prepared Esther for this situation. She’d had answers to everything imaginable in the birthing chamber. None of them had prepared her for this one.

Rafe and Phoebe entered at that moment, preventing further speech. For all his size and seafaring past, Rafe was the tenderest of physicians. He approached Bethann’s side and took her hand in both of his, then spoke to her in an undertone. “So you are having a wee bit of trouble, are you? You have two ver’ fine midwives here to attend you, but I have a trick or two us doctors wisely keep to ourselves. Otherwise they would be putting us out of business. May I try?” He glanced at Griff. “Mr. Tolliver, I am wondering if you would prefer to be elsewhere. This can be a wee bit unpleasant.”

“No!” Bethann cried. “Stay.”

Griff’s face paled in the afternoon sunlight pouring through the window, but he crouched at Bethann’s side and laid his hand on her head. Though he didn’t so much as move his lips, Esther knew he prayed for his sister.

If ever a body needed prayer, it was Bethann Tolliver. Her baby was most certainly dead already. Her chances of survival weren’t much higher. If this birth didn’t kill her, the Gosnolls would see her hang. This time the mountain folk weren’t likely to keep their information to themselves, or they just might hang her themselves.

“God, where is Your love right now?” Esther didn’t realize she spoke aloud until Phoebe rested a hand on her shoulder.

“God is here right now with His love. It’s we who don’t ask for it.”

“Don’t . . . deserve . . .” Bethann cried out as Rafe took out the forceps.

“What’s that?” Mrs. Tolliver exclaimed.

“They do look wicked, do they no?” He flashed Mrs. Tolliver his still charming smile. “’Tis nae so bad and will help things along. Now just you lie there still, Miss Bethann, and let me do the work.”

The forceps drew the too-small infant into a world it would never know. And with it came the blood. Too much blood. Blood that wouldn’t stop as long as it had a supply to draw upon.

“I’m sorry,” Rafe said, and his face and voice rang with sincerity. “There’s damage inside from the look of it. A rupture.”

Mrs. Tolliver began to sob. “My child. Not another one.”

Phoebe went to her, not the first mother she had comforted.

“The last one,” Bethann whispered. “It’s over. I started it. It ends with me.”

“You didn’t start it.” Griff spoke through clenched teeth. “Pa started it with his desire for revenge for ruining you. And the Brookses continued it, and—” He dropped his head onto the pillow beside Bethann’s head. “Yes, it ends here, but you didn’t start it.”

“I did. God . . . not forgive me for this.” Bethann’s voice grew so weak Esther leaned toward her to hear.

The others stood in silence. The yard and forest beyond lay still as though holding their breath.