Knights of de Ware 03 - My Hero (40 page)

“Faith!” she exclaimed, popping her eyes open as it suddenly became clear. “Has the babe crowned already?” She nudged Duncan aside to see for herself. Sure enough, a patch of fuzzy black the size of a crest medallion appeared. There’d be no
time
for herbs. “All right, Garth, move behind her. Help her to sit up and push with the next—“

Linet groaned. Sweat stood upon her fair brow, and she screwed up her features in a grimace of determination.

“That’s it,” Cynthia encouraged as she moved her palms over the laboring mother’s belly. “Squeeze Garth’s hand. Push hard. Duncan, what’s happening?”

Concern etched his brows. “It’s…it’s coming out. Nay, it’s going back in. I can’t…”

Linet panted as the wave passed.

“All right, in a moment, we’ll try again,” Cynthia said.

She glanced at Garth. He held Linet’s hand with true de Ware fortitude, though his knuckles were squeezed bloodless.

Linet sucked in a few deep breaths, then bore down again. The cords of her neck stood out in relief as she pushed with all her might.

“That’s it!” Duncan said. “That’s it! I can see it! I can see… Damn! Lost again.”

“Breathe slowly,” Cynthia told Linet. “You’re working very hard. You must rest between.” She carefully unpinned the veil about Linet’s head and pressed it into Garth’s hand. “You can use this to mop her brow.”

“But…” Linet puffed. “That’s…silk from—“

“I don’t care if it’s the Golden Fleece,” Duncan muttered anxiously. “Go ahead, Garth, use it.”

Garth swabbed the cloth across her forehead.

“Of course…
you
don’t care, Duncan,” Linet complained. “You didn’t have to…bargain for it with…” Her indignant retort was interrupted by the wave of another contraction.

“One long push now,” Cynthia said, laying a healing palm upon Linet’s furrowed brow.

“I see it,” Duncan said as Linet groaned with strain. “It’s increasing. Aye. It’s large as a plum now. And now an apple. Aye…aye…nay.” He looked up in disappointment. “It’s slipped back in.”

Linet pounded a discouraged fist on the ground and slumped back against Garth’s chest.

“It’s all right,” Cynthia told her. “You rest now.” She chewed at her lip. She’d seen this before, when the head of the infant was too large for the mother. Linet was strong. She was pushing with far more power than most. It would weary her soon. But she was getting nowhere. Too long a delay might harm the infant. And, to add more fodder to the fire of her troubles, the first fat drops of rain began to pelt the ground.

“Let’s try something,” she decided, rubbing her hands together and placing them atop Linet’s belly. “Duncan, get ready.”

“Ready?”

“To catch.”

Cynthia caught a glimpse of terror on Duncan’s face just before Linet gulped in a quick breath, then squeezed hard. As she pushed, Cynthia laid the full weight of her arms over the top of the bulging mound and pressed down.

“Aye!” Duncan cheered. “Aye! It’s coming now. I can see the brow. And the nose. And…Lord!” His voice cracked with fear, and he suddenly dove between Linet’s legs. “Got him!” he cried in victory. But his look of triumph soon turned to wondrous terror as he held the bloody, squirming, squalling bit of humanity.

Cynthia rocked back on her heels and winked at Linet, who lay breathless but smiling in relief against Garth’s chest. “Men,” she said, shaking her head. “
Him
indeed.” Then she whispered, “It’s a girl.”

She tore a sizable swatch from her own wedding gown, ignoring Linet’s weak protests, and, taking the tiny girl from Duncan, swaddled her appropriately in Linet’s “finest Italian blue.”

By the time she cut the cord and delivered the afterbirth, a veritable deluge pounded the sod. Duncan and Garth, on speaking terms again as they tried to out-brag each other regarding their part in the delivery, shielded their women and helped carry Linet to shelter. Once inside, Elspeth made raspberry infusion for the new mother while Roger comforted the shaken Prior Thomas.

It wasn’t till much later, when the prior returned to the monastery, when Linet was tucked comfortably into bed beside her new babe, when the skies cleared and the harvest moon shone golden through Cynthia’s window, upon the marriage bed she shared with Garth, that Cynthia realized they’d forgotten something.

“Garth,” she crooned, slipping one bare leg over him and running a finger along the sensuous swell of his shoulder.

“Aye, wife?” He arched against her thigh and nuzzled her hair. It felt divine.

“Do you remember,” she said, slightly distracted, “at the wedding…”

His lips curved into an irresistible smile that she naturally had to kiss. And then, when she found he tasted of mulberry wine, she had to kiss him again.

Chuckling, he lapped at her mouth with a delicate tongue, taunting her, enticing her, until she could wait no longer. Completely forgetting what she meant to tell him, she threw her arms around his neck and clambered atop his fine-muscled body. Heedless of her own sinful abandon, she kissed his forehead, his eyelids, the bridge of his nose, settling again on his delicious mouth. Her low-slung belly brushed his, and he stroked her softly there, lingering awhile before he cupped the heavy weight of her breasts. She gasped. Her breasts prickled as his fingers grazed the distended nipples.

He laved her tongue languorously with his own, making deep, primitive sounds in his throat as she rocked against his warm, naked flesh.

Just as she thought she would burst with need of him, he lifted her hips and settled her down slowly onto his lap, filling her sweetly.

Their dance was subdued now. Her girth allowed only gentle movement and soothing rhythms. But it was exhilarating beyond belief to feel Garth’s sweet restraint, to watch the ecstasy crease his features as he mastered his own release. And it was empowering to ride astride him, setting the cadence, choosing the tide, quivering with rapture as her body edged closer to the precipice.

This time, she leaped over the edge first. A hundred tremors shook her on the wondrous journey down. She cried out his name, squeezing him between her thighs, clutching at his broad shoulders. Her hair shivered over her breasts, which tingled almost painfully. And then she was floating.

He followed her almost at once, thrashing his head across the pillow, bucking against her like an untamed stallion, groaning as if he endured unimaginable torture. And then he, too, was still.

She continued to straddle him, too exhausted to move, yet almost asleep sitting up.

“Now,” he inquired silkily, grinning, “what were you saying about the wedding?”

She peered at him through nearly closed lids. It was hard to remember anything in the presence of that captivating crooked smile. “Nothing that can’t wait,” she said, slipping languorously aside to snuggle against him.

They had a lifetime ahead of them—mellow autumns, cozy winters, vibrant springs, sultry summers. Their love was firmly rooted in fertile soil now. The stock was strong and hardy. And the growing season had just begun. Contentment, the warmth of Garth beside her, and the soft rhythm of their mingling breath lulled her to sleep.

“It won’t be long now, my lady,” Elspeth said, swabbing Cynthia’s brow with primrose water.

“Breathe,” Jeanne the midwife bade her with irritating calm. “That’s it. Slow and steady.”

“Get,” Cynthia ground out. “Father. Paul.”

“As you can see,” Jeanne continued, ignoring Cynthia’s temper to lecture the eight maidens gathered around her heaving belly in various states of interest and disgust, “it’s helpful to have at least two individuals attending the birth. One stands here,” she said, moving to the foot of the bed, “to monitor the progress of the birth…”

“Bring…Garth,” Cynthia panted.

“And one here,” Elspeth added, indicating herself, “to comfort the laboring—“

“El!”

“Aye?” Her eyes were suddenly sweet and concerned.

Cynthia let out a breath of self-disgust. She shouldn’t be impatient with the woman. Elspeth was so excited to have a new charge on the way. She couldn’t help it if her enthusiasm was occasionally annoying.

Still, Cynthia
was
in labor. It was painful and, though she’d delivered dozens of other women’s babes, having her own was strangely frightening.

“Please…get them.”

Elspeth bent near, whispering as if to a child. “My lady, I know the de Ware men have a certain history around the birth of their babes, but truly it isn’t appropriate for a husband…” Then she frowned. “Why do you want Father Paul?”

Jeanne turned to the maids and explained. “Sometimes at this stage of the birth, the mother gets confused and—“

“Listen!” Cynthia snapped. Quickly, before the rising wave of pain could incapacitate her, she hauled Elspeth to her by the front of her surcoat. Elspeth dropped her rag, and the maidens stared in surprise as Cynthia spat out her demands. “I need Father Paul and Garth, and I need them now!”

Elspeth’s perplexed face blurred as the dull ache in Cynthia’s back sharpened, forcing her attention to her labor again.

Elspeth tapped the shoulders of two of the maids. “Go to the chapel. Garth and the Father are likely there, praying.”

They scurried off to do her bidding.

The pain surged to a peak, and then fell away slowly, like the swell of the sea. Cynthia shut her eyes and focused, trying to envision her fate, willing the familiar images to come, but it was useless. The door that usually swung open for others as easily as a wattle gate was closed upon her own destiny.

“Is she all right?” whispered one of the maids.

“She’ll be fine,” Elspeth murmured, though Cynthia could hear doubt in the maid’s voice.

She opened her eyes, silently cursing herself for letting things wait so long. She should have taken care of the matter the night Linet had her babe. But at the time, the household had been in a tumult, and then Garth had distracted her with that divine body of his. After that, she’d shared three months of utter bliss with him—cuddling away the long winter evenings, planning the Christmas feast, working together to convert the spare chambers of Wendeville into a magnificent teaching infirmary—and somehow the whole issue had slipped her mind.

She glanced at the young women gathered around0 her. It was little wonder the infirmary had occupied her thoughts so completely. The place was nothing short of wondrous. And these maidens were a testament to the miracles that occurred daily. None of them had witnessed childbirth before. But with Jeanne the midwife’s help, they would learn today how to deliver and care for a newborn.

Garth and Cynthia had turned Wendeville into a refuge, a place of hope for the spirit and the body. Since they’d opened their doors, they’d managed to restore the faith and the health of nearly every patient admitted, as well as providing trained physicians for Charing and the village.

Garth was too busy now with secular duties to devote himself fully to the chapel, but he’d found a good chaplain for Wendeville in Father Paul. Though Garth was never seen without his sword, he still wore his wooden crucifix as a constant reminder of his faith.

Another contraction claimed Cynthia. This time, all her panting did nothing to assuage the pain. She dug her fingers into the bed while Elspeth stroked the hair back from her tossing head.

But it, too, passed, and she heard El speaking softly to the maids. “It’s helpful,” she said, “to remain quiet and calm while she’s laboring.” Then she took Cynthia’s hand and bent to whisper frantically against her ear. “Sweet Jesu, my lady, why do you call for the chaplain? Have you foreseen your death?”

“Nay,” she said with an incredulous laugh. But her levity was interrupted by the onslaught of another contraction. She squeezed Elspeth’s hand and huffed out shallow puffs of air. An irresistible urge to push overwhelmed her. But it wasn’t yet time. She refused to birth this babe until the chaplain came. Until Garth stood by her side. She held back, breathing faster until the desire passed.

There was little time between pains now. Scarcely did one wave subside when another began. If the Father was delayed…

“You must watch for the head to crown,” Jeanne explained to the women.

The maids peered solemnly between her legs, as if they expected the arrival of the Holy Grail. If she hadn’t been so consumed with pain, Cynthia would have laughed.

Just as she thought she might succumb to the need to push, the two maids returned with their quarry. Garth had turned as pale as vellum. Father Paul furrowed his white brows. “You called for me?”

“Why did you call for the chaplain?” Garth demanded, his voice weak with fear, pushing his way past the women to come to her side. The terror was naked in his eyes. “Are you…is the babe…?”

A wave of incapacitating pain prevented her speech, but Elspeth answered, “She’ll be fine.”

“Please,” Cynthia gasped, clutching at the chaplain’s sleeve. “Hurry.”

She couldn’t resist the desire to push this time. It was strong than anything she’d ever felt. She bore down, clenching her fists, holding her breath.

“I see it!” a maid yelled excitedly. “The babe is coming!”

Cynthia sucked in a fast gulp of air and seized a fistful of the chaplain’s cassock.

“Now!” she panted. “Before the babe is born!” She groaned with the need to bear down.

Garth sank to his knees beside her. Anxiety creased his features as he clung desperately to her arm. “Oh, God, what is it, Cynthia?”

“For the love of all that’s holy,” she gasped at the chaplain, “marry us! Marry us quick!”

“What!” Garth exploded.

“We…never…”

It was the most challenging thing she’d ever done, spitting out the words of the marriage rites as labor pains exerted their control over her body. But somehow she did it. And somehow Garth managed to gasp out his own part of the covenant.

By a narrow miracle, their babe was born not a by-blow, but the legitimate heir to Wendeville.

Little Sir Arthur, with gray-green eyes and chestnut hair tipped with the color of marigolds. With a gift for healing, a talent with the quill, and the spirit of a knight. His grandfather le Wyte’s stubbornness and his grandmother de Ware’s wiles. The noble, healthy, squalling son of Lady Cynthia and Lord Garth de Ware. The beginning of a litter of pups that would become the next generation of the Knights de Ware.