Savage Destiny (The Hearts of Liberty Series, Book 1) (28 page)

"I do think of Ian, constantly, but I just wasn't ready to have a child so soon."

"But you were so excited at first."

"That seems like a very long time ago. When I was slim and pretty."

When Melissa didn't continue, Alanna said what she thought she should. "You're still a beauty. You mustn't be so concerned about the changes in your figure, when they don't bother Ian at all."

"So he
has
spoken with you. What did he say?"

Melissa appeared to be eager to hear it, but Alanna veiled the truth. "He said that he loves you very much. That's all."

Relieved by that thought, Melissa relaxed against her pillows. "He does really love me, doesn't he?"

"Yes, of course, he does. How can you doubt it?"

"Forgive me." Suddenly Melissa wanted to be alone. "I didn't sleep well or I wouldn't be behaving so badly. I think I'll try and nap for a while. Do you mind?"

"No, not at all. Shall I wake you at noon?"

"Yes, please do."

Melissa closed her eyes, but the strain of their conversation still showed in her face. Sorry that she had been of such little help, Alanna carried the breakfast tray downstairs and then outside to the kitchen. "The eggs were delicious, Polly. Melissa just wasn't hungry."

Polly wiped her hands on her apron and eyed the remnants of Melissa's meal with a suspicious glance. "This is real odd, Miss Alanna. She ought to be eating
more
than usual, not less. How's her poor baby gonna thrive, if she don't eat?"

"She eats, Polly." Dismissing the cook's worries, Alanna left the kitchen and went out into the garden to cut some chrysanthemums for a bouquet to brighten Melissa's room. She supposed the moist air was good for the plants, but she was as tired of the foggy days as Ian. She was moving down a row of mums, when she spotted a scrap of paper caught in the leaves. She unrolled it to find a fragment of a carefully drawn map with notations in Elliott's handwriting. Will's Creek was marked, and she recognized it as a souvenir of their failed expedition against the French.

Why would he have torn up the map and thrown it away? she wondered absently. Unwilling to do the same, she slipped it into her pocket. The valiant effort to stop the French had been important, even if it hadn't been successful. Her thoughts turning again to Hunter, she wondered what he was doing, and if he had found an Indian maiden as eager for his loving as he had been for Melissa's. She plucked another bright yellow chrysanthemum and prayed that he had.

* * *

Hunter had not merely fulfilled his backers' expectations, he had exceeded their wildest dreams. He had proven himself to be not only a very talented fighter, but one with endless reserves of rage he could not only tap into at will, but skillfully control to defeat every man who had mistakenly assumed an Indian would be dumb and slow. He had left one man with a shattered wrist, and another with a dislocated shoulder. He broke most opponents' noses, and inflicted cuts and bruises that were so deep they took weeks to heal. As for Hunter, as his reputation grew, his only visible scars were on his hands.

Emotionally, however, his carefully nurtured aggressiveness was becoming increasingly difficult to channel solely into scheduled bouts. Once regarded as aloof, he was now considered surly. Where before he would have walked around a group of men, he now walked right through their midst, and none dared call him rude.

His long house was kept warm by the heat from the fire pit dug into the center of the dirt floor, and his bed was comfortable, but there were nights when the villainy of his thoughts kept him awake until dawn. He had continued to suppress thoughts of Melissa as unworthy of his attention, but the anger of her betrayal fed the worst part of his nature with an unceasing stream of bitterness. Hatred created in him a superbly determined fighter, but each day he felt diminished as a man.

The first time he heard the howl of a wolf echoing on the crisp autumn air, he knew the beast was again calling to him. Death was approaching, but life now held such little appeal, he began to welcome its end.

* * *

Melissa went into labor a few minutes past midnight on November eleventh. She had dreaded the ordeal of childbirth, not for the pain it would bring, but for the damning truth which she feared she would no longer be able to conceal. Believing she had until early December before that inevitable horror overtook her, she was as unprepared as the rest of the household to give birth prematurely. Her mother had told her labor would begin slowly with only mild discomfort, but the pain that tore through Melissa's insides ripped her from her dreams with terrifying zeal.

She grabbed for Ian and shook him. "Ian, it's time!"

Still half-asleep, Ian's first thought was that he had overslept, but as he opened his eyes, he saw no hint of dawn at the windows. "Time for what?" he asked.

Frightened nearly out of her wits, Melissa grabbed for his hair and yanked him awake. "It's the baby. Get help."

Wide-awake now, Ian was in such a hurry to leave the bed, he got tangled in the sheets, but after slipping and sliding, anchored his feet firmly to the floor. He lit the lamp and then peered at his wife's agonized expression. "It's too soon," he blurted out.

A second pain caught Melissa, and she grabbed a pillow to muffle the scream it wrenched from her lips. She had never thought of herself as a coward, but she hadn't been warned that the pain of childbirth would be so intense, and already on edge, it completely unnerved her. "Do you think I'm lying?" she gasped.

"No, obviously not." Ian yanked on his britches and ran downstairs to wake her parents and Alanna, but his panicked pounding on their doors brought Byron and Elliott out into the hall as well. The Englishman had scared all five of them so badly they beat him back up the stairs. Rather than being comforted by her family's presence, Melissa began to cry huge tears.

"My darling, you mustn't carry on so," Rachel warned. She smoothed back her daughter's hair and patted her shoulder lightly. "First babies take hours to arrive. When did your pains begin?"

"Just now, but—" Melissa doubled over as another one tore through her.

"They're only a few minutes apart," Ian explained, as he moved to his wife's side. "Send Andrew for Doctor Earle. I don't want to leave her, or I'd go myself."

"We won't need him," Rachel cooed sweetly. "I'll get Polly to help us instead. She's delivered more babies than Dr. Earle."

"I want the doctor," Ian insisted.

John touched his arm, "If her pains are coming so fast, there isn't time to send for him, Ian. Now try and settle down a bit. There have been plenty of babies born in this house: Byron, Elliott, Melissa, and my brother and I, just to name a few."

Alanna and her sisters had been sent to the neighbor's house on the day of her brother's birth, and she had no memories of it, but reacted to the tension in the room with her old fright. "I'll get Polly," she called, as she started down the hall. Barefoot, she ran from the house without taking a lamp or candle, then nearly lost her way in the dark. The McBrides lived a quarter of a mile down the road that ran through the plantation, but Alanna sprinted the whole way. When she reached it, she pounded on the door with both fists, instantly waking all the McBrides.

It was Jacob, wearing a tattered nightshirt, who opened the door. "Lord, Miss Alanna. What's wrong?"

Alanna hurriedly explained why Polly was needed, but she didn't wait for the cook to get dressed before she started back to the house. When she reached the third floor, her aunt, uncle, cousins, and Ian were still clustered around the bed. "Polly's on the way," she informed them. "Don't you think Melissa needs more room to breathe?"

"Of course, she does," Rachel agreed. She pushed up the sleeves on her nightgown before waving toward the door. "John, you take Ian and our boys downstairs and keep them entertained. Despite the way Melissa is carrying on, I don't think we'll see our grandchild before dawn."

"I don't want to leave," Ian argued.

Barely recovered from the throes of another anguishing pain, Melissa still made her wishes known. "Please, Ian, just go," she begged.

When the young man failed to move, Rachel took it upon herself to usher him toward the door. "She wants you to go, son, and believe me it will be better for the both of you, if you do." When they reached the door, she leaned close to whisper. "She'll do just fine. Don't you worry. She's just always loved attention is all."

Ian looked over his mother-in-law's head for a final glimpse of his wife. He still wanted to stay with her, but afraid he would only be in the way rather than of any help, he succumbed to Rachel's insistent gestures and went downstairs.

Alanna remained at the open door waiting for Polly, but she cast frequent glances toward the bed, where Melissa continued to weep and moan. "Try and have courage. Babies are born everyday," she called.

"Not to me," Melissa cried.

Rachel tugged on her daughter's arm. "Come on, get out of bed. Your labor will go faster, if you walk a bit."

"That's impossible." But Melissa obeyed. She held on to the nightstand, then her mother's arm, and tried to take a few steps. "Something's wrong, Mama. It shouldn't hurt this bad, I know it shouldn't."

"I never told you it wouldn't hurt," Rachel reminded her. "You won't be able to remember any of it, once the baby comes. I can promise you that. No woman would ever have more than one child, if she could remember the pain."

Polly reached the landing in time to hear that remark, and clucked her tongue as she came through the door. "What are you telling that child, Miss Rachel?"

"The truth is all."

Swiftly taking charge, Polly sent Alanna for towels to protect the bed. "Bring us a kettle, too, and we can make hot water for tea in the fireplace right here. We'll need us some warm water later to bathe the baby. Better add another log to the fire."

Alanna was kept busy supplying Polly with all she required, but she was frustrated the practiced midwife could do so little to calm Melissa and ease her pain. One hour slipped by and then two, but despite the frequency and harshness of Melissa's pains, Polly described her as being only in the first stages of labor. "You mean this could go on all night?" she asked.

"You want to go back to bed, Miss Alanna? This could easily take until noon."

Melissa was again lying curled up on the bed. She looked worn out, and Alanna couldn't leave her. "No. I'll stay, but isn't there something more we can do?"

Polly shook her head. "Just wait is all. Now where are the baby's clothes?"

"On the dresser, and the cradle's all ready, too. It's sitting there in the corner."

"Oh, yes, I remember that pretty cherry wood cradle from when Miss Melissa was small. You were such a pretty baby, child."

Melissa was beyond caring how attractive she might have been. Engulfed in another wave of pain, she no longer had the strength to do more than whimper. For the first time it occurred to her that born early, her baby might not survive. If his frail little body were whisked away and laid in a tiny coffin before Ian saw him, then her secret would be safe. It was an awful thought, and even to save herself, she couldn't wish the infant dead, but she feared that if he was suffering as badly as she, he couldn't possibly survive.

To go through this terrible agony for nothing was a horrid possibility. She heard her mother and Polly talking softly, but she could no longer make out their words. Through a veil of tears, she saw Alanna, still in her nightgown, hovering near, and gestured helplessly for her to come closer.

"Don't let Ian see the baby," she begged.

"Melissa, what are you saying?"

Melissa reached out to catch her cousin's wrist in a feeble grasp. "I want to show him the child. Only me. Promise."

"Yes, if that's what you want." Alanna remained by the bed, but Melissa closed her eyes and didn't speak again. She had grown so pale, Alanna called Polly. "Please, come look at her."

Polly wrung out a cloth in the bowl on the washstand before she approached the bed. She used it to wipe Melissa's face, and then she, too, grew alarmed. "Miss Melissa, honey? Look at me." When there was no response to her request, she drew back the covers.

The lower half of Melissa's nightgown was soaked with blood.

Polly began to scream. Rachel fainted. Alanna's mind played a cruel trick on her, sending her back in time to an afternoon eleven years earlier. She had a bunch of wildflowers in her hand, and was humming softly as she came through the front door of her home, but the safe haven she had expected was gone, and she was greeted by a nightmare that had taken years to recede.

It wasn't until Ian shoved her aside that she realized she was no longer a terrified child, but the stench of death filled the room, and she feared her dear cousin was already gone.

Chapter 13