South of Stavewood (Stavewood Saga Book 2) (21 page)

Chapter Forty-One

    
 
L
ouisa lay on the thick carpet in the parlor at Stavewood, her bare foot rhythmically rocking the cradle with little Phillip inside, while she read aloud her version of
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

     
“Then the witch made scary noises really loud to Dorothy and said to her ‘I’m going to get those roomy slippers!’”

      “Ruby,” Rebecca corrected. “Ruby slippers.” She adjusted her knitting on her needles and began another row.

      “What are roooooby?”

       “Rubies are like diamonds, only red,” Rebecca explained to the child distractedly.

      “Her slippers were made of red diamonds?” Louisa looked upside down at her mother and stopped rocking the baby.

      “Yes,” the young mother looked up as the infant began to fuss.

      Louisa resumed her rocking and her story. Timothy looked up from his paperwork at his family enjoying a quiet Sunday evening and smiled to himself.

      “Come up here and I’ll read it to you,” he said, walking from the desk and lifting the baby from the cradle.

      At six weeks little Philip had filled out and sported a head full of golden hair. He lay contentedly in his father’s lap fascinated by Louisa beside him wrapping her fingers in her hair and asking questions during the reading by her father.

      “Bed time,” Timothy announced quietly, setting the infant into his cradle. He carried his daughter effortlessly up the stairs and tucked her in.

      He returned to the hall and found Rebecca tiptoeing out of the nursery silently.

      “She asleep?” Rebecca reached up and kissed her husband gently.

      “Yes,” he returned her kiss. “Phillip?”

      “Completely out,” she smiled and caressed his tanned chest through his open shirt collar.

      “Both asleep at once,” he whispered to her hoarsely. “I must be dreaming.”

      “Not yet, but soon.” She took his big hand gently and led him to the master bedroom and as she sat on the bed she began to unbutton his shirt. As she slipped it from his shoulders she kissed his neck provocatively and he sat quietly, holding his breath as she disrobed slowly.

      Her figure remained petite, even after her second child, but curvier now, her hips a bit fuller, her bust firm and inviting. She stood in her lacy camisole and sheer bloomers and pulled the ribbon from her hair, letting it tumble over her shoulders and down her back. She still kept it long, as it was the day he met her, but tended to keep it tied up since the baby’s birth. Timothy was bewitched, seeing it tumbling loose once again, as he had the day he watched her pull away the silly boy’s hat she wore.

      He stood up and pulled her to him and she knew immediately that he still wanted her as he pressed against her firmly.

      She had been watching him for days, knowing that the waiting time would quickly be past. She watched him dress, his torso and shoulders a golden tan, his blond hair brushing his shoulders. He looked healthy and firm from an active life and she found herself wanting him more unashamedly than she would ever have admitted in years past. Now he belonged to her, only to her, and their time together had assured her of that. She never saw him show any interest in another woman, no matter how beautiful or forward. He had proved to her again and again that he wanted only her. Her confidence in his fidelity made her want him, trust him with even her most intimate wishes and desires. It was not just because he told her that he wanted only her. She knew it from everything he did. She placed her hand against him openly and he lifted her onto the bed and pulled away the ribbons of her camisole.

      She lay quietly, trusting, and without shame as he ran his firm hands over her and she purred with pleasure at his exploring touch. She knew that her body was not as perfect as the day she first lay with him. She touched the red, ragged scar on his shoulder and saw that he too, was not perfect, but she knew the bullet he had taken that day was taken for her. He was protecting her and she knew it was a scar of love. The few marks she now bore from carrying her children were her scars of love, from his love of her and from carrying their children. She had known a marriage that left her feeling like she might not be enough. She had been with a man who was constantly looking at other women and looking for something better. She never had known that with this man and she surrendered herself to him completely.

      He felt her trust, her submission to him, as she lay not trying to cover herself or present only the best of herself. Her body was perfect to him, wanting and yielding to his touch. She allowed him to explore her, to feel her, to fondle her and she gasped with pleasure. He didn’t want perfection from her, only her trust, her complete love and he kissed her passionately. He loved her delicate feminine form, so different from his own. He loved how fragile she was in his hands and even in his barely controllable passion for her, he wanted her to trust him, to feel how much he loved her and wanted to protect her. When he took her he wanted her to know how precious she was to him and how badly he wanted her.

      She lay beside him now, spent and satisfied and ran her delicate finger along his chest.

      He watched her beside him, her slender thigh across his own and could not imagine a better life. He had worked hard and put everything of himself into building Stavewood, although at the time he did not understand the reason why. Now the empty rooms were full of his children. There was Mark, of whom he was so proud. His daughter Louisa, who would certainly rival her mother’s beauty as a woman one day. His youngest son, Phillip, who looked so incredibly like his grandfather it was as if he were sent to fill the space left in all of their hearts by the loss of the man.

      He lifted a strand of Rebecca’s hair and held it to his face, smelled the sweet clean of it and lifted her chin, looking into her eyes.

      He did not say a word to her. He knew her thoughts were like his. He kissed her softly and watched her close her eyes and drift into sleep.

Chapter Forty-Two

     
E
mma looked out over the meadow while she waited for Rebecca’s first visit since having her baby. The soft breath of May had settled in the valley, the creek swelled and tumbled with the fresh runoff of the melted snows. The greens were dazzling, deep and bright, vivid and emerald. The beauty surrounding her home was breathtaking, but Emma still remained uncertain.

      As she entered the last month of her pregnancy she grew more and more anxious, even once dreaming she had lost her child.

      Roland was filled with excitement and anticipation, completely taken with little Phillip and making more preparations every day.

      When she was with the man, caught up in his expectation, she was hopeful and eager for her child, but when he was away she was filled with dread. The doctor and Isabel assured her that everything was normal, and Isabel had talked with her many times about her fears. Roland had assured her that babies were born every day in deplorable conditions and survived well, yet something nagged at her.

      She tried to reason with herself, she had been beside Rebecca and seen her work very hard to have her baby, and decided that the labor did not frighten her. Try as she might, she could not calm her fears and, when a month before her due date she felt the warm rush of blood, her fears began to manifest themselves.

      Roland pulled his horse into the yard of Stavewood, bursting into the kitchen in the mid-morning without knocking, and calling for the mid-wife, Isabel.

      When they returned to his home he found his wife moaning in fear and pain in a pool of blood on the big bed in their bedroom. Isabel had sent Timothy for the doctor and she instructed Roland in a clear voice to supply her with more towels and wash up thoroughly.

      She examined Emma quickly, thankful that she had begun her labor and that it was progressing quickly. She knew immediately that if Emma did not deliver her child soon that the odds of both of them surviving were slim.

      “Roland,” she spoke to the man confidently, away from his suffering wife. “Emma’s baby has separated from her. The connection between them has broken. We must deliver that baby as quickly as possible and stop Emma’s bleeding. Until the doctor arrives I need you to do as I say.”

      Roland nodded in agreement, his face pale with worry.

     “Will she… they be alright?” he asked, fearing the answer.

      “I don’t know.” Isabel did not look away.

      “I understand,” he responded.

      Isabel encouraged Emma through every pain, instructing her to push, even when she was not completely ready. When the doctor arrived and told Roland he could leave the room, he chose to stay, Emma’s tearful and plaintive cries echoing through the room.

      “I’m going to give her something for pain,” the doctor pulled a brown bottle from his bag.

      “No Laudanum!” The girl begged and pleaded in agony until she began to fade and Isabel and the doctor pressed her to continue to push forth her baby.

      When Emma delivered her child the baby was still and nearly blue. She sobbed pitifully in exhaustion, calling Roland’s name out again and again, apologizing piteously.

     In the dark room, as the girl’s heartbreaking cries began to slip away, there was a thin wail and then another and the child choked for air. Isabel cleared the baby’s mouth and rubbed him until he warmed and the doctor began to palpitate the mother’s abdomen trying to stop the bleeding.

      Emma lay silent on the bed, as pale as the white of the sheets beneath her and heard a baby cry in the fog of her mind.

      “I’m sorry, Roland,” she cried, tears streaming down the sides of her face and pooling in her pale ears. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”

      “Emma,” she heard his voice inside of her head. “The baby is alive. He’s alive.”

      “No,” she cried. “I saw him. I’m sorry.”

      “Emma!” Isabel’s voice was strong and clear. “Your baby is alive. I need you to push, push against the doctor hard.”

      “I can’t, I can’t,” she begged.

      “Roland,” Isabel instructed. “You need to hold her up and get her coherent enough to push once more. We need to finish this delivery to stop the bleeding.”

      With Isabel pressing hard against her abdomen, Roland helping her up and the doctor’s hand inside of her, Roland raised his voice to his exhausted wife. “Emma,” he barked in her ear, “The baby is alive, now push!”

      Emma remembered Rebecca putting her chin on her chest. She remembered watching little Phillip come into the world alive. She wanted her baby to be alive. She weakly set her chin to her chest and for a moment pushed with everything that remained, her head lolling regardless of her effort.

      “I love you, Roland,” she cried out and collapsed against the bed.

      The doctor checked that all hemorrhaging had slowed and covered the young mother warmly in fresh blankets as Roland gathered the pile of bloodied towels and sheets and put them into a basket that he carried with exhaustion down to the kitchen.

      Isabel washed the baby quickly and packed warmed blankets around him in the kitchen where the big stove blazed. His color was constantly improving, but the infant was quiet and weak.

      Roland looked down at the newborn and his heart broke. “What will he be like?” He had to ask.

      “We don’t know yet, honestly. If he came quickly enough he will be perfectly normal. If not, any number of things. Let’s wait and see.” Isabel put her arm around the man’s shoulder.

      “He’s so small and helpless,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever he needs I’ll make sure he has it. He is still my son. He’s perfect to me.”

      He looked Isabel in the eyes openly.

“And Emma?”

      “That we will have to see as well, Roland. She has lost a lot of blood, but she is alive and the hemorrhaging has stopped. She will need constant care for the next few days. The doctor will make sure you have all the help you need. Your baby will need a wet nurse right away. If Emma regains her strength quickly she may be able to feed him herself, but she may not.

      “They are both going to need you, but they are both alive and we plan to keep it that way.”

      Timothy Elgerson stood in the doorway of the kitchen listening to the words of his mother to his friend and walked up to the man and held him. Roland sighed deeply and looked into his eyes.

      “I’ll make sure they both make it through,” Roland stated.

      “Well, since I came all the way out here to meet him, Roland. You should introduce me to your son.”

      Isabel lifted the boy and put him into his father’s arms. “Ottland James Vancouver,” Roland choked, “meet a good friend of mine, Mr. Timothy Elgerson.”

      Timothy looked at the quiet infant in the man’s arms.

      “If he ever tells you the hole in the ice is big enough don’t believe him,” Roland continued.

      At that moment both men knew they would make it through.