“Your grace, I would like to introduce you to your ward, Tina Marie von Vischering.”
Edward looked down and wet his lips. When his gaze rose it was damp with shared pain; he knew this unexpected guardianship could only mean one thing. “How much more is she expected to take?” he asked hoarsely.
Firming his jaw, Sergei wordlessly shook his head.
Clearing his throat, Edward set his canes aside, and smiling with gentle reassurance, he held out his arms to little Tina, who was studying him with increasing interest. “Will you come to me?” he entreated in the same soothing voice that had won Eddie over as a baby. Tina blinked at him, and when Sergei hesitantly set her on her feet, she continued to lean against his knee, the comfort of her thumb tucked snugly into her rosebud mouth. Edward knew enough now about children that this initial meeting was crucial to their future relationship. Patiently he waited as the little girl continued to study him with a wary frown. She glanced up at Sergei, who smiled his own encouragement at her. After another slight hesitation she pushed away from Sergei and walked straight into his grace's arms.
As Edward lifted her onto his lap he wondered at the beauty of this child, and thought that if she was anything like her father, he could understand Christina's obsession. When Tina leaned with trusting acceptance against his chest and trained those solemn blue eyes upon him with such serious attention, he began to talk of Eddie and his toys and his pony and any other nonsensical things he could think of. When he cast a quick look sideways at Sergei, he was not surprised to see him gone.
Soon he didn't know whom he was trying to distract more with his rambling monologue, himself or the little orphan in his arms. All too soon he heard a scream rend the tomblike silence of Kerkmoor Manor. Tina burrowed further into his arms, and he took comfort from her tender warmth.
Silently he promised her father that he would protect this precious child with his very life, and with a sorrow he hadn't felt on the death of his own brother, he deeply mourned a man he had never met.
* * * *
Days later Sergei was in the middle of a nightmare he had prayed he would never have to relive again. Angrily, he paced outside of Christina's bedchamber, glaring at the barrier of the door that denied him entrance. As he heard her screams rise in torment, he dragged shaking hands through his hair and cursing viciously he struck the nearest wall with his fist. He was glad that Edward was devoting himself to the children in the nursery, keeping them oblivious to the drama unwinding in another wing of their home.
The shock of Varek's death had sent Christina into early labor, and Sergei despaired that if she lost this child she would never recover. The screams were fading to low moans and, nursing his swollen hand, he resumed his frantic pacing. When her screams increased again, Sergei could take no more and, kicking open the door, he stormed into the fetid, hot room and glared at the doctor. “Can't you do something?” he shouted angrily at the group huddled about the bed.
Equally angry, and feeling just as helpless, the doctor jerked around and shouted back, “I can't do anything; the child is breach and is coming too soon for me to turn!”
Too soon? Hell and damnation, she had been in labor for twenty hours! How could it be too soon? Panicked, Sergei glanced down at Christina, who was mostly senseless to what was going on around her. After all she had endured he could not blame her for looking as if she was giving up. However, looking it and doing it were two different things!
He felt a hand gripping his arm. Startled, he turned to glare down at Helen. Her eyes were stark with helpless fear. “She needs you, Sir. She needs you to pull her through. She doesn't seem to hear me at all.”
Eyes narrowed, Sergei hurried over to the bed and sat down beside her with his back against the headboard. “Oh, no you don't, Christina! I will not allow this!” he raged at her as he pulled her forward and then swiftly positioned his body behind her so that she lay in the vee of his body, her back propped against his chest.
Harshly, he whispered in her ear. “Damn you, Christina, enough is enough! No more death. No more sorrow. You will bring Varek's child into this world and you will raise him and you will be happy!” Stroking her belly with broad firm strokes, he could feel the child twisting. “Christina, wake up and finish this! Varek would expect no less from you! For him, damn you, for him!”
Weakly, Christina lifted her head and snapped back, her voice cracking, “Stop yelling in my ear.”
He grinned at the doctor, who was watching her with renewed hope. “Then you'd better damn well finish this.”
“All right, damn you. I am trying, but it won't come.” Her voice was a touch stronger in her asperity, and Sergei was breathing again. She was back and they would do this.
Looking down the bed at the doctor, Sergei instructed, “You will have to turn him.”
Christina interrupted testily. “Why do you keep saying him?" She shuddered in relief when Helen laid a cold compress on her brow.
Sergei shrugged. “I want a boy, I suppose. I think Eddie would prefer a brother. After all, he has a sister now.”
Suddenly, Christina was screaming again as another contraction ripped through her. Instantly, the doctor was reaching into her passage for the child. Grimly, he looked at Sergei and shook his head. “I can't turn him. We are going to have to try for a breach.”
Swallowing, Sergei held Christina higher in his arms. His lips next to her ear, he said softly, “This next time we have no choice, love. You have to push as hard as you can.”
She barely had the strength to nod her head when the contraction was upon her again. As her scream rose, Sergei pushed down on her stomach as the doctor latched firmly onto the feet and pulled. Christina's screams were chilling in their strength, and Sergei feared he was losing her as Varek's son slipped from her bloody body. Sergei hardly noticed, for Christina had gone limp in his arms.
“Christina?” He lifted her face and saw how white she was. Fear gripped him and harshly he shook her. “Christina?”
The doctor had passed the bloody child to one of the nurses and was immediately beside them. Bending over, he lifted an eyelid; then he put his ear to her chest. When he stepped away he reported grimly, “She is alive. Barely.”
Sergei's heart started beating again.
She was alive, that was all that mattered.
When he turned to look at the baby, his eyes shot open in stunned disbelief. “Oh, my God!”
* * * *
Christina stirred and immediately felt a pain she had only felt once before. Opening her eyes, she saw the cradle beside the bed. Reaching over, she tipped it toward her and saw it empty. Closing her eyes, she took in the dreadful silence around her. When she had given birth to Eddie the first thing she heard were his blessed cries.
A tear slipped down her cheek. She had failed Varek again.
This time she didn't even curse God, long ago she had run out of them. With a sigh, she turned her head and found herself looking into a pair of the weariest eyes she had ever seen.
She blinked and looked again.
Varek's eyes.
“Hello, lark.” His whisper was a mere sigh across her cheek.
Disoriented, she told herself, “I am dreaming.”
“Do I look like a dream?” His smile was woefully strained.
Still dazed, she told him mindlessly, “You look horrible.”
And he did. His gaunt face was so ashen that his skin looked gray. The translucent flesh was stretched tightly over protruding bones, and his eyes were sunken and bruised. The beautiful blue of his irises was dull and almost colorless, a far cry from the azure glory of only months ago.
“Are we dead?” She asked stupidly.
“No, my love.” He slowly shifted, and a flash of pain wrenched his wasted features. She reached her hand toward him and his hand shot out to catch hers, stopping it short of her goal. Confused, she glanced down at their joined hands, and instead she saw the little bundle she had almost hit.
Snuggled against
its father's stomach was their newborn infant, sound asleep. Their child? Again she wondered at this most wonderful dream.
“Thank you, lark. He is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
Tears rushed to her eyes. Twisting her hand out of his, it wavered in midair, not sure who she wanted to touch first. He took the decision away from her when he gently grasped it again and raised it to his mouth. His lips were dry and hot, cracked, but never had she felt anything so tender as his lips caressing the palm of her hand. Then he wrapped her fingers around the downy head of their son.
It suddenly hit her that this was no dream, ‘this was real! “My God,” she gasped as she painfully raised herself onto her elbow and leaned closer to her love. "It really is you!"
His shaking fingers reached out to stroke her cheek. “I told you I would find you.”
“But how?” she stuttered, wanting to know everything.
Sighing, he shook his head. “Persistence, stubbornness and one hell of a miracle. I will tell you the story soon, my love, but I am so very tired. It has been a long, hard road getting back to you.”
She covered his lips with a lingering kiss, which he leaned into. “Shhh, love,” she whispered as she skimmed his face with her fingers, still not believing he was beside her. “Go to sleep. I will watch over you.”
“After all these years I am finally home,” he murmured sleepily as he relaxed against her, his sigh long and one of utter exhaustion.
Moving as close as she dared without jostling him, she eased her beautiful son higher against her heart, then just as carefully eased her arm under Varek's head. With her brow resting against his and her lips on her son', s head, she watched every breath Varek took, knowing that as long as she lived, she would never let him out of her sight again.
Miracle, indeed, she wondered in awe as she breathed deep of the scent of her newly born son. Her lips nuzzled the precious down of gold, wondering if he would be the image of his father just as Tina was. God, she hoped so! She nudged a finger into his tiny fist and shuddered as it opened and then latched on with surprising strength.
Tears shimmering in her eyes, she looked at Varek, and slowly her gaze caressed every feature, every shadow, every crease of pain.
“I love you.” Her vow was barely a sigh between them, yet though his body was deeply immersed in its healing slumber, his lips turned up in a smile as gentle as the thrum of his heart against their son.
Their two halves had been reunited at last, and they were complete.
Eternity opened before her like a shining beacon, and she knew that whatever was to come it could never be as perfect as it was at this very moment.
* * *
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Love Me Again Page 32
