Lie Down in Roses

by Heather Graham

  “Oh!” It came out like a whisper, and then she gasped, confused and amazed as it seemed that a cascade of water came from within her to drench her. And she realized blindly that her babe was coming. Everyone was staring at her, she could see through a haze. Staring, unaware . . .

  “Tristan!” She was going to fall, she knew; she needed him.

  He came to her and picked her up just before the room could spin to blackness.

  “Dear, dear,” she vaguely heard the bishop say. “The marriage is quite legal—and not a moment too soon, so it seems!”

  Twenty-two

  “You must relax, Genevieve!” Edwyna implored her. “It—takes time to bring a babe into the world!” Tenderly, she wiped the beads of perspiration from Genevieve’s forehead, trying to smile as she stared into great violet eyes that looked to her beseechingly for solace.

  Genevieve had been frightened that she would deliver her infant right on the bishop’s chapel floor! But that was hours ago now. Hours since Tristan had carried her here, to the bishop’s warmest guest room, and laid her down. To sit beside her tensely, his jaw twisted and locked and his fingers so tightly entwined with hers that she had nearly cried out at the pressure. Still she hadn’t wanted him to go. She had wanted to cling to him.

  But a tall, slim woman with iron-gray hair and no-nonsense eyes had appeared. The bishop called her Katie; she was kind and competent, and she quickly had the room cleared of the men, including Tristan, the ornately decked bed stripped down to simple sheets and Genevieve dressed in a loose robe against the chill. Katie assured Genevieve that she was the eldest child in a family of twelve and that everything would be fine—she had been delivering babies for years. Chilled and shaking, Genevieve had stared at her, and she knew that her lip quivered lamentably, and she had whispered, “Will it—die?” And she’d had to wet her mouth to form words again. “I’m at least a full month early.”

  “Now God gives none of us guarantees, milady! But neither is there reason to assume you’ll lose the wee one!”

  That was hours ago—or was it days? She felt like giving way and just crying until she died, the pains came so quickly and so close, and so she swore instead. Two of the young housemaids had been summoned to help change linen and keep Genevieve warm, and so she tried to stay quiet to show some dignity.

  But it was impossible when she felt that knives sheared again and again against her spine. She refused to scream, and so she grit her teeth and swore to Edwyna once more, ranting on and on.

  “Oh, I shall never do this again, never! And to think that we women willingly partake in the act which brings us here! Edwyna, how could you—marry again, having known this! Be with that man when you were aware of what could come with it?”

  Edwyna had to laugh. “You get over it, Genevieve, honestly. You will forget it.”

  “If you’d just give out a scream or two, milady, it might ease your spirit. And mind ye, lass, this has not been difficult. I believe the babe is coming soon,” Katie said cheerfully.

  And Genevieve looked at her with hope, but just then the agony constricted around her with merciless ferocity and she choked back a cry, tears spilling from her eyes as she wound her fingers into the torn sheets Katie had tied to the bedposts for her use.

  “Milady, now you must push with all your might!” Katie commanded her. “Hold your breath, sit forward, and bear down hard!”

  Genevieve did, straining, then lying back, panting and gasping.

  “The next time,” Katie promised. And in misery, Genevieve tried to nod. She looked at Katie.

  “Does this mean he—lives?”

  “Have faith,” Katie told her.

  “Edwyna!” She clasped her aunt’s hand and held there, swearing again. “Oh, never! I’ll never do this again . . . Tristan, oh, I’ll rip him to shreds if he thinks to touch me ever, ever again!”

  “You just married him, Genevieve.”

  “But I didn’t!”

  “Ah, but you did, milady!” Katie offered. “And the wee one will be an heir, noble and legitimate!”

  Tight, suffocating pain welled in her again. She tried to hold it back. She felt the sweat break out all over her flesh in beads and she was freezing at the same time. Face sick, hair soaked, and in anguish as the pain squeezed and squeezed and she tried to listen to Katie and Edwyna, and could not. For the first time, she screamed. High and loud and long . . .

  * * *

  Tristan strode across the dining hall for at least the hundredth time, past the displays of pikes and armor, beneath the banners of the bishop’s prominent family. Jon, standing near the fire, glanced at Thomas, and Thomas glanced at the bishop, and the bishop started to say something soothing, but Tristan erupted again with a groan, stopping at the mantel, dragging his fingers through his hair and staring at the fire.

  “It’s too soon, and whatever goes wrong—”

  “Tristan, quit blaming yourself.”

  “And who am I too blame? Who dragged her here? Who half-strangled her to force words from her lips?”

  “My son!” The bishop stood, pursing his lips together, bringing his fingers, prayer-fashion, to his chin. “You formed a union before God Almighty. You must not question Divinity!”

  Tristan slammed a fist against the wall with a cry. Where had God been at Bedford Heath, and where was He now? What great sin had Tristan committed that God had seen fit to slay Lisette and her unborn child and now take this toll upon Genevieve, when . . .

  “I did this to her,” he breathed, and he sat before the fire.

  Jon brought Tristan a glass of hot, potent wine, in one of the bishop’s beautiful Venetian glasses. Tristan sipped it mechanically.

  “You married her,” Jon said softly. “It was the right thing to do.”

  “Surely! Surely!”

  He was pacing again. The glass seemed to be in his way, and so he drained the wine and set it down. He crossed his arms over his chest and strode up and strode down. “I should have married her,” he said thickly, “as soon as I knew. I should never have—”

  Touched her? Loved her? Which had hurt her the worst? And when she had vowed with all her heart that she would not have him, he had dragged her here, forced this upon her. Now she lay upstairs and he could not hear a cry; he could only flex and unflex his fingers and try to pray to the God who had forgotten him that this child not die. Oh, God! Find mercy on me this time, let her live, and I’ll not force her ever again . . .

  And then her scream pierced the air, high and shrill and full of torment, reaching him through closed doors.

  He was instantly in motion, bolting for the door. Jon tried to catch him, but he pushed his friend aside. Tristan took the hallway and stairs at giant leaps, bursting through the door.

  He first thought that she was silent, that her lustrous lashes lay heavily over her cheeks, that she was white, oh, paler than the moon. Her hair was a damp tangle about her, and Katie smoothed that hair from her forehead. He had an image of her body, limp, on the bed, a sodden, bloody pool.

  A keening groan escaped him, and he fell to his knees.

  “Lord Tristan! You must be patient! We’ve still to bathe your lady and the wee lass and—”

  “What?” He stared up at the bishop’s housekeeper. The graying woman with the shrewd and gentle eyes touched his shoulder, leading him back to his feet. “Milord, she is well, exhausted merely. And the babe is a perfect little thing, howling like as if she was scalded, milord.”

  “She . . . lives!”

  “They both live, Lord Tristan.”

  Tristan couldn’t move then. His legs were weak and his stomach was doing somersaults. He couldn’t even see anymore; the world was a cascade of shimmers and gray.

  “Tristan, look at her! She’s amazing. My dear Lord, all that hair! Dark as a winter’s eve!” Edwyna was talking to him.

  Something was stuffed into his arms. He looked down and saw in a pile of swaddling his ... daughter. She was not fully cleansed; her hair was plast
ered against her tiny head, but Edwyna was right, it was tremendously plentiful for an infant. And she had little dark brows and a puckered face and a little fist that waved in the air suddenly as she opened a generous mouth and let out a screech of indignation and fury.

  Tristan stared in joy and disbelief, fighting tears, finding incredible gladness. Ten fingers, ten toes, a plump little belly with its cord just cut, beautiful, beautiful flesh. “She is perfect!” he whispered. Almighty God! He prayed in silence, thank you, thank you, thank you.

  “Aye, a bonny lass!”

  He turned and saw Edwyna, smudged and sweaty but smiling, reaching out to take her again.

  “Oh, Tristan! She is a beauty! Tiny but sound and such a temperamental little thing already! Oh, Tristan, look how lovely she is!”

  Edwyna touched the babe, but Tristan felt tremors sweeping over him again and he looked past Edwyna to the bed. Katie had drawn a clean sheet high around Genevieve, and all that he could see was the pale almost translucent elegance of her fragile features and the loose tendrils of hair curling around her forehead. He handed his newborn to Edwyna without a word and strode over to the bed, kneeling at its side, reaching for her fingers, rising petallike over the hem of the sheet.

  “Genevieve ... ?”

  Her lashes fluttered and her eyes opened on him and for a moment they went wide, then fell. And she shuddered and tried to speak, and it was a pained whisper.

  “You wanted a son, I know. I am ... sorry. I . . .”

  Her voice trailed away, the effort to speak seeming to be too much for her now. Tears and exhaustion glazed her eyes, and he wondered if she really knew that he was there. He tightened his grip around her fingers and whispered tenderly against her cheek.

  “A son! Milady, I wanted a living child, and a living wife. Genevieve! She is the most wonderful gift I have received in this life! She is perfect and whole and beautiful and—”

  “Milord!” Katie urged him. “Please now, go and lift a glass with your friends to your new daughter, for we must bathe mother and babe properly. You are in the way!”

  Genevieve’s eyes were closed. Tristan nodded, then kissed her on the forehead. Tremors raced through him and he touched his lips to her flesh once again, reverently. He placed his cheek next to hers and he knew that she slept again.

  “Thank you, my love,” he breathed to her, and then he stood. He took the babe from Edwyna one more time, and he laughed when she howled again with outrage. He lifted her high and scanned her perfect little body again, laughing again with sheer joy as she howled and flailed tiny fists.

  Edwyna smiled at the male crow of possession in his voice; then she reached for the babe.

  “Tristan, please! Let me bathe her. Oh, I am a great-aunt! And I’m ever too young to sound so old! Give her to me, please. And Jon, what are you doing here? Get out.”

  Tristan swung around to see Jon slumped against the doorframe, grinning out his pleasure. Thomas was just behind him, and the bishop was a more discreet distance away in the hallway.

  “Will you all get out of here, please! Now I mean it!” Edwyna stamped a foot against the floor. “Tristan,” she added more softly. “Genevieve needs some rest. Please, go get drunk or something.” She rescued the babe from her father’s arms, and a thrill of happiness swept through her. She had never seen a man so pleased with the birth of a daughter—in fact she had never seen a man so tenderly pleased with the birth of any child. “Go,” she said with a smile. “Go get wantonly drunk!”

  He grinned at her in turn, and walked past her. Edwyna met Jon’s eyes across the room and they smiled together; then Tristan reached Jon and they looped arms and proceeded back downstairs. At the bishop’s invitation, they did proceed to get rollicking drunk.

  * * *

  She was in love, and she was in awe, and she had never felt such a joy in her life.

  Genevieve stared at her daughter on the bed beside her and marveled at her beauty. Surely no child on earth had ever been so precious. She seemed tiny, oh, so tiny! But splendid in every way. Katie had dressed her in an elegant little gown with fine smocking that had belonged to one of the bishop’s little nieces or nephews, and though the gown was too big for her daughter, Genevieve was convinced that she was more than exquisite in it. Her absolute fascination with the baby had swept her far, far away from any thoughts of pain, and she felt lethargic and content. Nay, she felt like an angel surrounded by a gentle, mellow, almost heavenly glow.

  She was still tired and sore but she could do nothing but smile, shyly and proudly, and think that she was indeed encased in magic, engrossed in love. She could vaguely remember the overwhelming exhaustion and what had at first been only vague wonder at what should come of all her misery. But when she had awakened, clean and refreshed, and Edwyna had handed her the baby, she had known instant adoration. Such a small, small creature! The babe’s eyes were her father’s—so deep a blue that they would never go light. And that hair, all that hair . . . dark, too. But the incredibly small fingers that had brushed her cheek were long and feminine, and, Genevieve thought, there is something of me in her, even if only my sex! And then the babe had gazed upon her and let off the saddest little cry, and Edwyna had laughed and told Genevieve that she was hungry. And when the babe had first tugged against her breast she had felt herself possessed for all time.

  Genevieve was so rapt that she did not hear the door open and quietly close. And when he had come in, Tristan was loath to disrupt her. She was all in white, her hair washed and brushed, floating free like a cloud of golddust behind her head on the pillow. And his daughter . . . she, too, was in white, tiny and feisty, wiggling away beside her mother. Mother stared at daughter, and daughter seemed to stare at mother, and both in that innocent white, so beautiful, so sweetly pure.

  Tristan felt extremely awkward. He was afraid to walk forward, afraid to intrude. Yet the virginal blond beauty in white was his wife, and the babe was the fruit of their passion, their child, to be shared. Reminding himself that the child was his, he strode over to the bed.

  Genevieve turned with alarm, as if she would battle anyone fiercely who thought to reach for her babe. She saw him then, and a shield seemed to fall over the delicate mauve beauty of her eyes. For a second her breasts ceased to rise and fall, as if she held her breath—and awaited some word from him.

  He gazed at her, not knowing what to say now, wondering what she remembered of his words before. Then he looked from her to the baby, and sat upon the foot of the bed, leaning over to gently touch her cheek, barely larger than the thumb that caressed it with such tenderness. Instantly, her perfect little miniature rose mouth puckered into a noisy motion; startled, Tristan drew his hand back.

  “She’s hungry,” Genevieve murmured, and a lovely flood of color came to her cheeks. She hesitated only briefly; then, loosening her gown, swept the baby to her breast.

  Tristan laughed, and the tension eased from him as the tiny infant latched onto her mother’s engorged nipple with a far less than ladylike suckling noise.

  “She sounds just like a squealing little piglet!”

  Genevieve cast him a condemning stare, but then she, too, chuckled softly, touching the fine dark hair on her daughter’s head and conceding, “Aye, she’s not a very refined eater.”

  Tenderness overwhelmed Tristan then. With a swift, graceful motion he stood, sweeping an arm around Genevieve to stroke the babe’s hair as she nursed. Genevieve’s head was bowed toward her daughter, and Tristan could not read his wife’s feelings in regard to his arms about her. He remembered his vow, but knew he could not deny himself the simple assurance of feeling his daughter’s life or his wife’s warmth.

  “We need to name her,” he said softly. “The bishop intends to baptize her right away.”

  “Why?” Genevieve asked with alarm. “She is well and strong, Tristan, is she not?”

  “Aye.” He could not look down into the eyes that now searched his, for he felt responsible for the fear in her voice. “A
ye, she is well and strong and beautiful. Any babe should be baptized in all haste, milady. What would you call her?”

  He felt Genevieve’s eyes widen on him. “I may name her?”

  “Well, I should like to approve it.”

  Genevieve trembled, wondering if he cared little about the name since she had given him a daughter—and not a son. He felt the movement in her.

  “Genevieve?”

  “I did fail you. And to think, milord, of all you did to assure things for an heir . . .”

  “What are you saying?” he demanded with annoyance.

  “She is a girl,” Genevieve coolly stated the obvious.

  “Aye,” he said with a softness that caught at her heart. “So lovely a lass that already she has my heart at her feet; my life with the greatest pleasure I would lay down for her!”

  Genevieve dared not look at him, dared not believe that his pleasure could be so ardent, and so real.

  “Katherine?” She whispered.

  “Katherine. Katherine . . . Marie. Katherine Marie de la Tere. I christen thee, little one, ere the formality!”

  Genevieve could feel his warm breath against her cheek and the firm power of the arm lightly over her. She was his wife—the sudden remembrance swept through her like fire, and she ached with it. She had fought it from pride, from honor—and from fear. It had come to pass . . . and they were now a family. I love you! she longed to shout suddenly, I love you, oh can’t you see, I am afraid, and I know that loving so greatly brings about the greatest pain ...

  She laid her hot face against the cool pillow, and swallowed with pleasure as baby Katherine made a last frantic little tug against her nipple. Tristan laughed softly, using the baby’s hem to clean the little drop of spilled milk off of her lip. “Katherine ...”

  Genevieve smiled, too, and closed her eyes. Her husband’s hand rested with casual intimacy upon her hip then as he smiled at their daughter. It seemed like the most beautiful moment of her life, and her eyes were closing again. She tried to flutter them open.

  “Sleep, Genevieve,” Tristan whispered to her, and again she felt the delicious rush of his breath against her cheek.