If only it hadn’t rained! Then he would have more hope of finding footprints or other evidence.
If only he could be certain she had kept going in this direction…
He reached the road. Had she gone along it, looking for help, or, fearing discovery, kept to the woods?
He hesitated, unsure what to do, thinking of her alone and enduring the pangs of childbirth, then bearing the child without any help. He listened, half hoping that he might hear a baby’s cry or Elizabeth calling his name.
Nothing.
It was as if he was all alone in the world, as he had been before Elizabeth.
Would she risk the road or the wood?
As he tried to decide, fatigue threatened to overwhelm him.
“Oh, God, show me,” he pleaded, his own rasping voice loud in the silence of the night. “I don’t know what to do!”
Elizabeth would protect their child with her life, if need be. She would try to stay clear of the outlaws.
She would avoid the road.
Whether these thoughts were divine inspiration or not, they were the best guide he had, and he plunged into the wood.
If only there was a full moon! If only it were day. If only he had stayed with her in Donhallow…
He spotted a small white, sodden mass on the ground.
He couldn’t breathe. His heart seemed to slam into his chest as he stared at it. Finally, he forced himself forward.
It wasn’t a baby’s pale dead body. It was a piece of cloth that had fallen over a branch.
He bent down and picked it up, examining it in the torchlight.
Elizabeth’s scarf! He recognized the mend in the corner. His knees went weak with relief.
“Thank God,” he murmured fervently. “Thank you, God, for this sign.”
With renewed vigor he went forward, scanning the ground, seeking other evidence of Elizabeth’s passage. The torchlight was not nearly bright enough, but he would not give up. Not when he was sure she had come this way.
He was nearly at the fence before he saw the cottage.
He raised the torch higher. There was no light from the small building, and the only sound was a grunt from the pigsty.
He stuck the torch in the soft ground, looped his horse’s reins over the fence and, hiking up his tunic, climbed over it. He retrieved the torch and went toward the cottage.
The windows were shuttered. It might be deserted, the tenants gone to the castle for safety.
Nevertheless, Elizabeth could have sought shelter here, he thought with growing hope. He went to the door and pushed it open.
His heart leaped. She was there, lying motionless on a rough bed of straw in the corner.
Then he saw the blood.
And realized how pale her face was.
Dear God in heaven, she was dead.
He dropped the torch onto the packed earth at his feet and sank to his knees as great sobs of despair and desolation broke from his lips, his whole body shaking with the force of his anguish.
She was dead. His reason for living was dead.
“Raymond?”
With a gasp at the sound of his whispered name, he tore his hands from his tear-streaked face and stared, to see Elizabeth’s shining eyes watching him. “You’re alive,” she whispered as a tear slipped down her pale cheek.
Weak with relief as well as exhaustion, she smiled as he rose.
Her husband, her love, tall, imposing in the darkness, was safe and well, praise God! And so was the child she held nestled in her arms.
“I knew Montross couldn’t defeat you,” she murmured as he knelt beside her. She managed a smile. “You will wake our son with that noise.”
He looked down in wonderment as Elizabeth moved her torn garment that she had used to swaddle their baby away from his little face. She had tried to clean him as best she could. As if annoyed at being disturbed, the babe screwed up his face and started to cry lustily. “Our fine son.”
“Our son,” Raymond repeated incredulously.
Gathering them both in his arms, he sobbed not with sorrow, but with unbridled joy.
Elizabeth wept, too, even as she laughed. “You will crush him, my love. He looks to be a strong child, but not as mighty as that.”
Wiping his cheeks and obviously struggling to get control of his feelings, Raymond drew back—but only a little.
“But how…?”
“The usual way.”
“Alone?”
“Do you see anybody else, my lord?” she asked with another tender smile.
She would spare him the details of his son’s birth, of her pain and fear, the dread that there might be something wrong, until the baby came, crying before she could even pick him up and wearily marvel at the perfection of his fingers and toes.
“Oh, God, Elizabeth, my Elizabeth,” Raymond murmured as he kissed her forehead. “That you were alone—”
She put a finger to his lips. “It is over and I am well, and the babe is, too. Not that I would wish to repeat this.”
“No, never.” Raymond’s concerned gaze swept over her. “Are you naked?”
“My clothes were soaked through from the rain. I had to take them off,” she explained as she put the baby to her breast. He latched onto her nipple and sucked, while Raymond sat back on his heels and marveled.
“I thought I was hardy.”
“No doubt my years in the convent prepared me.”
Raymond looked as if he had been taken ill. “There is so much blood. Are you certain all is well?”
She followed his gaze to the blood-soaked straw upon which she lay. “There is always blood at a birth, Raymond. You have seen blood before, I think. Indeed,” she said, her brow furrowing, “you have some on you now.”
“Montross and some of his mercenaries are dead.”
“Good.”
“But so is Barden, and a few of our men.”
Tears filled Elizabeth’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“I think it is well for Montross that Cadmus killed him, for surely he would be hung for a traitor otherwise.”
“Cadmus killed him?”
Raymond nodded. “And he killed Cadmus.”
“Oh, Raymond, I made him stay, to give me time to get away.”
“As sorry as I am for his death, it is worse that so many good men died for Montross’s villainy, and it would have been a thousand times worse if Montross had found you, Elizabeth.”
“Raymond,” she said as the tears fell down her cheeks, “I want to go home.”
“Yes, of course. At once,” he replied, rising. “I have brought a horse.”
“I don’t think I can ride.”
He rubbed his forehead, trying to think.
“Perhaps the farmer has a cart?”
“Yes, yes, of course. I’ll go and see. The sooner we are all safely home, the better.”
“We are already safe,” she whispered as she watched him leave. “Now that you have come.”
A few weeks later, Elizabeth stood on the threshold of their bedchamber, a large wicker basket in her hands. She watched her husband as he leaned over the oaken cradle and cooed to Brennon, their son. He had recently returned from Chesney, where he had gone to explain to the earl what had happened, and to deliver the mercenaries they had captured for judgment.
The earl had been justifiably outraged when he heard of Montross’s attack, that emotion no doubt increased by the knowledge that when Montross moved against Raymond, he had gone against a man who now had significant allies. They could have accused the earl of failing to control his vassal, and that would have made things very difficult for him.
Since Montross had no heirs, the earl had given Raymond his estate. Raymond had decided to make Aiken the steward, a worthy reward for Aiken’s actions during the attack, as well as his faithful service for several years.
“I thought you were going to let him sleep this time.”
Raymond straightened abruptly, his expression sheepish. “He’s still asl
eep.”
“Good. I don’t want him to wake for a little,” she said, gripping the basket tighter as she came into the room.
“Johannes told me they can hear him crying in the village. I hope he’s only teasing me. You know, my love, Brennon is a little young for a harp, even the small one you have asked Johannes to make.” She sat on the chair she used when she nursed Brennon, the basket on her lap.
“Perhaps I have been hasty. It’s only…”
“What?”
“I’ve been thinking that perhaps, when he grows to be a man, he will sound as I used to.”
“Your voice, you mean?”
He nodded.
“Perhaps, but I like your voice just as it is.”
“You do?”
“I do. It’s very exciting, actually. The first time I heard you speak, well, it did frighten me, but it was also thrilling.”
He looked at her, a mischievous gleam in his dark eyes that was even more exciting than his husky voice. “Truly?”
“Truly.”
“I don’t think I will ever understand you.”
“A man should never understand his wife. Think how boring that would be. A little mystery is a good thing.”
“Such as what’s in that basket? That’s a lot of clean linen, if that’s what’s inside.”
“It’s not linen. It’s a gift.”
“For Brennon?”
“No, my love. For you.” She set the basket on the floor. At once, the lid shifted and a black nose appeared.
“A dog?”
Elizabeth laughed at his wary expression. “Well, it’s not a snake,” she said, pulling off the lid completely to reveal a large brown puppy with one black ear, a huge head and enormous paws. It gave a little yip, jumped from the basket, careered into Raymond’s leg, then ran around the room, sniffing until it got to the post of the bed, where it raised its leg.
“Oh, dear,” Elizabeth said, rising to fetch a cloth to wipe up the mess.
“Yes, we have quite enough of that with a baby,” Raymond remarked, taking the cloth from her. “Let me do that.”
“I had a baby, Raymond, not a fatal wound.”
“You lost a lot of blood,” he said, wiping the floor.
“No more than any woman who gives birth.”
Finished, he matter-of-factly tossed the cloth out the window.
“Raymond!”
“What else was I supposed to do with it?” he said as he washed his hands in the basin.
“Wash it!”
“It’s got dog urine on it.”
“I know that. Good heavens, Brennon won’t have a bit of linen left if you do that with his.”
“That’s different.”
“For you. You don’t have to wash them.”
Raymond turned to her with a wry grin. “Neither do you, my lady.”
She pouted very prettily. “Very well, I don’t—but I have done my share of washing, Raymond. Besides, you never said what you think of my present.”
He raised one brow quizzically. “The one chewing on my boot?”
She whirled around and saw that he was right. The puppy lay sprawled on the floor, blissfully gnawing one of Raymond’s boots. “Oh, no!”
Her husband came up behind her and wrapped his arms about her, tugging her gently back against his chest. He kissed the side of her neck. “It’s an old boot.”
“Do you like my present?” she murmured as pleasurable thrills tingled along her body.
“Very much. I couldn’t have selected better myself. How did you come to chose him?”
“He’s the biggest, ugliest puppy I could find.”
Raymond turned her around to face him.
“Well, it’s true, and it wasn’t easy. Most puppies are very sweet and cuddly.”
He curled his lip. “I wouldn’t want a sweet and cuddly dog.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You are a bold, saucy wench,” he growled.
Seeing the laughter lurking in his eyes, she pertly replied, “Which is why you love me.”
His smile warmed her as much as his embrace. “You are right, Elizabeth. I love you with all my heart.”
“And all your body? I am quite healed, Raymond, and the midwife says that we can…” She wiggled her brows suggestively.
“Now?”
“Brennon should sleep a while yet. I fed him but a short time ago.”
Raymond looked over her shoulder. “And young Cadmus the second has fallen asleep in my boot.”
She glanced back and laughed softly. “He looks right at home.”
“He is, and I am at home, too, more than I have been in a very long time, my love.”
“Are you going to keep talking, my lord, or take me to bed?”
He swept her up into his arms and whispered in his low, husky voice, “To bed, my lady. To bed.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6160-4
THE OVERLORD’S BRIDE
Copyright © 2001 by Margaret Wilkins
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