by Kris Tualla
“Mind,” Drew answered with a shake of his head. “I ken his thoughts better than most of ye.”
A few of the knights grumbled.
“I ken that it will no’ be easy to squeeze the funds from his remaining subjects,” Drew continued. “But Sir Kennan is informed and capable as ye can see. He’s leading ye well. I’ll take what ye’ve got next time I go. Perhaps that will ease his mind.”
“Better ye than me!” the elder knight stated. “’Tis a mortally long trip.”
Drew succeeded in gaining the support of four additional knights to keep order along the border, assigned by the ranking nobleman—a laird from the Campbell lands—who resided in Stirling Castle and acted as David’s regent. The knights were already on their way. Drew would join them after Eryn birthed the twins.
Twins. He still had a hard time believing that. I guess they do run in the family.
“And now I shall return to my lands south of Falkirk,” he said, mounting his dark gray war-horse. The steed pranced, eager to be on their way. “And to my wife.”
The ten miles from Stirling to Falkirk flowed under the animal’s hooves like a smooth, clear stream. Drew relaxed in the saddle and moved with his mount in the soothing rhythm of its stride. He always felt his best like this, moving over land, astride a powerful beast who felt as free as he did. Except for when he was with Eryn, of course.
Drew loved his wife. He was truly amazed at the depth of his feelings. Less than a year ago he was nursing a romantically bruised ego and had never heard of the Lady Eryndal Bell. Now she was the center of his world. And soon she would face the harrowing ordeal of birthing not one babe, but two. If his sister Maggie had not successfully survived such a thing, Drew would be in a sweat-drenched, gut-twisting panic right about now.
When he reached the Drummond estate, he turned his destrier over to the stable boy and headed for the manor. The moment he entered the massive door, he felt the change. Liam was sitting part way up the staircase, and as soon as he spied Drew he stood up and jumped the three steps to the ground.
“Da! Ye got here in time!” He grabbed Drew’s hand and began to pull him up the stairs. “Come on!”
“What is it, Liam?’ he asked, though he was certain he knew.
The agitated lad tugged and wiggled from step to step. “Eryn’s having the babies!”
He pulled a deep breath. Oh, God. Please deliver my wife safely of the bairns. “When did it start?”
“Last night.” Liam stopped and turned his face to Drew’s. “Why does it take so long?”
What could he say? “I do no’ know, son. It just does.”
Liam pulled a face and spun back to his stomp-footed ascent. “Maybe ye can find out.”
Drew knocked on the door and Maggie answered.
“Can I see my wife?” he asked.
Maggie looked over her shoulder. Then back at him. “I’ll let ye, but only if ye promise not to upset her. She’s workin’ hard, mind.”
“Aye,” he grunted.
Maggie stepped back and opened the door. Drew almost forgot his promise right off.
Eryn sat on their bed, propped on pillows, with both knees bent and legs splayed. She had dark hollows under her eyes and the hair around her face was soaked with sweat. She was breathing hard. Her chemise was rolled up and tucked under her breasts; she wore nothing else.
Neither Maggie nor the midwife seemed concerned, but Drew felt the blush crawling up from his chest. He moved to Eryn’s side and lifted one limp hand. Her eyes slid to his, and she gave him a wan smile.
“How are ye doing, love?” he asked her.
“I’ll never bed you again,” she mumbled.
At his look of horror, she smiled a bit more. “I’m jesting with you, Drew.”
He blew out his relief in a whoosh disguised as a laugh.
Her expression changed. And her breathing as well; she began to pant. She nearly squeezed the life out of his hand before Maggie shoved him aside.
The midwife stuck her fingers into Eryn’s body in a way that Drew found very disturbing. The woman nodded.
“Push, Eryn,” Maggie said in her ear. “Push the babe out.”
Eryn’s face pinched in concentration and turned red as a violent sunset. She strained for what felt like an eternity to Drew. He could only imagine what it felt like to her. Actually, he had no desire whatsoever to imagine what it felt like to her.
Then she collapsed, gasping and lying limp against the pillows.
“Good,” the midwife said. “That was very good.”
Maggie took his elbow and shoved him toward the door. “Ye need to go now.”
“But—”
“No. Leave.” She slammed the door behind him.
Drew stood in the passageway, stunned.
Liam stared up at him. “Did ye find out?”
He looked down at the boy. “No.”
Drew sat on the stairs with Liam, sipping a mug of ale. Liam leaned against his leg and rested his cheek on Drew’s knee. More than an hour had passed since he visited the birthing room and Drew’s last nerve was about to snap.
A howl that was nearly inhuman echoed down the staircase. A jolt of fear flushed through Drew’s frame. Liam sat up and stared at him, eyes as wide as platters. They waited. Minutes ticked by at the pace of garden snails. Then came another grinding howl.
“Is mither going to die?” Liam cried. His fingers dug into Drew’s thigh. “Is she?”
Drew didn’t say anything; he didn’t know the answer.
Then they heard the tiny, gasping wail of a very indignant infant.
“Thank ye, God!” Drew blurted. “The first one is born!”
Moments later, the door upstairs opened.
“It’s a boy!” Maggie shouted down to him.
The door slammed shut.
A boy? “I have a son!” Drew laughed and ruffled Liam’s hair and added, “Another son!”
“Will both of the babies be boys?” Liam asked, grinning up at him.
“It might well be,” he said. “Would ye like two weans chasing ye around?”
Liam shrugged and wrinkled his nose. “I might tolerate it,” he teased.
But Eryn’s renewed cries dampened their levity. They were longer and louder than her previous groans. She sounded like she was being torn to pieces.
Please, God, bring her through the next one, Drew prayed. His gut turned to water. His hands trembled with the pounding of his heart. Drew crossed himself. Lord have mercy. Please have mercy.
The horrible cries abated.
More long silent minutes passed.
Drew held Liam, and Liam held Drew.
Maggie opened the door and called down to him, “Another boy!”
“Why does he no’ cry?” Drew shouted.
In answer, a loud, thin yowl turned into the most annoyed holler Drew had ever heard.
“He heard ye!” Maggie laughed. She disappeared behind the closed door once again.
“Three sons,” Drew said to Liam, thunderstruck. “I am a father to three sons.”
Another hour passed before Drew was allowed to visit his sons in the birth room. Eryn lay back against the pillows, obviously exhausted, the blankets now pulled modestly to her waist. Drew went straight to her side.
“Are ye well, Eryn?” he asked.
“Yes,” she sighed.
Maggie stepped to the other side of the bed. “The midwife had to turn the second boy. That’s always hard on the mother,” she said.
“Aye. I could hear ye,” Drew said gently. “I feared for ye.”
“It was so hard, I’ll not argue that. But have you seen them?” Eryn looked toward the hearth.
Drew stood and walked across the room to look at his sons, swaddled and lying side-by-side in a cradle. “They’re so small,” he murmured.
“They are a few weeks early,” Maggie said. “But they already nursed and they latched on fine. They should grow we
ll and quickly.”
Drew looked back at Eryn. “Ye did that already?”
She nodded. “It helps stop the bleeding, after. That’s what the midwife said.”
Maggie crossed to the door. “I’ll go so ye can have a moment alone. Then I’ll send Liam in—will that do?”
“Yes, thank you, Maggie,” Eryn said. “For all of your help.”
The door clicked shut behind her.
Drew returned to Eryn’s side. He lifted her hands to his cheeks, damp with tears he didn’t feel falling. “I will never be able to tell ye how much I love ye,” he said.
“And I you,” she whispered.
“Ye are the bravest woman I have ever known.”
She smiled. “That is exactly how I feel, I have to confess. Like I conquered the devil himself.”
Drew chuckled. “So now that ye’ve seen them, do ye still wish to name them Daniel and Rolf?”
She nodded. “Have you changed your mind?”
“No—but after ye worked so hard to birth them, ye could name them Shite and Damn and I would no’ argue with ye!” he exclaimed.
Eryn giggled delightedly at his choice of words. “No, I believe Rolf and Daniel will suffice.”
The door blew open and Liam bolted across the room. He ran straight to Eryn and threw his arms around her waist. He buried his face in her belly.
“I was so afraid, Mither!” His muffled voice escaped his desperate grip. “I thought ye might die!”
Eryn’s wide eyes met Drew’s. Mither, she mouthed, her eyes glistening with tears. He called me Mither!
Drew realized with a start that was the first time Liam ever called her ‘Mither’ in her hearing, though he’d said it to Drew time and again. He smiled. Their family was solidifying.
Eryn rubbed Liam’s back for a while, and then Drew unwrapped the lad’s arms from her waist. He led the youngster over to look at the sleeping boys. When Liam began to fidget, Drew suggested he go down to the kitchen and get a sweet pastry or two. The boy did not hesitate in accepting the offer.
Eryn held out her hand. Drew eased himself onto the bed and pulled her to him. His relief that she was well and the boys were safely delivered overwhelmed him with gratitude.
“I’ll let ye sleep, mind,” he said, softly. “But is there anything ye want? Anything at all?”
“Anything?” she murmured.
“Name it. If it’s in my power, I’ll give it to ye,” he promised.
“There is one thing. It doesn’t need to be immediate. But before we have any more children…”
His curiosity was definitely piqued. “What is it?”
It took her a moment to answer. “I’d like to go to my father’s home in Norway.”
Drew chuckled. His chuckle became a laugh. Soon he had tears of mirth leaking from his eyes.
Eryn pulled away from him. “Why is that funny?” she demanded.
“It’s no’! And I’ll take ye, I promise!” Drew swiped his cheeks. “But there’s a bit of information I never told ye about your father’s family.”
Eryn smacked her forehead. “Oh, no! What now?” she moaned.
Drew shook his head, still laughing. “It’s no’ bad, have no worries.”
“Then what is it?” She lowered her hand and poked his chest with a very stiff finger. “Tell me!”
“As it turns out…” The news was so unique that Drew stretched out the telling, enjoying every syllable to the fullest. “I am acquainted with a Hansen.”
She looked askance at him. “Which Hansen?”
Drew ran his finger across his upper lip. “I believe him to be… your cousin.”
Her expression twisted in disbelief and shock. “My cousin?”
“Aye.”
“How closely related?”
“Your father’s brother’s son.”
Eryn sat up straighter. “Where is this Hansen?”
“He is lord of the estate in Arendal and he lives there with his wife.” Drew hardly believed his own words and wasn’t surprised at Eryn’s obviously skeptical regard.
“How is that possible?” she asked, incredulous. “How could you possibly know him?”
Drew grinned. “That”—he said with a shake of his head—“is a story in itself.”
Following is an excerpt from:
A Discreet Gentleman
of
Discovery
by Kris Tualla
From:
Desert Breeze Publishing
Chapter One
Lunde Boarding House
Christiania, Norway
June 12, 1684
Brander Hansen read the names a second time to be certain of the connection. The irony was too perfect. He scribbled the words Skogen’s creditors on a piece of paper and laid it atop several letters on his desk.
He snapped his fingers to get Niels’ attention. When his valet looked in his direction, he held up the letters and the note.
“Skogen’s creditors,” Niels said.
Brander nodded then held up the letter he received today in his other hand.
His wife, he mouthed.
Niels’ head fell back and a grin yanked his features. Brander knew he was laughing because his throat was bouncing.
He smiled. Thank God for Niels. His cousin, four years older and less privileged, was brought into the household to be his ears when Brander went deaf at seven. Without him, Brander might not have remembered how sound looked. Or how it felt.
As boys, Niels talked while Brander’s hands felt the vibrations in his neck. They spent hours staring into the silvered glass in his bedchamber. Cheek to cheek—and leaning close enough for their breath to fog the mirror—Brander made his lips and tongue mimic the older boy’s while Niels taught him to silently mouth words.
And to read lips. That skill was invaluable to him now in his adopted profession. Niels waved his hand and Brander looked at him.
“You can take money from both the husband and the wife for the same investigation!” Niels said.
Brander nodded and motioned: Yes. And I will.
Though that course of action made sense, it did provoke a twinge of conscience. The husband was dissolute with no redeeming qualities that Brander had yet discovered. Recent forays into opium further debilitated the fool. His creditors were legion and they called on Brander’s services to discover to where the man’s money was hidden.
Or if he had any left.
But the wife sounded different. There was a sincere desperation in her letter that made Brander empathize with her dismal situation. Becoming deaf had made him oddly more attuned to words. He heard them differently than the average man seemed to.
Perhaps there was a way to help her, even while he destroyed her husband.
Kildahlshus
Hamar, Norway
Regin heard her husband’s voice thunder up the stairway.
“When did he return?” she asked her maid Margit, trying to keep the panic from her tone. She thrust her arms into black velvet sleeves and waited while the woman tied them to her embroidered bodice.
“I don’t know, my Lady,” she answered switching sides.
“Lady Skogen! Where are you?” His words blurred together. “I’ve need of your presence!”
“I’m finished.” Margit stepped back.
“Not a moment too soon!” Regin hiked her skirt and ran out of her bedchamber to the top of the stairs. What she saw nearly stopped her there. Thorlak’s face was pallid, and dark smudges underscored his sunken eyes. His hair was oily and untied.
She began a deliberately dignified descent. “Here I am, my Lord. Welcome home.”
“I won’t be here long. I came to fetch some clothes.”
Regin swallowed and straightened her shoulders. “I believe you took your clothes the last time you were here.”
He looked startled. “All of them?”
She dipped her chin, but didn’t speak. If he couldn’t remember, then his condition was worse than she believed. “C
an I not persuade you to stay, my Lord? Until you are feeling better?”
“What makes you call me incompetent?” he demanded.
By now she stood beside him. She looked up into his eyes, hoping to see the man she married seven years ago. He wasn’t there. He was cruelly replaced by an empty-eyed apparition whose skin leeched the sickly-sweet odor of alcohol, and whose teeth were now edged in brown.
Good, Lord—what was that from?
Regin set her features in a mask of acceptance. “You’ve come a long distance—it’s over fifty miles to Christiania. You have traveled for two days or more, so you must be tired and hungry. Any man would be.”
“I’m not any man,” he sneered. “I shall see for myself.”
Thorlak shoved past her and stomped up the stairs. Regin gripped the railing and waited. She had no desire to be nearby when he saw his chambers.
During his last appearance in their home he had stripped his wardrobe bare. Any items of even questionable value had long since disappeared from the manor. These days, Regin struggled to just to feed the few bodies who remained in their immediate service. The tenants were left to their own resources.
A bellow of fury preceded the sounds of breaking glass.
“Please, no. Not the window!” she whispered. How would they keep the manor warm next winter? There was no money to pay either a glazier to repair it, nor a carpenter to cover it.
Perhaps it was only the mirror.
Thorlak burst from his room. “What have you done?” he screamed down at her.
Every fiber of Regin’s body demanded she run. Breeding demanded she stand firm. Either way, she was square in the path of his rage.
“N-nothing, my lord. You already removed your clothes, as I reminded you…”
He began to stumble down the stairs. “Everything else is gone! You have robbed me bare! Stolen from your own husband!”
“No, I have not!” Regin recoiled as he drew near. “You took the things yourself—”
Her head snapped to the side and her ears filled with discordant ringing. Her vision blurred. Her cheek began to burn. Somehow she was on her hands and knees facing the bare stone floor. Before she could make sense of what happened a hard boot hit her belly and claimed her ability to breathe.
