“I get him first,” Bernadette said, grabbing at the baby. Reflexively, I pulled him to my chest.
“Why don’t you sit down, Bernie,” her husband said, coming from behind her. “You’ll get your chance.”
Bernadette pouted as Peter led her back toward the sofa. Finally, I could breathe again. Lowell seemed to have noticed my stress, frowning at me, but when I relaxed, he did too.
I gave him a soft kiss on the top of his head before regretfully handing him over to Bernadette. She cooed at him, a sort of high–pitched noise that I was worried would frighten him. Instead, he just looked at her with wide eyes. There was quite a lot to take in when looking at Bernadette, and not just her round shape or red hair. She had a sort of hook–shaped nose, and could never seem to get her lipstick within the lines of her lips. Several times I had the private thought that she wore even more rouge than Bridget had the first day I met her.
I watched carefully from my seat next to the fireplace, Jasper’s hand on my shoulder in a gesture of comfort and solidarity. I held my breath every time the baby was passed from one person to the next.
“Give him back, I want to hold him again,” Bernadette demanded after Annabelle had taken him from Hazel.
“Bernadette, I just got him,” Annabelle told her placidly.
“You’ve gotten to visit. I haven’t! Give him here.”
“Why don’t I take him.” I stood up from my chair and crossed the room. Annabelle handed him over to me without protest.
“I’ll let you hold him later,” I whispered to her, and she winked in response.
I brought Lowell to my chair. Once he realized it was his mother holding him, he snuggled into my arm, watching me with interest. I sat back down, brushing my hand over the fine, dark hair on his head.
Bernadette came and sat in the chair beside me.
“Is he sleeping through the night yet?” she asked.
“No, not yet,” I told her. “He still wakes up to feed.”
“You shouldn’t let him do that,” she said.
“I don’t have much control over when he wakes up.”
“What do you feed him?”
My face flushed at the personal questions. “I nurse him.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t do that. I gave all my babies a mixture of water and bread.”
I was getting irritated by her criticism. “I think he’s doing just fine with me nursing him.”
She began fussing with his robe. “He should be wearing more. He’ll get too cold.”
I was holding him, and he felt plenty warm to me. “He’s fine.”
“I don’t think you are, are you?” she asked him, getting in his face. He began to cry.
“See?” she asked.
I took a deep breath as I angled Lowell away from her, trying to comfort him, my chest tightening with each wail. I stood up, trying to get away from Bernadette, rocking him in my arms. Finally, his crying slowed before stopping all together.
He may have been content, but I wasn’t. My chest still hurt, and I was struggling to breathe. I passed Lowell off to Jasper.
“I’m going to use the loo. Keep him away from her,” I said, tilting my head at Bernadette.
“Absolutely.”
I slipped down the hallway. I didn’t really need to use the restroom, but it was the only explanation I could come up with that wouldn’t arouse suspicion or cause someone to want to come with me. In reality, I just needed a moment to breathe.
I escaped to the kitchen. I would have a few moments there, and no one would come looking for me.
Bridget was sitting at the table with Daisy, eating cookies.
“Everything all right, ma’am?” Bridget asked as I slipped through the door.
“I just need a moment,” I said, taking a few deep breaths.
Bridget stood up from the table and came back with a cup of tea straight from the kettle. I sipped at the warm liquid, and it began to soothe away my tension.
“Thank you,” I told her. “It was a bit overwhelming out there.”
“We could hear Lady Rollins screeching from here,” Daisy commented, rolling her eyes.
“Ugh, she’s the worst,” Bridget said, making me laugh.
“She’s so whiny and demanding,” I sighed.
“I can’t imagine thinking the world revolves around me like that,” Bridget said. “It must be exhausting.”
“And putting on all that makeup,” I giggled.
“The girls I worked the streets with didn’t even wear that much makeup!”
We devolved into a fit of laughter.
I glanced over at Bridget, her hand over her mouth as she stifled her giggles. I had that mix of emotions again. I wanted her to be happy. Of course I did. She had been my confidant and my helper, and I wanted what was best for her. If she were to marry Conor, a doctor, she wouldn’t need to continue her employment with me, and that was saddening. I greatly enjoyed her company.
I was getting ahead of myself. The two of them weren’t even courting yet. Granted, they didn’t have a traditional relationship. She had been turned into a werewolf at fifteen and had been a prostitute on the streets, while he came from a long line of werewolves and was a lord and a doctor who preferred to help those in need. They weren’t your typical people, and when they did start courting, they wouldn’t be a typical couple.
I finished the last of my tea. I should have been getting back to the party, but the last thing I wanted was to deal with all those nosy people. I would rather be curled up with my son, all cozy in the gray afternoon light. Still, I was a duchess and this was my duty. I sighed as I stood.
I didn’t get very far as Annabelle poked her head in the doorway.
“Christine? Is everything all right?”
I nodded. “I was beginning to feel overwhelmed; I needed to step out for a moment.”
“Oh, I know,” she said, crossing the room and putting a hand on my arm. “I know what it means when you say you need to use the loo.”
I smiled. “I’m ready to head back now.”
“It was Bernadette, wasn’t it? Such a noxious woman. Jasper already scolded her, so don’t worry. She’ll keep her hands off Lowell.”
My face flushed. “He didn’t have to do that,” I muttered.
“He did, because you wouldn’t have. You’re too nice.”
It had less to do with being nice and more to do with not wanting to cause a commotion. I had spent so much of my life serving someone else, that I had rarely been able to do what I wanted. I was still figuring out how to be assertive. I could speak my mind with Jasper, and now with my friends, but I still couldn’t be bold with strangers. It was something that drove me mad, but I hoped I would get there eventually.
Annabelle and I weaved through the long hallway back to the parlor. Bernadette didn’t look at me when I came in, instead casting her gaze on the ground. Though she didn’t make eye contact, I could tell her gaze was sullen and pouty, like a child not getting the toy he wanted.
“Sorry,” I said as I stepped into the room. “Stopped to get some water and ended up getting lost in conversation.”
“No worries at all,” Jasper said as he grinned at me. I realized he didn’t have Lowell, and anxiously I glanced around until my eyes fell on Hazel. Lowell had fallen asleep in her arms, and she was cradling him like an expert.
When she saw me looking, she stood up, careful not to wake him. I met her halfway and she carefully passed him to me. Both of us did our best not to jostle him so he would stay asleep. Once I had him settled in the crook of my arm he yawned, but continued sleeping.
I looked down at his peaceful face with a smile of adoration.
“He’s a sweetheart,” Hazel said, almost reading my thoughts.
She looked at us with a mix of adoration and envy. She had mentioned before how much she wanted to be a mother. Annabelle and I told her to at least wait until after the wedding, and she had reluctantly told us we were right. Knowing what I knew about Hazel�
�s mother, Hazel would be in a lot of trouble if the baby came any earlier than nine months after the wedding.
“Everything all right?” Jasper whispered to me as I sat down.
“I was feeling overwhelmed and needed a few minutes,” I whispered back. “I’m fine now.”
“You could have said something. I could have made up an excuse for you.”
I reached my free hand over and cradled his face. “Thank you, but I need to learn to fight my own battles,” I admitted. He gave me a quick kiss, and Annabelle pretended to be repulsed, though she was smirking.
“Annabelle, you’re having another one this year,” I said, trying to deflect the attention away from me. “August, is it?”
“That’s our estimate,” she said with a smile.
“We’re hoping for a girl so that she and Lowell can get married,” I told Jasper, who rolled his eyes and chuckled.
Our guests stayed and chatted with us for a while. We kept our voices subdued as to not wake the baby, but he was fast asleep. Peter and Bernadette left early after she realized she wouldn’t get another chance to hold him. Perhaps I was being overprotective, keeping him away from her. Suddenly, I realized how Jasper often felt about me, even though his protectiveness drove me crazy.
I would do anything to keep my baby safe.
Chapter Four
I was wandering down a dark hallway, lost. All around me, the house was crumbling, stones cracked, the tapestries torn with claws. The hallway was dark, and I strained my eyes, trying to see through the blackness. The air was moist and cold as I tried to navigate, but my human eyes were no match for the darkness. I put my hand against the wall, feeling the damp dust under my fingers from years of neglect. I kept my hands here, trying to find my way. My feet were bare on a worn–through rug, the fabric pricking the soles of my feet. My breathing was shallow as I tried to find...something. I was missing something.
My hand dropped off into the air and I realized I had turned a corner. I paused, unable to see what was down that way. Do I keep going straight? Do I turn? I had no idea. There wasn’t an ounce of light in this place. I could make out the soft outline of windows in the walls, but the night outside was just as black as it was inside. No moon or stars showed through the dirty glass panes. I was still on my own to navigate.
I took a few more steps forward and a lamp appeared on a table down the hallway. I picked it up, the metal cold in my hands. The lamp offered a soft light, the flame flickering in the humidity. I could now see the disaster this place had become, with shreds of fabric still clinging to the walls after the tapestries had been torn, and splintered furniture littering the floor. Dust–covered cobwebs hung from every corner. I continued down the hall. The paintings that had once adorned the walls had either their frames shattered on the floor or had been attacked with a clawed hand.
As I continued walking, I came to the end of the hallway and a set of spiral stone stairs. I set my foot on the first step, the cold rock startling me. Carefully, keeping my hand on the dirty railing, I ascended the steps. I draft of chilled wind blew down the stairs, and I shivered. I reached to pull something over my shoulders, but I was only wearing a thin nightgown. The stairs seemed to go on for an eternity, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally I felt my feet hit the landing.
I heard a faint sound and struggled to focus on it. Still unable to make it out, I moved deeper into the darkness of this floor. The sound grew louder, and this time, it clicked. I realized what I was missing.
Where was Lowell? Where was my baby?
I followed the sound into a room off the hallway. Here, the light of the moon shined brightly through the windows, illuminating a figure. I drew closer to see that it was Seth, holding my baby in his hands. He gave me a wicked grin before he sunk his teeth into Lowell’s neck, and—
I woke up, breathing heavily.
The crying hadn’t just been in my dream. Lowell was shrieking beside me, and I rolled over and brought him to my chest.
“Shh, it’s all right,” I murmured to him. “You’re all right. You’re all right.”
I said it not just for his benefit, but for mine. I had to remind myself that it had all been a nightmare, a horrible, terrible nightmare. It wasn’t real. I was here, in my bed, holding my baby in my arms.
Despite holding him close, he was still inconsolable. I tried rocking him and stroking his hair, but nothing quieted his screams. Eyes heavy with sleep, I curled up in bed with him in my arms, but that did nothing either.
I yawned and rolled over, lighting the lamp beside me. I checked the clock. It was the early hours of the morning, less than an hour after I had fallen back to sleep. Lowell had just eaten. He shouldn’t be hungry again. Just in case, I sat up, propping myself with a few pillows, and tried to get him to drink. He turned his head away, refusing to latch on, his cries intensifying. I sighed, pulling the strap of my nightgown back up.
I lifted him to my shoulder and patted his back, hoping that perhaps that would soothe him, but it didn’t. Finally, though I was exhausted, I pulled myself out of bed. Like in my dream, my feet brushed against the rug, but this time it was soft instead of crusted and dirty. I shifted Lowell in my arms so I was cradling him, and began to walk around the room, bouncing him slightly.
He began to calm. To encourage him to relax further, I sang a few simple lullabies. His crying stopped, but he didn’t look tired. He looked up at me with his bright blue eyes, lifting his hand toward my face as I sang.
Now that he was calm, perhaps I could get him back to sleep. I climbed back into bed with him, keeping him close in the crook of my arm. After a few minutes of lying in the dark, he began to get squirmy again. I stroked his hair again, hopeful that the motion would lull him off to sleep, but instead he began crying again. Frustrated, I got back up, walking and bobbing again. Once again he quieted, watching me as I paced.
I sat back down on the mattress, but as soon as my bum hit the bed he began fussing again. I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. I knew walking with him would keep him calm, but I simply didn’t have the energy to walk him for hours and hours.
The nursery had a rocking chair, so I padded to the room next door and tried that, but again, the moment I sat down he began to fuss. I tried rocking him anyway, hoping that he would forget I was sitting with the motion from the chair. Still, he cried. I took a deep breath, counting to one hundred, but when he was still crying after that, I stood back up. Faced with no other option, I walked him until the sun started to rise and his eyes closed.
I hadn’t had a nightmare like that in a while, not since Lowell had been born. My thoughts had been occupied, I supposed, and I had felt more relaxed since Seth was in the custody of the elders. The summons had changed all of that. Now, all I could think about was the trial and my testimony. I could have as much resolve as I wanted, but that didn’t mean that my subconscious wasn’t scared half to death at the idea of facing Seth again.
In fact, it seemed my subconscious was absolutely terrified. That nightmare hadn’t been my first, but it was far, far from my last. Every night at least one seemed to plague me. I was usually lost, trying to find my way. Sometimes I was in an abandoned castle, like the one that Seth had held me in. Sometimes I was at Wolf’s Peak. Sometimes I was in the forest. Always, I was trying to navigate through the darkness, with the nagging feeling that something was wrong. I would see more and more evidence that I was right. It could be broken furniture, or it could be as graphic as dead animals. Either way, the trail of destruction always ultimately led me to Seth. Whenever I found him, he gave me the same look, a look of satisfaction and menace, the look of a madman. It was an expression that had haunted my dreams since the first time I saw it. And always, Seth would have my little baby in his arms, and always, he would kill him.
And always, I would wake up with Lowell crying beside me, nearly inconsolable. It was rare for him to wake if he wasn’t hungry, so the best I could figure was that I was thrashing or making nois
es in my sleep. It wasn’t enough to pull Jasper’s attention, but it was enough to wake the baby. Every time, it would take at least an hour to get him back to sleep, sometimes only for me to have the same nightmare and have to deal with things all over again.
I didn’t know how much longer I could do this. I hated having to wake Jasper up, although I’m sure he would be more than happy to take over for me. I just felt so guilty; it was my fault that Lowell was waking up. I tried moving him to his bassinet once he was in deep sleep, but he never stayed asleep. He woke almost as soon as his head hit the sheet, so I kept him in bed with me. That meant he woke when I had nightmares, and the cycle just repeated. I was only getting a few hours of sleep a night. My temper was getting short, and I was struggling to think or to remember things. I always felt like I was on the brink of falling asleep.
One night, I had a particularly violent nightmare. I dreamed that I was walking through the forest that surrounded Wolf’s Peak, the forest that my mother had been murdered in and the forest that Jasper and I nearly met our ends in. I was barefoot again, in a nightgown again; I seemed to be that way in all my nightmares. There was possibly an explanation of vulnerability there, but with as little sleep as I was getting, I didn’t have the energy to dissect it. Dirt and leaves stuck to my feet as I walked. The moon didn’t seem to be able to show through the thick trees, so everything was dark. I used the trees to guide me until my eyes adjusted to the blackness. When it finally did, I thought I was going to be sick.
It seemed that Seth had killed every animal in these woods. All around me were dead deer, dead squirrels, dead birds. So much carnage. Finally, I came to a clearing. This time, things were a little different. Seth was still there, and he still held my baby, but at his feet was my husband. Jasper had been murdered, his stomach sliced open and entrails spread on the ground next to him. His eyes had rolled to the back of his head, the whites of his eyes staring up at the tops of the trees. Lowell was shrieking. Seth finally tore his neck open with his teeth, blood dripping from his muzzle.
The Wolf's Cub (The Wolf's Peak Saga Book 3) Page 3
