“They are hard pains she’s having,” Old Edith said. “But nothing’s coming of them.”
Devon didn’t want to ask the questions crowding his mind. He feared the answers. Instead, he began running the side of his thumb up and down along Leah’s spine, pushing the sheet down. Her skin felt clammy and cold. It worried him. Leah’s head rested against his arm, and he could feel the movement of the pain through her body. He massaged harder, wanting to ease those tight muscles.
Leah looked up at him with half slit eyes. “That feels good. It helps. Thank you.” After a few minutes, she relaxed.
Old Edith stood. “Well, it seems as if you might have an idea about how to go along after all, my fine lord. I’m going for a spell of fresh air. I’ll be back in a moment.” She left them alone, slipping outside to see to her private needs.
“This is my fault,” Devon whispered to Leah. “All my fault.”
“I shouldn’t have run away,” she answered in a voice slowed by fatigue.
“I surprised you. You weren’t expecting to see me here.”
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t mean today. I meant in the beginning. From London.”
Devon went still. “So your parents don’t know you are here?”
“No one knows. I left by myself.”
“Why, Leah? Why did you run away?”
She lifted her lashes, and her eyes flashed with irony and her old spirit. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Why could she not have turned to the man who had done this? He didn’t ask the question that burned in his mind. Now was not the time. Instead he said, “You could have come to me.”
“I didn’t think you would want me.” Another spasm gripped her body.
Not want her? He’d begged her to leave with him.
She squeezed his hand as she rode the pain. He brushed his lips across her forehead, wishing he could bear the pain for her. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.
Outside, the gathering storm began. Drops of ice hit the window, softly at first, and then harder. Old Edith burst through the front door and slammed it shut. “I made it just in time.” She hobbled into the bedroom. “How are you doing, lass? Do you feel the baby?”
“Just pain,” Leah answered.
“Any movement?”
Leah shook her head, too tired to answer.
The midwife rested her hand on Leah’s belly, her gaze focused on the far wall, her mind working. At last she said, “I must check the babe. I’ll have to ask you to leave the room, my lord.”
Leah’s hands tightened their hold on his arm. “No, please let him stay.”
“This is no place for a man,” Old Edith said decisively, “excepting, of course, the father of this bairn.”
“I’m not leaving,” Devon replied.
Old Edith’s sharp eyes met his. “So are you saying you are the father?”
“Yes,” he answered. After all, what difference did it make? He’d already said as much to the Pitneys to scare off the lovesick Adam.
Leah made a sound of protest, but Devon silenced her. “Leave it be. Think about the baby. There will be time for explanations later.”
Old Edith performed her examination with quick efficiency. Devon didn’t watch. Instead, he cooed to Leah, knowing this was hard for her.
The midwife folded the sheet back down and stood up.
“Is my baby all right?” Leah asked drowsily.
“Oh, yes, he’s going to do fine,” Old Edith assured her, but her eyes and nose had turned suspiciously red. She walked into the next room.
“Let me get you some water to drink,” Devon said. Leah nodded, and he followed Old Edith, dropping the curtain behind him as he left. Cornering the midwife by the fire, he demanded quietly, “What is happening?”
She refused to look at him as she poured hot water into a cup to brew tea. She replaced the kettle before answering, “I don’t know. Sometimes things don’t go easily for a first babe.” She shrugged, her casual gesture belied by her need to swipe a tear from her cheek.
A beat passed, then Devon confessed, “She fell.”
Old Edith considered this information. “Well, that could be the problem. She might have torn something inside. Or it could be something else.”
Anger surged inside him, causing him to lash out, “Don’t you know anything?”
“Aye! I know that girl can die in there and the babe with her,” she whispered furiously. “Even if I knew why her pain isn’t regular, I don’t know there would be anything I could do to help her.” She turned away.
Rex had lost his wife during the birth of his last son. Her death had barely registered with Devon at the time. Mary had been a colorless woman, and their paths had rarely crossed. Now in this room, with the ice relentlessly pelting the cottage and full witness to Leah’s struggle, he thought of Mary. Poor Mary, dead and forgotten.
Devon stared at the cup of hot water, watching the tea slowly steep as he struggled with her meaning. Leah could die.
“No,” he denied. “We can’t let her. It’s not possible.”
“Oh, it’s possible,” Old Edith answered. She pulled a pottery flask from a skirt pocket and poured a generous drop in the cup. Liquid courage.
“Devon?” Leah called him, her voice weak.
“Go to her,” Old Edith said. “She needs you right now more than she needs me. But don’t tell her. If we are going to save her, we need her fighting. Go on.”
His feet moved like lead weights. He pushed back the curtain.
“Are you and Old Edith fighting?” Leah asked.
He knelt, taking her smaller hand in his. Tears stung his eyes. Hardening his jaw, he forced them back and attempted a smile. “Old Edith doesn’t mince words about my obligations as the father of the baby.”
“But Devon, you aren’t—”
Her voice broke off in a gasp as again a contraction took hold of her. Old Edith came to the doorway holding her teacup, her experienced gaze watching.
“Is it supposed to hurt like this?” Leah moaned. “I feel as if I’m being ripped in two.”
“It can,” was the midwife’s terse reply.
Leah seemed to accept her words. Devon held her tight, her arm around his neck. “It will be all right,” he said softly.
She didn’t answer but arched as if searching for a more comfortable position. Devon tried to help her. His hand touched her belly—
He felt the baby move!
It was a miracle. He’d never imagined such a thing. It took him completely by surprise. He looked from one woman to another. “I felt it. I felt the baby.” It moved again. Beneath his palm, he could make out a limb. The baby shifted. “There it is.”
“Good! Good!” Old Edith declared, her renewed enthusiasm giving Devon hope. “This is a good sign. Maybe the baby has decided to wake up and help us.” She gave Leah a toothy smile. “Do you think, Leah? Do you think this bairn is ready for the world?”
“I hope so,” Leah answered weakly.
“Aye. We all do,” Old Edith answered. “I pray we see his sweet little face soon.” She left to finish her tea.
Outside, the ice changed to cold, unforgiving rain.
Leah was completely lost in the chaos of her body. The baby didn’t move now, but the pains started coming closer together. Ruthless and hard, they drove her to exhaustion. But she didn’t complain. She’d never been one to complain.
Devon held her in his arms. He was accustomed to feeling the baby now. Old Edith said it was a good-sized child.
Leah’s moods changed rapidly. At one point, she started crying, a soft hiccuping sound.
“Leah?”
“I’m so sorry.” She started sobbing, her tears wetting the skin of his neck.
“For what? You have nothing to be sorry for—” He stopped speaking. He knew. She was apologizing for having taken a lover.
Devon enveloped her in his arms—even as he wanted to push her away. “It doesn’t matter, Leah,” he heard himself say roughl
y. “It’s the past. Don’t think about the past.”
A contraction took hold of her. Her muscles tensed. “Easy,” he said gently.
In answer, she practically snarled at him, a reversal of her behavior only seconds before.
“Aye, don’t fight it,” Old Edith said from her post at the end of the bed.
“I don’t want to fight,” Leah ground out. “In fact, I don’t want any of this. The baby can stay the way it is.”
To Devon’s surprise, she kicked out at Old Edith and made as if to rise from the bed.
“Hold her down,” the midwife snapped. “It’s a phase they all go through. It’s a good sign.”
It took a surprising amount of strength to keep Leah from climbing out of the bed. She arched her back, her hair flying loose and free around her.
Old Edith leaned forward. Her Scot accent gave her voice authority as she said, “Now listen, missy, and listen well. If you want this baby, you stay right here.”
Leah appeared stricken with remorse. She fell back against Devon. “I want the baby. You don’t know how much I want my baby.”
“I know, I know,” Old Edith answered. “Now sit up best you can. Bend your legs.”
Leah was crying again, the silent tears streaming down her face. She did as Old Edith said, bracing her back against Devon’s chest.
“Be ready, lass. Be brave.”
Leah nodded. Another contraction ripped through her. She dug her heels into the bed. Old Edith was whispering, “Come on, come on, you bairn,” as if encouraging a racehorse to reach the line.
The pain subsided.
“Relax, lass. Save your strength. Your bairn is not ready yet…but it will be soon.”
Leah collapsed. Old Edith stood, rubbing the back of her neck. “I need to reheat the water in this bucket. Soon,” she promised Leah. “It’ll be soon.” She left the room.
“You’re doing fine,” Devon whispered.
Leah nodded, but her breathing was too fast, too shallow.
“Slow down,” he warned. “Take deep breaths. Try and relax.” He pressed his lips against the skin of her neck. She was going to make it. She could not die—
“I love you.”
Devon went very still, not sure if she’d spoken, or if he’d imagined those words out of his deepest desires.
She looked up at him. “I’ve always loved you.”
At one time, he’d ached to hear her say those words. Now his gladness mingled with jealousy, searing hot jealousy.
“I didn’t mean it when I said I hated you,” she whispered. “I was angry. Confused.”
He didn’t know if he wanted to talk about this. Not now. “We both were,” he said curtly.
The next contraction started building again. She tried to talk in spite of it. “You weren’t. I should have gone…with you.”
Devon glanced into the other room, where Old Edith puttered with cloths and kettles. He wished she would get back into the bedroom.
This contraction didn’t seem to grip her like the others. She drew a deep breath. “Mother wanted me to marry Lord Tiebauld, but I couldn’t if I had a baby in me.”
“Leah.” It had been common knowledge that the Carrolltons had decided on Lord Tiebauld. When the news had reached Devon in Scotland, he’d gotten mind-numbing drunk for a week.
And it still hadn’t relieved his sense of loss.
“Mother wanted to take my baby from me, Devon. She wanted to kill it before it could be born.”
“Don’t think about it,” Devon said quickly. Her confessions roused too many contradictory emotions. “Think about the baby.”
“Yes, the baby,” she repeated dreamily. “And Whitney’s. I always remember Whitney’s when times are bad.”
Suddenly, she stiffened. “I have to push.”
Her words sent Devon shouting for Old Edith. For the next hour, Leah pushed until she was beyond the point of exhaustion.
At last, Old Edith said, “Save your strength, lass. Relax a bit.” She walked into the other room.
Devon hated the midwife for her calmness. He followed. “Why did you tell her to stop pushing the baby out?”
“Because the baby is not coming out,” Old Edith said. She took a sip of the tea she had continued to drink as the evening had worn on.
Devon wasn’t certain he’d heard her correctly. He grabbed the cup from her and sampled a taste. “This tea has enough rum in it to intoxicate a sailor.” He dashed the contents into the hearth. The flames hissed and flared.
“I need a bit,” the midwife whined. “It’s hard losing a mother. Hard to watch them die.”
Her words tore through him. “She isn’t dying. You saw her in there. She’s making a valiant effort. We’re not going to lose her!”
“We are,” she assured him in a low voice. “I’ve seen it too often. For a while, you made me hope she’d make it, but she won’t. The baby’s not right.”
“What do you mean, ‘not right’? I felt it move.”
Old Edith ignored his question, lost in her own thoughts. “Aye, but she was a bonny lass and was always kind to me. Some people aren’t kind to those of us who aren’t as lovely to look at, you ken?”
“We can’t lose her,” Devon repeated. He’d rather have a thousand shards of glass pushed into his body than accept what Old Edith was telling him.
“It happens, my lord,” she whispered sloppily. “It happens.”
In the other room, Leah called to him.
“Have a wee nip, my lord. I’m going to give the lass a bit. Help her relax. It’s a slow death.”
Devon couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe. Suddenly he couldn’t even stand being in the cottage. He threw open the front door and ran out into the rain, slamming the door behind him.
It was darker than Hades outside. The storm seemed to drive right through him. Raising his fists to the heavens, he shouted, “No!” Once was not enough. He yelled it over and over until the air rang with his denial.
He lowered his arms. Rivulets of water ran down his face, over his shoulders, along the line of his back. He couldn’t let her die.
He wasn’t going to lose her again.
Even if it meant fighting the devil himself.
Devon returned to the cottage. Old Edith was in with Leah. He overheard her trying to get Leah to drink from a cup. The two bedroom candles cast an eerie light around the room. Their flames danced as he closed the door.
He picked up a towel from the stack Old Edith had brought with her and dried himself off.
“Devon?” Leah called to him. Deep circles underlined her eyes. Her face was pale and waxy.
He stood in the doorway, feeling very much like a madman. “We’re going to have this baby, Leah. I’m going to help you. We’ll do it together.”
He nodded to the midwife. “Edith, put that cup down and take your position at the foot of the bed. I’ll hold Leah up while she pushes, and if you have to reach inside of her like a farmer would a calf, then do it. You pull that baby out of her. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lord,” she answered, a slight tremor in her voice. “But I can’t see. It’s too dark.”
“Then place a candle on the floor where you can see,” he snapped.
Old Edith scurried to do his bidding. Devon gathered Leah up in his arms. “Do you understand what we are going to do? You must be brave, Leah. You must use all your courage.”
“Devon,” she whispered. “When you ran out, I grew so afraid.”
“But I’m here now.”
She nodded, almost too weak to respond.
“Are you ready, Edith?”
“Aye, my lord.”
He leaned his mouth close to Leah’s ear. “Come now. You can do it. You’ve already given up so much for this child. Let’s bring him into the world.”
His words were the impetus she needed. From a place he could only imagine, she found the strength to try again. Her body strained with the force of her pushing. Her face contorted.
&nb
sp; Old Edith shouted encouragement. “Come on now. Bring that bairn out. You can do it, lass. You’re strong, healthy. Push!”
And yet the baby would not come.
Leah collapsed, exhausted.
“It has to happen,” Old Edith muttered. “She can’t go on much longer.”
“Let’s shift her,” Devon said, desperately. “Change her position.” He’d seen it work with the horse.
“Aye. Lift her up higher.”
Devon climbed up on the bed. He braced her back against his chest, placing his hands on her thighs, spreading them. He didn’t think of her nakedness. Her body was for a different purpose now. He raised her up.
“Wait,” Old Edith said and attempted to feel the baby. Her expression broke into a grin. “His head! I touched the bairn!” Her voice betrayed a hope that had been missing earlier. “The babe has a bonny head of hair!”
Leah was weary. She nodded, acknowledging Old Edith’s encouragement, but her breathing was ragged. Wrapping her arms around the arm Devon used to brace her, she whispered, “Promise me, Devon, if anything happens to me, you’ll take my baby. Promise you’ll raise him.”
She knew.
She was aware of how close to death she was. He stared down into the face he’d loved, and he didn’t know what to say.
Her grip tightened. “Promise.”
“Don’t give up yet.” The words were hard to speak past the lump in his throat. They came out hoarse and guttural.
“Lift her again,” came the bossy Scottish voice. “I’m losing the baby. We must do it now.”
Leah leveraged herself up, using Devon’s arm. He could almost hate this baby for threatening her.
“Shake her!” came the midwife’s command.
“Shake her?” Devon had never heard of such a thing.
“Shake her.”
He did as ordered, gently.
“Harder,” Old Edith said.
Devon shook Leah’s whole body harder.
“Push, lass, push. Yes, that’s it!” Old Edith cried. “The babe is coming!”
Leah started trembling and laughing. “I can feel him! I can feel!”
“Push, push, push! Now’s not the time to stop,” Old Edith growled.
The superhuman strength Leah applied to the task humbled Devon. He was shouting with Old Edith now. He believed.
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