Rowankind (3 Book Series)

by Jacey Bedford

  “Well, then, what can go wrong?”

  “I love your Aunt Rosie, she’s so down to earth,” Corwen said as we climbed the stairs after supper. “Have you two been keeping up your marital relations?” He did a passable imitation of her voice and set me off giggling.

  “Come on.” We reached our door. “Marital relations coming up as ordered.”

  “Do you need an order?”

  “No, I simply need permission. You’ve been so uncomfortable these last few weeks. I thought you’d appreciate a back rub more than anything.”

  “Is my belly too gross?”

  “It’s not gross at all, it’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

  He kissed me.

  I believe I may have kissed him back.

  “Even if you do block out the sun.”

  I aimed a lazy blow at his chin, but he caught my hand and kissed it. “I don’t want you to get too conceited.”

  He helped me out of my dress and my short stays—there may have been more kisses involved—and knelt in front of me with his ear to my enormous belly. “They’re lazy. I swear I can hear them snoring in there.”

  He undid the ribbon on my chemise. It slid off my shoulders and pooled on the floor around my ankles.

  “Oh, look at that. I think it’s even bigger today than it was yesterday.” He stroked my belly. “Tight as a drum. You, my love, are ripe and ready for plucking.”

  “Plucking?”

  “That’s what I said. Plucking.”

  “Just checking.”

  He picked me up, groaning overdramatically under my weight and deposited me gently on the counterpane, kissing my lips and letting his kisses wander down to my throat and my breasts, also tight and fulsome. I wriggled with the pleasure of it and then made a moue when he stopped for a moment. It didn’t take him long to rid himself of his breeches and shirt.

  “What about my stockings,” I said. “They seem to be all that’s between me and debauchery.”

  “Well, we can’t have anything in our way, can we?”

  He addressed the problem of my stockings very thoroughly with more stroking and kissing until I melted into an incoherent blob.

  “How are you doing in there?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I was speaking to the children.”

  “Corwen!”

  “Yes, my love?”

  I reached for him and found him ready. “Get on with it.”

  We both collapsed into laughter, and he drew me close, with my back to his belly, making good use of his hands as he found his way home.

  We dozed off in each other’s arms only to come around later. We were shivering because the fire was dying, and we’d completely forgotten to get under the covers. Corwen made up the fire and pulled the covers into place, but then—well—we were both awake again, so . . .

  “I love you so much,” he said afterward. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “I think you may have proved it a few times. You know I love you, too, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  “I want you to remember that when I’m cursing your name and screaming like a fishwife.” I felt my belly tighten. “It’s starting.”

  “Shall I get Aunt Rosie?”

  “No, not yet. Let’s lie here for a while.”

  Within a couple of hours lying down was worse than walking around the bedroom. Corwen walked me up and down, up and down. He rubbed my back and rubbed my belly.

  “Ah.” The pains were closer now and sharper, and longer, and this time my knees gave way.

  “I’ll get Aunt Rosie.”

  “I think it’s time.”

  I don’t remember too much about the next part. I suppose that’s nature’s way of making sure women don’t say never again. I have flashes of memory. Aunt Rosie, of course. Poppy wiping my face with a damp cloth soaked in lemon juice. Screaming so loud that the women couldn’t keep Corwen out of the room any longer, though they made him sit by my head and hold my hand.

  I don’t think I cursed him for putting in my belly what was struggling to get out, but when he put his head to mine and said, “It’s a boy. What did I tell you?” I simply gritted my teeth and hoped the second one would be a girl.

  She was.

  And when Corwen helped me to sit up and put our beautiful pink-faced healthy babies into my arms, I think he was crying as much as I was.

  * * *

  It was June 1803. We’d spent a whole year in Yorkshire without the shadow of Walsingham or the Mysterium. I’d had reports that the Heart of Oak and the Butterfly were doing good trade by causing chaos among French merchant shipping. My own private fortune was comfortable enough that I was in the process of investing in another ship, the Montague, which would carry sixteen guns and be captained by Mr. Rafiq once she was fitted out for the privateering trade.

  Corwen was still considering whether to become the first magical member of Parliament for the Okewood constituency, but he hadn’t made up his mind yet. There was no rush to do so with the war with France being the most pressing Parliamentary matter. Truth to tell, he was enjoying the estate, picking up where his older brother Jonathan had left off. And we were all, Timpani and Dancer included, anxiously awaiting the arrival of four foals, the first, as far as we knew, magical cross-breeds.

  The day was blue-sky perfection. I suggested a gentle stroll down to the lake. It had to be a gentle stroll because Lily was so advanced in her pregnancy that she claimed she hadn’t seen her feet for months. I was expecting Aunt Rosie to turn up on the doorstep any day now. The new house, Mill House, was almost complete, but George and Lily wouldn’t be moving in until after the birth and the churching.

  Poppy was quick to accept our invitation to walk in the sunshine since Alice was now on leading strings and loved being outside. Robin, her adopted son, the ex-workhouse boy, was given a reprieve from conjugating Latin verbs. Maybe it was Latin that drove children mad because he couldn’t manage a gentle stroll and galloped down to the lake, screaming for the joy of it, and then flopped down on the grass to await our arrival.

  I hadn’t expected Mama to join us, but I was delighted when she said she would. She’d been withdrawn and melancholy over the winter months, still missing her husband, but I thought at last she might be coming out of the long dark tunnel.

  Stephen Yeardley, Poppy’s husband, who had looked after Mr. Deverell in his last illness, had grown into the post of estate steward. He had decided to award himself an afternoon off, and walked behind us, carrying a blanket and a basket of refreshments. He was just as much part of the extended family as Poppy was.

  The other new addition to our family was Liza, our rowankind nurserymaid who was Mr. Topping’s third-oldest daughter, and worth her weight in gold. Twins were such hard work. Liza carried Hugh, and I carried Emma, who at the age of eight months was a substantial weight.

  Stephen spread a large blanket, and Liza and I plonked the babies in the middle of it, giving them a selection of rattles and wooden blocks. They soon worked out that the most entertaining game was throwing things as far as they could and watching Robin retrieving them. Emma, particularly, had picked up the idea that teasing Robin was great sport.

  I could see Corwen striding toward us from the direction of the stables. He looked like a country squire, wearing breeches, top boots, and an open-necked shirt, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. There was a spring in his step. He looked happy. In truth, we were all happy. It was a moment of grace. Whatever life threw at us in future, we could cope with because we were family.

  I turned away from the twins for a moment to wave to Corwen and heard a gasp from Liza. Emma had had enough of rattles and teasing and had decided to explore the blanket by squirming forward. That was when it happened. Instead of a baby, there was a brindle wolf cub struggling to wriggle out of a tangle of baby garm
ents.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” I picked her up and held her close. “Going to take after your father, I see.”

  She licked my nose and yipped.

  Not to be outdone, Hugh started to roll over and his little hands flexed into pads. By the time I scooped him up he was a snowy white cub.

  I hugged them both and began to laugh.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jacey Bedford has a string of short story publication credits on both sides of the Atlantic. She is the co-organizer of the UK Milford's Writers' Conference, a peer-to-peer workshopping week for published SF writers. She lives a thouand feet up on the edge of the Yorkshire Pennines in a two hundred year stone house. She has been a librarian, postmistress, rag-doll maker, and a folk singer in an a cappella trio. She can be found at jaceybedford.co.uk or on Twitter at @JaceyBedford.

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