Authors: Annette Blair
They began talking at the same time, and Mrs. Wickham, with tea and scones, eased the moment. “Don’t stay up too long, dear,” she said. “Good night, Mr. Harris, I hope your room is comfortable.”
Faith ate little and was so quiet, Harris felt purely lost. “So,” he said. “The child will be here before long.”
She nodded absently. She was taking the master’s death hard. To think his heir would be born after his death. Curse the gods. Aye, and a pox on Vincent Devereux too. He’d make the blighter pay, Harris decided, proof or no. “I’d give anything to see my master here beside you right now,” he said, patting her hand.
“So would I Harris, so would I.” Her mother must have told him how much she missed Justin. She yawned. Lord, she was tired.
“Here, now your grace, you’d best be doin’ what your mama said and return to your bed. We’ll talk when you’re more the thing. I’ll be staying for as long as you need me.”
“Thank you Harris. I knew we could count on you.” As she made her way back to her room, Faith was too exhausted to sort her thoughts. She’d slept so long already, she didn’t see how she could be so tired, but sleep claimed her nevertheless.
Near dawn, she woke stiff and uncomfortable, and drenched in sweat. When she started to rise, pain came, ragged and breath-stealing. She gasped and stroked her distended abdomen. “Oh, Sweetheart, not while Papa’s away.”
When the walls stopped moving and the ceiling remained above her head, she rose and changed her nightgown, grateful her parents had given up their ground floor bedroom the month before. She needed to make her way to the kitchen to see if anyone was up.
Half way there, a second spasm stopped her. “Mama,” she called, clinging to a stair rail to ride out the contraction.
Her mother rushed down, belting her wrapper. “Let’s get you back into bed.”
“Send Jem for Justin, Mama.”
“Right now, Sweet. And Amanda will go for the midwife.”
Her mother bathed her face. “Relax while you can. This is going to be a long day. You took nearly fifteen hours, you wicked child, but with Lissa I barely had time to warn your father.”
“With Lissa, Papa needed warning.”
Two hours later, the local midwife, swept into the room. “I can hardly believe I’m here to deliver my baby’s baby.”
The ticking of the clock became a hated sound.
After three hours, Faith was beginning to feel as if she was sinking into a whirlpool from which there was no escape.
After six hours, Mama began to worry.
From a distance, she heard the word, “Pray.” Then she was running through a garden, grotesque thorns piercing her. She saw the cliff and knew if she wasn’t careful, she’d fall off the edge into the turbulent whirlpool below.
But it was so dark, she couldn’t see the edge. And if she fell, her baby would die with her. “Justin,” she screamed. He’d saved her in her dream. Only he could save her now. “I can’t go over the cliff, Justin, please.”
“Too much blood,” she heard.
The clock was set to mark the beginning of their child’s life, but she’d been labouring so long; when would that life begin?
“More towels.”
Someone was crying? “Mama?”
“You have to help us, Faith.” Disjointed words came through a tunnel and echoed in her head. “Blood. Too much blood.”
The pain made Faith scream fit to reach the next county.
Then she was floating above herself in the bed.
Faith’s scream jolted Harris as he crossed the yard to the house. The babe was coming. Not for the first time, he cursed Vincent Devereux and pondered revenge.
The rider careening up the drive distracted him. He’d help the family by turning the visitor away.
As the lathered horse and its brawny rider neared, Faith screamed Justin’s name in a bone-chilling outcry.
The rider leapt from his horse and Harris’s heart leapt as the ghost of his master grabbed him by the shoulders. “My God, Man, what have I done?”
Harris swooned.
“No time for a man in his cups,” Justin said as he ran inside.
At the door to their room, he stopped. So much blood.
“Get out. We have enough problems here,” a matron said. Faith was white…as death, and darkness threatened him.
“Go, Justin,” Faith’s mother said in despair. “We haven’t time to worry about you too.” She touched his arm. “Please. Go.”
Justin threw off her hand. “Like hell I will.” Kneeling, he wiped the matted hair from Faith’s face and kissed her brow. “Faith, I’m here.” But she didn’t respond.
He watched horrified as her stomach mounded. Her scream, as if she was being torn asunder, tore him as well. “Oh, Faith.”
Justin didn’t know which was worse, her screams or her silence. “Sweetheart, can you hear me? I’m here.” He saw his terror mirrored in all eyes. “She can’t hear me. She doesn’t know I’m here.”
Someone touched his shoulder. “Tell her you’ll keep her from going over the cliff.”
“What?”
“She’s been screaming about falling off a cliff for hours.”
Oh God. Oh God. “I’ll save you, Faith, and I’ll hold you so tight you’ll be safe forever.”
“We’re going to lose her,” the midwife said.
“No!” Justin turned to his mother-in-law. “God won’t take her.” But they both knew he was fooling himself.
Unable to stop his tears, Justin kissed Faith’s bloodless lips. “I’m sorry. I’m…” He swallowed. “I’m getting tears all over you.” He caressed her cheek. “Don’t be mad, all right. It’s not like…” He sobbed. “Like ice or anything.”
With the next contraction, her scream was weaker.
Faith was going to die.
Justin shouted her name loud enough to make God hear. “Faith, I need you. I’m the one who’ll be falling off the edge if you don’t come back. I love you, Faith. I love you so damned much.”
“Justin?”
Had he conjured the thready whisper? “Faith?” Desperate, demented, he wanted to shake her to bring her back. “Faith,” he sobbed with a shuddering breath. “If you love me, you’d better not leave me. Cause I’d die without you. I would.” He wiped his eyes. “Beth and I need you so much.”
Faith opened her eyes, their emerald depths rife with agony. She tried to raise her hand, failed. “Love…you,” she whispered on a long slow breath, and closed her eyes.
In stark terror, Justin turned to Cecile, his mother-in-law.
She squeezed his shoulder, but her consolation was useless; ice infused him.
“She’s still with us,” Cecile whispered.
Justin’s heart began to beat again. “Thank God,” he whispered. “Thank God.” He raised her hand. “I’m here, Faith. I’ll always be here.” He kissed her palm.
She’d brought him back, and now he needed to do the same for her. “Come home to me, my love.”
When pain gripped her again, he leaned close to murmur intimate words, love words, private and sacred.
“She must hear you, Justin,” Cecile said. “She didn’t scream that time.”
But he feared it was because she no longer felt the pain. Still certain his touch, his voice, were the only ways to reach her, he coaxed her through the next pain. And the next.
Closer and closer, her contractions came. He stroked her cheek. “Would that your pain could be mine,” he whispered.
She opened weary eyes. “Enough…of your own.” She licked her lips. “Not so bad…now you’re here.”
With the words—her voice sweet as a hundred carollers—hope surged. He dipped his finger in water and wet her lips.
She kissed it and he was humbled. “Damn my hide, I should have stayed with you.”
She smiled. “Love you…too.”
Her labour took a turn. Quick. Intense. Justin declared his love for her over and over again, not caring any longer who heard.
The midwife whispered instructions. He relayed them, urging Faith on.
“Hurts.”
“I know, love. Not much longer now. Soon we’ll have a beautiful babe.” He looked at his mother-in-law beseeching her to affirm his words. Cecile nodded, and he was so bloody grateful, he had to take deep breaths to keep from blacking out.
“Tired,” Faith whispered.
“Remember the love we shared when we created this child?”
Her smile was weak, her nod weaker.
“Bring him home now, so we can love him together.”
Her eyes, focused now on him, held a spark of life that had been missing. “I knew you’d keep me from falling off the edge. You were the only one that could, you know.”
“I know now,” he said, her hand at his lips.
“Praise be,” Cecile whispered. “She’s back with us.”
Justin coaxed Faith through another half-hour of labour. “That’s my darling, my beautiful love. Give me a babe just like you, even if she’s troublesome as Lissa.”
Cecile chuckled. So, nearly, did Faith.
At dawn, nearly twenty-four hours after Faith’s labour began, their son was brought into the world, his lusty screams filling the household with joy.
“A boy, hale and hearty,” Cecile pronounced through her tears as she placed him in his mother’s arms.
Justin couldn’t speak, but let his tears mingle with Faith’s as he kissed her.
Cecile tried to send him from the room, but he refused to go. Together they bathed Faith then he carefully, gratefully, lifted her and sat holding her while Cecile changed the bed. With the last hours haunting him, he held her as if he’d never let her go.
Faith’s eyes closed as he smoothed the hair from her face and she sighed.
“You scared me witless,” he whispered.
“You can put Faith back on the bed now, Justin.”
With her eyes, Faith implored him not to let her go. “Go and rest, Mother. I’ll put her down soon.”
Cecile hesitated.
“Please Mama,” Faith begged.
Cecile sighed. “Plain speaking, then. Faith lost too much blood. She needs to lie down, so we can raise her legs, so that baby of yours will have a Mama to take care of him.”
That got his attention. When he rose, Faith whimpered, in protest or pain, and it pierced him. He placed her gently on the bed and knelt on the floor, his arms still around her. “I’d like to name our son Brian, for your grandfather,” Justin said. “If that’s all right with you?”
Faith nodded, and though her eyes were closed, she smiled.
Cecile smiled too. “My father would be pleased.” She picked up the baby and kissed him. “We’ll leave you two alone for now, but this little fellow will be hungry soon.”
As soon as the door closed, Justin lay beside her, still holding her.
She opened her eyes. “You told me you love me.”
“So I did. And with good reason. Because I do, with every breath in me.”
“You never said it before.”
“I didn’t know what love was before.”
Justin had fallen asleep with Faith in his arms. Cecile stood by the bed holding their son. The mite sucked his fist with noisy fervour. Justin let go of Faith and rose, embarrassed to be caught sleeping with his wife.
Thinking nothing of it, Cecile handed him the blanketed being, and the little wrinkled face contorted comically before giving forth a piercing wail.
Justin grinned. “How can something so tiny make so much noise?”
Faith woke. “You look like that picture of you holding Beth.”
Cecile helped her with the new experience of feeding their son, and when Brian latched onto her nipple, she flinched.