Kingdom Come (44 page)

No one had any idea what she was doing, least of all Kieran. Everyone was looking to him for answers but he had none to give; all he knew was that his wife possessed knowledge about medicine that he could never hope to understand. He knew he had to let her do whatever she was doing because she was trying to help his father.  He kept telling himself that.  But when she suddenly sat up on Jeffrey’s chest and brought a fist onto his sternum, hard, even he began to wonder if she’d lost her mind. She was beating the man right in front of them.

Rory began CPR, her hands folded against Jeffrey’s chest and counting out each thrust she delivered.  After four rounds of five-counted thrusts, she scrambled back over to Jeffrey’s head and blew in his mouth in the same counted fashion. The vision was growing increasingly disturbing for those who did not know what she was trying to accomplish.  Finally, Sean hissed to Kieran.

“What is she doing?” he asked.

Kieran, eyes riveted to his wife, shook his head slowly. “I do not know,” he admitted. “But whatever she is doing, you must let her complete it.”

Rory moved back and forth between chest compressions and breathing, counting everything out with even, measured strokes. No one dared offer to help. But after five rounds of the breathing and chest compressions, Marcuson finally boomed up.

“She is killing him,” he declared, turning to Kieran. “Will you let her kill your father?”

Kieran was on edge after what had happened that night. His patience was gone and he could not withstand a personal attack on Rory. He moved for the old surgeon menacingly but was intercepted by Sean. Kieran glanced at his brother’s pleading face and calmed somewhat, although he was still righteously angry.

“Another word and I will throw you from this keep,” he rumbled. “She is not killing him. She is attempting to help him.”

The old surgeon wisely kept his mouth shut but he was not convinced. He was horrified at what he saw, more distressed that the Hage brothers were allowing it to go on. He was therefore pleased when Andrew rushed up to Kieran, horror on his face.

“Stop her,” he begged. “You cannot allow her to kill father!”

Kieran could see how distressed everyone was. He was distressed, too, but because he trusted his wife, he was permitting her to continue. But these people did not know her as he did, of her amazing abilities and altruistic deeds.  His gaze moved between his brothers and Rory, who was still working furiously on their father. With a faint sigh, he finally moved towards the bed as his wife alternately blew in his father’s mouth and pushed on his chest.

“Lib?” he said hesitantly. “What are you doing? Kaleef must….”

She cut him off as she straddled Jeffrey’s chest and resumed thrusting. “He can’t work on a dead man,” she grunted as she worked. “I’m trying to get him breathing again.”

Kieran still wasn’t clear. “But what are you doing?”

“CPR,” she grunted again, turning to look at his perplexed face. “It’s called Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation. I’m trying to get his heart and lungs working again.”

She said it loud enough that nearly everyone heard her.  Then she suddenly stopped and put her ear against his chest again, listening.  Kieran leaned closer as if he could hear whatever she was listening for.  She lay there, concentrating, until a smile slowly creased her lips.  Then she put her fingers on Jeffrey’s neck, feeling for the pulse.  Satisfied, she sat up and held out a hand to Kieran, who helped her climb off his father’s chest.

“He’s breathing on his own and I can feel a pulse,” she looked at Kaleef. “Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better do it fast. His pulse is weak and his breathing shallow.”

Kaleef’s dark eyes glimmered at her and she swore she saw a flash of a smile. Perhaps in this lady, he saw someone as strange and talented as he was in the medicinal arts. He understood her where no one else could.  He moved past her, rattling off orders to Yusef and Marcuson. The men went to work on Jeffrey as the rest of the room seemed fixated on Rory. She noticed that everyone was staring at her as if she has just resurrected a corpse. But she realized that, to them, she had.  She had just accomplished something very strange and very wonderful. Andrew was suddenly beside her.

“You…,” he had an incredulous expression on his face. “You brought him back to life.”

She shook her head. “Nothing so amazing,” she said. “It’s a simple technique, really. It’s not magic, I promise.”

Andrew wasn’t convinced. “But he was dead,” he insisted strongly. “He was not breathing and you gave him life again.”

Rory was growing the slightest bit uncomfortable; she didn’t like the implications.  She didn’t want people to think she was a witch. “Trust me, he wasn’t dead,” she replied. “He was still very much alive. I just helped him to start breathing again. Sometimes great trauma to the body can shock it and… well, believe me, he wasn’t dead. He was very much alive.”

“She works miracles,” Sean said, his dark eyes glittering with renewed respect. “My brother has married a most amazing woman and I, for one, am very grateful. Thank you for your skill, Lady Hage.”

She smiled thankfully at Sean’s gracious statement; it didn’t make her sound like she had the powers of darkness over life and death.  Looking over her shoulder, she could see that Kaleef seemed to have enough help with Jeffrey. She didn’t really think she could help him through Medieval surgery, anyway. The mere thought made her queasy.  She turned back to her husband.

“I am really exhausted,” she said softly, pressing her weary body against him. “I would love it if I could just go to bed now.”

Kieran put his powerful arm around her shoulders and, without another word, whisked her from the room.  Those left behind were still attempting to process the amazing skills of Kieran’s very strange and beautiful new wife.  But for Sean, Christian and Andrew, a serious respect for the woman began to bloom.  As far as they were concerned, she had brought their father back to life.

Maybe she really was as wonderful as Kieran said.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The night that Jeffrey had been injured, Rory had gone to bed and slept for almost a day.  Kieran had kept everyone away from their bedchamber, including asking Sean to move Margaret and Eleanor to another floor, so that Rory wouldn’t be disturbed. She was exhausted and pregnant and he wanted to make sure she had all the rest she needed.   The entire trip had been exhausting her and he was anxious for her to recover and to settle in to some semblance of normalcy.

Jeffrey, surprisingly, survived his surgery and they moved him into Sean and Margaret’s room while Sean and Margaret took his room on the third floor. The fourth floor of Southwell’s keep had become the infirmary, a floor where no one was allowed to speak in tones over a whisper.  The servants had taken to wearing something that looked like socks on their feet so they wouldn’t make noise as they went about their duties. Kieran, even though he was settling in to life returned to Southwell, still managed to check on his wife every hour just to make sure she was all right.  To help ease his mind, Margaret offered to sit with her, an offer he gratefully accepted.

As far as Simon was concerned, they had left his body in the great hall until the early morning hours. The prince had long since left, leaving four dead men and Simon behind. He made no move to claim them.  So very early on the morning after Jeffrey’s injury, Kieran, Sean, Christian and Andrew entered the great hall to clean up the mess from the fight.  With the dead bodies inside, the servants wouldn’t go near the hall.  With help from several of their soldiers, they cleared out the bodies and took them into town to the massive cathedral, Southwell Minster, for burial.  Kieran left Simon’s body with the priests and never looked back. He was finished with the man and the chaos he had created. Although they had a friendship that went back to when they were children, he couldn’t even mourn the loss of a friend. That friend he knew, once, had died years ago. The man he left at Southwell Minster was someone he didn’t know.

So he pushed it all behind him; the murder attempt, the assassins, the turmoil in the holy land.  When Simon died, it all died with him.

Nearing the evening of the second day since his return, Kieran was on the grounds with Sean, Christian and Andrew, walking the vast area of Southwell and making note of any changes that had occurred since he had left.  He walked with his brothers, talking and laughing, being followed closely by Bud, David and Yusef.  Yusef was getting quite an education on English fortresses and they were not surprise to note he had a great deal of architectural knowledge, which he discussed very intelligently.  Yusef was polite and flexible, and the Hage brothers were starting to warm to a man they had once considered their enemy.  They were coming to understand why Kieran held him in such high regard.

As Kieran strolled the walls of his ancestral home, he felt an amazing amount of peace and contentment. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed England and his family, and he couldn’t help but remember how close he came to not seeing this place again.  He would have thought that the fantastic path he had taken to return to England would have been a dream except for the fact that Rory was with him.   She was the reason he was back, the entire reason for his existence. He loved her more, worshipped her more, with each passing moment. Even as he walked the parapets of Southwell with his beloved brothers, his heart and mind was up in the room on the fourth floor of the keep with his wife. He kept glancing up to the keep as if to see her through the very walls.

As the sun was setting, Yusef brought up the subject of the Arabians Kieran had shipped home from the Holy Land.  That set off a cavalcade of the praise regarding the stud qualities of the two Arabian stallions that had survived the trip home.  Yusef very much wanted to see the horses; Christian and Andrew were more than eager to show him.  Kieran and Sean remained on the walls as Christian, Andrew, Yusef and little David went to see the horses.  Bud, fascinated by the soldiers walking their patrol with the big, skinny dogs, remained on the wall and followed one of the soldiers as he went about his watch.

Kieran and Sean watched the child follow the man and his dog along the wall walk.  Sean’s gaze eventually moved from the boy to his brother, who was still watching the lad in the distance.  He studied his brother a moment, a man he had missed terribly over the past three years.  But as he gazed at him, he realized that something was different about the man. He’d noticed it from the start. He wasn’t sure what it was, but there was a definitive difference.

“You have changed,” he said quietly, watching as Kieran turned to look at him. He smiled faintly. “I do not know how, but somewhere, somehow, you have changed, brother.”

Kieran lifted an eyebrow, returning his brother’s smile. “Three years in The Levant is enough to change any man.”

Sean shook his head. “It is not that,” he grasped for words, leaning back against the battlement behind him. “There is something else. I am not sure what it is, but I believe it has something to do with your wife.”

Kieran’s smile faded. “What do you mean?”

Sean cocked his head, his smile fading completely.  It was clear there was much on his mind. “Where did you meet her?”

Kieran was prepared for the question. “Her brother was my friend. Upon his deathbed, he asked that I take care of his sister. Unable to deny a dying man, I agreed to marry her.”

Sean stared at him, hard. “If I were an idiot, I would believe that. But I am not; I know you too well, brother. No dying man on earth could have convinced the brother I knew to agree to a marriage.  There is something you are not telling me about your very odd yet beautiful wife, Kieran; she behaves in ways I have never seen and she knows things that no earthly person should know. I am hurt that you do not trust me enough to tell me the truth about her.”