Starlight & Promises (51 page)

When Steven slumped to the floor, Christian turned to his wife. He had badly misjudged the focus of Samantha’s attention. Rolling onto her side, she writhed in pain. He ran to her, ripped off her gag, and loosened her bonds.

She squeezed her eyes closed and bit down on her lower lip. Veins stood out on her forehead.

“Sam,” he said, his hands shaking, “did he harm you? What did he do? Are you hurting? Where do you hurt?”

Her rigid body at last relaxed. “Of course I hurt, you witless ass,” she gasped. “I’m having a baby.”

His arm behind her back, he eased her up to sit and lean against him. The coil of tension twisting his innards slowly eased. A grin wobbled on his mouth. “I know you’re having a baby, sweetheart. You’re having our baby. And I agree with your evaluation. I’m an ass. I love you so profoundly. I’ll never be able to tell you how much I regret my insensitive behavior. Can you ever forgive me?”

She sucked in a pain-whistled breath between her teeth. “Not now, you lackwit. You fail to understand. This is hardly the time or place for an involved discussion. I’m having a baby
right now!
”

He jerked back as though she’d slapped a red-hot iron on his hide. “Now?” he repeated.

She threw him an exasperated look.
“Now!
”

He started to rise. “I’ll fetch you to the carriage. Within thirty minutes, we’ll be at Dr. Finney’s home.”

Her head whipped back and forth. “I suspect this babe will not grant me thirty minutes. ‘Tis coming right now!” With those words, her water broke, and clear birth fluid gushed out from under her skirts.

“My Lord,” he whispered. “You’re having a baby.”

“God save me from bird-witted men,” she groaned.

He ceased breathing and glanced at the door, praying Cullen and help would miraculously appear. Despite his wishes, they remained alone in the warehouse except for the unconscious Steven and the bats stirring in the rafters. A glacial shroud settled over him. “I can do this,” Christian mumbled. “I’m familiar with all the parts and how they work, theoretically. I think I read a paper about it somewhere … sometime. I’ve brought foals into the world. How much difference can there be?”

Samantha writhed beneath a massive contraction catching her in its clutches.

He first helped her into the illumination coming from a hole in the roof. He would need light for what he was about to do. Tearing off his coat, he rolled it and slipped it under her head, laying her back on the floor. After loosening her bodice, he unhooked her skirt at the waist, then reached beneath the skirt and stripped off her soaked petticoats and drawers.

“I trust you know what you are about,” Samantha said when the contraction subsided.

He hoped his smile looked more confident than macabre. “Don’t worry, tigrina. I’m a scientist. Catching babies cannot be any more complicated than catching wild cats.”

Her chuckle unraveled into a scream when she bore down on the next pain. He pushed her knees up and her legs apart and knelt between them. Shoving her dress to her thighs, he made a bundle of the driest petticoats and padded the floor beneath her heaving body. She arched her back, contractions tearing through her, fingers scrabbling at the boards. Her screams shredded his nerves and composure like confetti, though he suspected she might be having a worse time of it than he. She proved him right. In between contractions, she cursed him to the devil while he wiped her brow with the handkerchief Steven had used for a gag. Though he was the singular object of her vitriolic words, he could not help but marvel at the creativity of her invective. When her body stiffened again, he gripped her hand and helped her through the pain.

After a lengthy time, minutes crawling by like snails, she panted weakly, “I’m sorry, Chris, but I cannot do this anymore.”

“Yes, you can,” he said, voice trembling, smile smoothing the worried furrows from his brow. The head of the infant was crowning between her thighs. “You’re the strongest woman I know. It’s nearly over. When the next pain comes, I want you to push as fiercely as you can.”

“I cannot,” she whispered.

“You can and will. That is an order. If you’ll recall, we have a contract.”

“I do not believe I read that clause,” she grated out, her back bowing with another contraction.

“Now push!” he yelled.

She panted through her open mouth, features screwing up as she pushed. The baby’s head cleared the birth canal. With her next hard push and an earsplitting scream, the shoulders popped free, and Christian’s child slid into his waiting hands.

Pulse throbbing in his throat, he gazed down on the miracle he held. A daughter. Fuzzy, wet, butterscotch hair curled around the top of her head. Her eyes scrunched shut, and her rosy mouth puckered into a wail that pierced his eardrums. His heart melted like a candle, his grin spreading from ear to ear.

He laid the squalling infant on her mother’s belly. “We have a daughter, Sam. She seems to have your disposition.”

Samantha lifted her eyes to his, her face wet with tears and a tremulous smile on her lips.

His grin widened. “Thank God she has my good looks,” he added.

The door behind him opened, and he pulled down Samantha’s skirt to preserve her modesty, then glanced over his shoulder at two policemen, Cullen, and Dr. Finney entering the warehouse. The policemen took care of Steven, who was coming around, while Dr. Finney and Cullen crowded near Samantha and Christian.

The doctor sent Christian a chagrined smile. “It appears you two performed my job for me.” He canted his head toward Cullen. “Why don’t you take the lad outside while I finish up here?”

Christian and Cullen followed the police and Steven to the street. Soon Dr. Finney called Christian back in. Christian lifted Samantha and his new daughter into his arms and carried them to the carriage, the beaming doctor filing behind.

An uncharted island in the Furneaux Group off the coast of Tasmania

W
ind from the Tasman Sea sifted through her long tresses and tossed them about. Samantha raised a hand to brush the hair back from her face and tuck it behind her ears. The island spread out before her from the promontory on which she stood. For want of a better name, they called it Cat Island. Sandy hills undulated to a sparsely populated scrubland below her. Small orange and blue lizards scurried across the sand. An albatross with a six-foot wingspan circled on the air currents high above. Closer to the water, blue-footed boobies attempted a landing on the beach. Graceful in the air, they were ungainly on land. They touched ground, tumbling head over heels, spewing up sand and drawing a delighted giggle from the small person beside her.

A tiny but insistent hand tugged on her skirt. Samantha looked down.

“Look, Mummy,” a young voice piped up in a high, clear tone. Five-year-old Adrianna clung to her mother’s skirt and pointed to the left side of a nearby hill. “Look. Papa has put the kitty to sleep.” Her young face, suffused with excitement, turned up to meet her mother’s gaze. Adrianna’s eyes were like her father’s, a deep emerald green, though she had inherited her mother’s butterscotch hair. The child danced in place, unable to keep her short legs still. Narcissus, the iguana, in a harness and leash attached to the girl’s wrist, danced, too. “Please may we go see? Maybe it’s a girl kitty.”

The tugging on her skirt became more urgent. Samantha shaded her eyes with a hand and concentrated on the activity below her. Christian got to his feet and waved, signaling that he had sedated the cat and it was safe to join them. Samantha looked down on her daughter with a fond smile. “Very well, poppin, you may go down.” She got out only the first few words before the child and attached iguana shot forth as though propelled from a cannon. “Remember to speak quietly,” she called out. “When the cat is sleeping, loud noises disturb him.”

Adrianna ran down the hill and threw an impatient look, one reserved only for silly parents, over her shoulder. “I know, Mummy. Papa already told me. He said I’m nearly as good a scientist as he.”

Samantha couldn’t hold back a grin. Adrianna’s enthusiasm for science seemed boundless. At five, she already knew her letters and numbers and could read and write. However, much to her father’s dismay, she had the same unfortunate propensity as her mother to challenge authority and sidestep orders.

Samantha adjusted the carrier on her back, which held the newest member of the Badia family, nine-month-old Richard, and strolled down the hill toward the group. Adrianna and Narcissus had already joined them. A mountain of golden fur lay on the ground, surrounded by the team. Due to the delicate nature of the expedition, they had restricted the company to friends and family.

Garrett, now twenty-six and very much a man, stood beside Christian. This would be Garrett’s last expedition. He was talking about getting out on his own. The war of freedom in Cuba called to him, and he had a burning desire for new adventures.

At eighteen, Cullen had grown into a tall, lanky young man who caught the eye of many a young maid around Boston. His wild black hair was now dressed into a queue like Christian’s, and his dark blue eyes had a brooding quality that made the girls sigh. He still worshipped Christian, but independence, youthful rebellion, and a passion to race horses had begun to surface.

Jasper’s bare black torso gleamed with sweat in the sunlight after the exertion of raising the cat from the pit. The shark-tooth earring still swung from his ear. His white teeth flashed when he grinned down at Adrianna, and his large, dark hand reached out to smooth her windblown hair.

Pettibone had also stripped off his shirt, and ropy muscles defined his arms and chest. He wore a straw hat to protect his bald dome from the harsh sun.

Chloe, dressed in breeches and a shirt with her hair pulled up under a battered hat, had surprisingly turned into a fine field scientist. She knelt on the sandy ground beside the cat and called out measurements that Adrianna dutifully entered into a dog-eared notebook.

Only Aunt Delia was absent from the company. She had passed away the previous year when an influenza epidemic swept through Boston.

Samantha joined the others, and Christian looked up from where he knelt beside the cat’s head. The smile spreading across his face warmed her to her bones. “Is it a female?” she asked hopefully.

He shook his head. “Another male.” His gaze returned to the cat, a frown crimping his mouth.

Samantha’s thoughts mirrored his. This animal was the seventh cat they had caught in a pit trap. Dug eight feet into the soft earth, baited with meat, and covered with tree limbs, the pits had proved successful in trapping the animals. As the uninhabited island’s largest predators, indeed one of its only predators, the Smilodons had no fear of humans or their scent, and the bait drew them like blossoms to sunshine. After catching a cat, Christian sedated it with a weak solution of a substance he had obtained from natives in the South American rain forest on one of his expeditions. It came from the skin glands of small frogs. Once the team examined, measured, and marked the cat by notching one ear, Christian then released it back into the island’s interior.

Unfortunately, they had trapped only males to this point.

After inspecting the cat’s teeth for age and wear, Christian straightened and hooked an arm around Samantha’s waist.

“Where are the females?” she asked more to herself than to Christian.

“I wish I knew.” A deep crease marred his forehead. “It makes no sense. Four of the males were young adults, and the island’s size limits the number of predators it can support. I wouldn’t expect us to find more than two or three more cats. They must be the females.”

Other wildlife on the island was scarce. From observation, they learned that the cats preyed almost exclusively on seabirds that nested along cliffs on the eastern coast and seals that bred among rocky pinnacles amidst the beaches.

“Perhaps they died,” Samantha said.

“Perhaps. They could have contracted a disease fatal only to females. However, I doubt that. In general, diseases pass only from animal to animal and are species specific. With no influx of new animals, where did the disease originate? Then again, the female, being the warier of the species, could simply be more difficult to trap.” His arm tightened on her waist, and he looked down at her. Her nerves sang. After six years of marriage and two children, he could still thrill her with a look promising later delights.

Two weeks and three additional male cats later, they discussed their findings around the campfire. Samantha listened for a while and finally said, “Christian, if no females remain to breed, when these males die, the species will truly become extinct, will it not?”

“I fear so,” he said glumly. “In the last few days, we’ve trapped only marked animals caught at least once before. I daresay we’ve examined the majority, if not all, of the population.”

Much later, when Adrianna and baby Richard had fallen asleep, Christian and Samantha curled up together on their pallet on the other side of the tent. She crawled on top of him and worked on the buttons of his shirt.