Island of the Swans (49 page)

His fists relaxed by his sides and he shook his head in a melancholy way. “Jenny, darling,” he said gently, taking her hands in his and raising them to his lips. “If either of us is to have any happiness in this life at all… we must give all this up…”

Jane stared at him, cut to the quick.

“’Tis the only choice we have.” A look of searing pain passed across his features as he gazed into her eyes. “Truly, pet,” he said, releasing her hands, “I’ve thought of nothing else these past months… and seeing you and Alex side-by-side with the bairns…” He turned away from her, his shoulders slumped in defeat. “Too many others are likely to have their hearts broken like ours surely are if we persist in this obsession. We must give it up…” he repeated, his voice cracking with emotion. “’Tis what I must do. ’Tis what I
shall
do.”

Give it up!

He’d said it like a litany he was attempting to commit to memory.

“Then
do so
!” she cried. “But I—I cannot just
stop
loving you—though, as God is my witness, I wish I
could
!”

Jane spun blindly around on her heel and made a headlong dash for the door. By the time she arrived back at her room in the original wing of the castle, she was doubled over and retching, holding her pale lavender skirts to her lips.

Two hours later, Alex returned from the festivities downstairs and found his wife splayed on the floor near their bed, huddled over the chamber pot, losing the last of the elegant meal they’d served to the departing officers of the 71st Fraser Highlanders.

“My poor darling,” he said. To Jane, his sympathetic words sounded hollow. Obviously, he hadn’t the slightest idea of what it felt like to long for death.

Jane’s eyes followed Alex listlessly as he reached for a linen towel and dipped it in cool water from the pitcher on a small table near the velvet-curtained window. He wiped the sour taste from her lips and patted dry the beads of clammy perspiration from her forehead, lifting her gently to the bed. Then he stripped her of her gown and undergarments. His hands lingered a moment on the soft mound of her belly. She closed her eyes to blot out the gesture from her sight. Soon she heard him removing his own clothing. She waited apprehensively as she felt his body slipping next to hers between the linen bed clothes.

A heavy cloak of misery settled over Jane as Alex gently gathered her in his arms. The room was filled with silence. His body relaxed against hers and he sighed. Slowly he stroked her hair and whispered, “Sleep… just sleep, my dear. By morning, he’ll be gone and all will be well.”

The wheels of the small trap skimmed over the golden leaves lying in dusty profusion along the gated entrance to the castle grounds. The Duke of Gordon himself waited by the heavy oaken door as Nancy Christie emerged from the carriage looking distraught.

“Where’s Dr. Ogilvy?” demanded Alex to Jane’s maid.

“I found him in his room at the Gordon Arms,” Nancy explained nervously. “The publican said he’d made quite a night o’ it, sir. I found a pitcher of heather ale next to his bed drained to the dregs, and nothing I could do seemed to rouse ’im!”

“Blast the bastard!” the duke swore swiftly. “I’ll have him horsewhipped!”

“How goes Her Grace?” Nancy asked timidly as the two of them hurried up the wide oak staircase toward Jane’s bedchamber.

“Poorly,” the duke answered cryptically. “The duchess appears to be in great distress, but the midwife claims there’s no sign of the bairn.”

What he neglected to add was that the morning’s sequence of events had seemed hauntingly familiar to Alex: Bathia Largue had endured an excruciatingly difficult delivery like this. And then she died.

Slowly Alex opened the door to Jane’s bedchamber. His wife, pale and perspiring, gripped the bed’s mahogany newel post and uttered a low, guttural moan that rose to an agonized shriek. Drucilla Perkins, a plump matron of about fifty-five, stepped forward to speak to the duke.

“She’s been laboring since cock’s crow,” whispered the midwife, “with still nary a bit o’ progress to show for it. The pains are farther apart now than they were when I was first called. ’Tis a puzzle, it is… not like the duchess’s other bairns a’tall.” She shook her head and sighed. “The bairn’s head is down… and that’s a good sign,” she added hopefully, “but I suspect the wee thing is facing the wrong direction, banging the back of its head against the duchess’s spine. That’s why the labor is so slow and the pain so intense.”

Alex clasped Jane’s clammy hand in his own and gently kissed her forehead. She stiffened at his touch. In the past nine months an emotional desert had existed between them, but now all he could think of was that Jane might die.

“Where’s Dr. Ogilvy?” Jane gasped between pains. When Alex didn’t answer immediately, Jane smiled grimly. “The drunken sot!”

The fingers of her free hand began to pluck at the coverlet shielding the enormous bulge that was her unborn child. Her body suddenly grew rigid and she began to whimper.

“Sir, perhaps ’twould be better—” the midwife began tentatively.

“Leave us
alone
!” the duke growled. “Fetch your mistress some cool water, and be quick about it!”

As Perkins and Nancy Christie retreated quickly from the room, Jane’s moans crescendoed into primordial wails of an animal suffering excruciating pain.

“Hold on to me, dearheart,” he whispered fiercely into her ear as her fingers dug into his arm. “Try to breathe… that’s it…
breathe
!”

Jane’s ragged sobs slowly evened out as the wave of pain receded.

“My b-back… my back is on fire!” Jane gasped when she could finally speak.

“Can you roll on your side?” Alex asked. “Let’s try…” With great effort, Jane shifted her body to the left while Alex pulled away the bed linen. “How does that feel?” he inquired, rhythmically kneading the small of her back.

“Oh, God… ’tis good… oh…” Her hoarse whisper faded and he felt the muscles beneath his fingers release some of their tension. He sat on the bed in silence for five or ten minutes, continuing to massage the area on either side of her spine.

“Alex?”

He was startled to hear her call his name.

“Yes, Jane?”

“There’s no more pain.”

“I’m glad.”

“But ’tis not natural. Something’s happened. Where’s Perkins?”

“Here I be, ma’am,” said the midwife, entering the room. “I’ve brought you some nice cool water.”

“The duchess feels no more pain,” Alex said abruptly.

“Aye?” frowned the old matron. “I think Her Grace should try to stand up… or at least sit… the weight of the bairn itself might encourage her labors…”

“Do you think you could do that, Jane?” Alex said. “Do you think you could sit on the edge of the bed if we helped you?”

“And walk a wee bit, if you can,” the midwife said emphatically. “If that bairn’s head is pressing on your ladyship’s back bone, we must get it to push past it on its own.”

With supreme effort, Jane raised herself on her elbows while Alex and Perkins flanked her. Together they helped her to sit up, and, when her dizziness had passed, they each took her by an arm and raised her to her feet.

“Shall we try to walk?” Alex said, masking his own concern with a smile. “Where would you like to go, m’lady?”

“Anywhere, if ’twill finish this…”

Slowly they walked down the long, gloomy corridor, back and forth, for more than an hour. Occasionally, Jane would be gripped by a mild contraction of her uterine muscles. She leaned against the corridor walls till it passed.

“Are you tired, your Grace?” the midwife asked anxiously.

“Yes… but let’s keep walking… I want to—”

Suddenly, Jane doubled over with a gasp.

“Oh, my God!” she hissed between clenched teeth. “Now
that
feels like the pain I remember!”

“We should get her back to her room!” Alex said to the midwife, unable to conceal his concern. He held on tightly to Jane’s arm as his wife sagged against the wall, shuddering.

“I’d like to sit in that big chair,” Jane said tiredly, when they’d returned to her bedchamber. “Just for a while, at least. It feels so much better than when I’m on my back in bed.”

Alex looked questioningly at the midwife. Despite the fact that this was their fifth child, in the past he had felt decorum dictated he remain in his study, awaiting word that Jane’s ordeal was over. This time, however, he felt that he, too, was becoming the parent of a new baby. He found he quite liked the prospect, though he felt like an untutored schoolboy as far as the practical side of childbirth was concerned.

“When your ladyship feels you must push—begging your pardon, sir—” Perkins glanced at the duke with some embarrassment, “then you should return to your bed.”

Jane winced as another contraction swept through her body. This time, though, she held tight to Alex’s hand. Her face glistened with perspiration as her labor intensified. Suddenly her cry startled them both.

“Oh my God, Alex! ’Tis coming! Oh, God!”

The duke and the midwife quickly lifted her onto the bed, propping up her back with every pillow in the room.

“If your Grace would hold her shoulders,” Perkins ordered briskly, casting Jane’s nightdress unceremoniously above her knees. “When I nod to you, tell her ladyship to push ”

There was only a moment of silence before the midwife dipped her head emphatically.

“Push, darling!” Alex said, his arms around Jane. “That’s a good lass…
push
!”

As Jane bore down with all her might, a kaleidoscope of images flashed through Alex’s brain. He remembered the little girl riding so jauntily aboard the pig down Edinburgh’s High Street. He thought of how exquisite Jane had looked as a seventeen-year-old in her white satin gown the night she had saved him from the riotous mob at the Canongate Playhouse. A vision of her smiling happily at him as they danced down the line of guests at their wedding melded with the memory of her frozen countenance when he had abandoned her in the guest bedchamber at Culloden House. And now, the result of that passion and pain was about to be born. If anything should happen to Jane or the babe now, because of his unforgivable behavior nine months ago.…

The midwife furiously bobbed her head up and down.

“Push… push
hard
, darling!” Alex urged his wife, an icy fear gripping him as he felt Jane’s body become as rigid as his ceremonial steel sword.

Jane’s cries rent his heart, but he exhorted her to bear down each time Perkins shook her head in their direction.

“Please, Jane… try, darling… I love you, darling.… I’m here…
please
try!” he murmured incoherently.

Jane emitted one, bloodcurdling scream and appeared to faint.

“’Tis come, your Grace,” the midwife announced triumphantly. “And a fine Scottish bairn she is, with her copper tresses!”

“’Tis a lass, Jane,” Alex said excitedly as the midwife held the squirming, bawling baby up for his inspection. “And she’s kicking her arms and legs in all directions!”

The infant’s tiny nose was flattened somewhat from the difficult journey she had taken into the world, and her auburn hair, still damp from birth fluids, glistened orangey gold in the afternoon sun that streamed through the window. Jane’s eyes fluttered open at the sound of his voice.

“Another girl,” she sighed exhaustedly. “Are you pleased, though, Alex?”

The newborn’s cries faded to soft cooing sounds and then profound silence filled the room.

“Alex?” Jane repeated. “Is she all right? There’s nothing—”

“She’s fine,” he replied, attempting to steady his voice as he continued to stare at the baby’s arresting pumpkin-colored locks. He forced himself to shift his gaze to his wife’s chestnut hair, a shade darker than his own, which lay tangled on the pillow. As shafts of autumn sun singed her curls, he wondered if his wife’s hair didn’t seem of a more reddish cast than ever he had noticed.

He knew, though, he was grasping at straws.

The midwife had tied off the cord and cut it. She swaddled the child in clean linen with lightning speed.

“What shall we call her?” Jane asked sleepily.

Alex didn’t answer because his mind was utterly blank.