Samantha James (40 page)

That was how Guy found her—staring in dumbfounded amazement at the puddle around her feet. Her gaze slowly lifted and she shook her head. "Guy," she began in bemusement, "I do not know—"

He had already rushed to her side. "It's the birth waters," he said urgently. "Christ, your time has come!" He bent and lifted her carefully in his arms, easing her onto the bed.

He bent over her. "When did it start?"

"I do not know," she said faintly. "I've had naught but a terrible ache in my back." But just then there was a subtle drawing and tightening of her womb. It lasted only a few seconds then was gone.

Guy, who had laid a hand on her belly, felt the tightening as well. Kathryn's wide, frightened gaze met his. Her hand lay icy-cold in his. "I'd better find Gerda," he muttered, "and fetch the midwife."

Kathryn clutched at him when he would have straightened. "Wait!" she cried feebly.

"What is it, sweet? Do you hurt again?" He smoothed a feathery tendril of black hair from her cheek.

Kathryn shook her head, unable to speak for the painful ache that swelled her throat. Guy's gentleness—his concern as he bent over her—was suddenly too much. It had been so long since he had looked at her thus... Her heart bleeding, she bit back foolish, bitter tears. She didn't want him to leave. She wanted him to reach out and wrap her hard and tight against him, for she was suddenly terrified of the ordeal ahead of her.

But pride would not let her admit to such weakness. " 'Tis nothing," she managed at last, summoning a watery smile.

He squeezed her fingers. "You'll be all right, love. Just hold tight and I'll send Gerda to you," he promised.

Gerda burst into the chamber a few minutes later, scurrying to Kathryn's side. "Milady," she cried. "My lord said that the babe is coming!"

Kathryn sat up with Gerda's assistance. "Mayhap this is a false alarm," she said with a shaky laugh. "I feel different, but I've yet to suffer any real pains."

But it wasn't long before the strange tautness spread around and gripped her middle again—and with growing intensity. Kathryn was too restless, both excited and fearful, to stay abed for long. Instead she paced the length of the chamber, catching her breath and bending slightly whenever the pain caught her unawares.

It was well past noonday when the midwife arrived, having tended to another birth in the village that morning. Elsa was a hulking woman with a thin thatch of iron-gray hair. Guy, who had chafed all morning at the delay, followed her up the stairs. But at the chamber door, she turned him away, chastising him soundly.

"Ach, my lord, a man attending the birth of a wee one?" She clucked disapprovingly. "Why, I've never heard of such a thing! You men have the stomach for battle but I'll wager there's not a man alive who has the stomach for childbirth! Wife or no, son or no, I'll not have ye gettin' in the way. No doubt it'll be hours yet since this is yer lady's firstborn. Aye, down the stairs with ye now! You'll see your son when the time is right, that I promise."

Guy glared at her, prepared to argue, yet he couldn't deny the woman undoubtedly knew far better than he. He scowled blackly, then turned away and lumbered down the stairs.

The pains were not unbearable, but by late afternoon Kathryn had retreated once again to the bed to rest when she was able. She gasped whenever her womb was seized with another spasm, constricting her muscles and holding her breath until it passed.

By the time night cast its shroud about the earth, the pain was like daggers slicing through her. Both Gerda and Elsa urged her to pant and breathe, but by then Kathryn was lost in an endless sea of agony. Buried deep in her brain was the notion that if she held it inside, it would make it easier to bear. And so she made not a sound, not a cry or even a whimper, for she did not want Guy to hear. He would be like Uncle, she decided fuzzily, he would laugh and think her cowardly and spineless. She was scarcely aware of Gerda and Elsa hovering around her, wiping her face and rubbing her belly between pains.

Below stairs in the great hall, Guy paced like a caged animal. He'd been up and down the stairs a dozen times, but Elsa's warning always clanged through his mind at the last instant, stopping him cold. He knew the dangers of childbirth. He knew there were women who did not always survive.

Kathryn was so small and fragile. The thought of anything happening to her made him break out in a cold sweat—and there was no sound from above, none at all! What was going on up there?

By the time the frigid winter moon climbed high in the sky, Guy could stand it no longer. "Blast that midwife's hide," he growled to Sir Michael. 'This is my home and I'll enter where I will!" He took the stairs two at a time and burst into the chamber with a frenzied rush.

Whatever he'd expected, it wasn't the two worried faces which swiveled to regard him. The chamber was oddly quiet. A chill ran down his spine. Four long strides took him to where his wife lay in the center of the bed. Kathryn's eyes were closed, her skin as white as the linen beneath her. Her hair was spread in dark, tangled skeins across the pillow. Guy's pulse leaped to his throat; chilling tendrils of dread clutched at his insides. She lay so still and unmoving that for the space of a heartbeat he feared she'd left this world for another.

But then she stirred. Her fists clenched at her sides. Guy noted in horror that her lower lip was raw and bleeding from biting it the way she did now. Her back bowed and her head thrashed back and forth on the pillow until abruptly all the tension—indeed, it seemed her life's breath itself—left her body.

He turned shocked eyes toward the midwife. "Christ!" he said hoarsely. "What's wrong? Why is it taking so long?"

"Milord," the woman said shakily, "the babe would have been here long since were your lady to allow nature to take its course."

Guy's face went ashen. "What do you mean?"

It was Gerda who chokingly replied. "She holds all the pain locked tight inside her." Tears ran unchecked down her face. "Milord, she has not cried out even once. . . if she were to just let go, I believe it would speed the birth along, but she does not make a sound, not even a whimper. We have tried and tried to tell her, but I do not think she hears us any longer!"

Just then another great shudder shook Kathryn's body, wrenching the breath from her. She clamped her legs together, twisting and turning until the contraction ebbed. Comprehension washed over Guy in a flash.

He dropped down beside her, grabbing her shoulders and giving her a slight shake. Her eyes fluttered open, glazed and unfocused. "Kathryn," he said firmly, "sweet, listen to me. When the pain comes, you must not tense up so, for you only make it worse. I know 'tis hard, but do not fight it. Yell. Shout. Scream if it makes it easier."

She stared at him vaguely. "Nay," she said faintly. "I cannot scream. . . I must not, for he will think me weak . .. weak and helpless... he will taunt me... that his will must ever triumph over mine..."

Numbly he realized she was talking about him. He groaned and framed her face with his hands. "Kathryn," he said raggedly, "I do not think you weak at all. You are strong and brave and fiercely proud and I would have you no other way .. . oh, sweet, I love you... do you hear me? ... I love you..."

Another contraction knotted her body. Feeling it, Guy spoke sharply. "Nay, Kathryn! Bear with it, do you hear? Do not fight it, Kathryn, do not!"

Kathryn winced, surfacing slowly through foggy layers of pain, aware of his sharpness but not his words. She opened her eyes and Guy's face swam before her, grim and unsmiling. She tried to push him away, despairing, thinking he was angry with her again. He was always angry with her—

God, she was so tired. So tired she just wanted to close her eyes and sleep forever. But within her the clawing pressure was mounting again. She wanted to cry and sob in despair, but she didn't have the strength. She sank back against the pillows, limp and only half-conscious, while the pain undulated over her, wave after wave.

Guy's face was ashen. His hands were shaking as he reached out helplessly. "Kathryn!" he ground out in sheer desperation. "You did not give in to your uncle so easily—you never give in to me! How can you give up now? Are you a coward after all?"

Somehow his words penetrated the haze in her mind. She opened her eyes in mute outrage just as another contraction seized her. This time she could not stop the anguished moan that escaped. And then suddenly the pains were coming faster, almost constant, and very, very hard. Indeed, nature seemed to have taken over her body in its task to expel the child from her womb. Kathryn did not scream or cry but she was no longer fighting it.

Gentle fingers smoothed the tangled hair from her cheek. 'That's the way, sweet. It'll be over soon, I promise. Here, take my hands and squeeze..." Kathryn was hazily aware of his presence; she clung to his soothing voice and to him, her nails digging into his palm.

From the foot of the bed Gerda gave a half-sob. "Oh, milord, milady! I can see the little one's head. I can see it!"

Elsa's frantic cry joined hers. "With the next pain you must push, milady! You must bear down and push!"

A racking pain gripped her entire body. Kathryn groaned and felt a tremendous gush from her body, and then a thin, mewling cry filled the air. Guy leaned over and kissed her lingeringly on the mouth, smiling crookedly at her dazed look when he drew away.

The thin, wavering wail from the corner had begun to gain strength and volume. It was several moments before Kathryn fully registered the import of that cry.

She raised her head from the pillow. "My baby—"

"A little girl, milady!" Gerda laughed, busy cleaning the slippery little body. "She's tiny, but, oh, she's a beauty!"

Kathryn turned her head but all she could see was swaddling being wrapped around the babe. "Let me hold her," she said weakly. Tears seeped from her eyes when she tried to sit up and failed.

Her exhaustion grabbed hold of Guy's heart. Deep mauve circles shadowed her eyes. Her skin was almost colorless. He twisted around on the bed and lifted her gently so that her back rested flush against his chest, then beckoned to Gerda.

Gerda settled the swaddled bundle into the curve of Kathryn's arm, while Guy supported them both. A deep sigh of contentment shook her body; she stared raptly at the babe, too choked up to speak, silent tears running down her cheeks. But she was smiling, a brilliant smile that sailed straight to his heart.

A powerful surge of emotion swelled his chest. But the thrill that shot through him was purely male, purely possessive. His arms tightened around his daughter and his wife—his wife...

He would never let her go, he thought fiercely... never!

And if it took him until the end of time, he would make her love him.

Chapter 19

Sunlight gilded the chamber a pale yellow-gold when Kathryn next awoke. She had slept deeply, unable to remember when she'd felt so exhausted. From across the chamber came a woeful little cry. Though she was tired and sore, Kathryn turned eagerly toward the sound, in time to see Gerda lift a tiny bundle to her shoulder.

"Ah, you're awake! And just in time, too!"

Gerda laid the babe on the foot of the bed, changing her swaddling while Kathryn propped herself on an elbow and looked on, anxiously counting ten tiny fingers and toes and breathing a sigh of relief that the child was whole and perfect. When at last Gerda laid the babe in her arms, Kathryn smiled weakly, feeling a trifle unsure of herself, suddenly both terrified and awed by the baby's tiny size. Yet when the babe was settled into the crook of her elbow, her slight weight felt perfect.

Gerda helped Kathryn ease her gown off her shoulder to offer her breast to the fretting infant. Quite by accident her nipple brushed the babe's cheek. The babe rooted frantically. Like a dainty flowering bud, the tiny little mouth opened and latched onto her nipple with a ferocity that widened her mother's eyes. "Oh, my." She laughed shakily. "It seems she knows better than I what to do."

Gerda merely chuckled and left mother and daughter alone.

Kathryn cradled her hand around the infant's head which was covered with fine dark fuzz. Love, pure and sweet, poured through her, filling her like golden shafts of sunshine. She bent her head low and pressed her lips to the softness of the babe's scalp. Tears stung her eyes, but they were tears of joy and wonder.

Near the door, a tall figure lingered. Guy stared at those two dark heads nestled so closely together, at the tiny fist curled on the swell of an ivory, blue- veined breast. A surge of emotion tore through him, so strong it rendered him powerless. For a timeless moment, he could not move.

Kathryn chanced to glance up. She colored prettily when she spied his eyes feasting boldly on her pink bareness. Sensing her shyness, Guy's hard mouth curled in a faint half-smile. But she made no move to cover herself; instead she wordlessly extended her free hand in silent invitation.

It was an invitation no sane man could resist. He took her hand and carried it to his lips. "How are you feeling?" he murmured.

Though she was still tired and her body ached, the heat of his mouth went through her like a bolt of lightning. Kathryn smiled, a willing captive of warm silver eyes. "I am fine," she whispered. The tip of her tongue crept out to moisten her lips. "What of you, milord? What do you think of your daughter?"