Leigh, Tamara (32 page)

Gabriel did as told, aching for the discomfort he caused Juliana.

"Now pillows at her back." Having cleaned her hands up to her forearms, the old woman parted Juliana's quaking thighs and bent between them. A long minute passed ere she straightened. "The head is there and my lady is near full open." She raised four gnarled fingers to show measure. "God willing, 'twill not be long now. Lissant, go into my bag and bring out the oil for your lord."

Lissant unstoppered the vial and passed it to Gabriel. It was pressed of violets, its sweet perfume an unexpected balm to his emotions.

"Rub it into her abdomen and hips—with vigor," the midwife said.

No sooner did he do so than Juliana cried out and put her nails into his flesh.

"And my lord..." The old woman paused.

His breath coming hard as if he exerted himself, he looked to eyes that peered at him above Juliana's belly.

"Aye?"

"Pray."

He did—with more fervor than ever he had. Lord, forgive him his sins, for Acre, for his tourneying, for his rejection of religion, most especially for his revenge upon Juliana.

She arched, threw her arms out, and gripped the coverlet on either side of her.

Gabriel slammed his gaze to the midwife's bowed head. "Can you do naught for her pain?"

Exasperation put sparkle in her aged eyes. "Henbane would ease her labor, my lord, but if I am to give a live babe into your arms, I shall need her help in pushing it forth."

A whimper parted Juliana's dry lips.

Gabriel bent and cupped her face between his hands. "I am here, Juliana. Hold to me."

She opened her eyes and searched his face. "Always... I shall," she whispered through chattering teeth.

Pain lanced Gabriel's breast, spilled something from him that he had too long denied. But before he could embrace it, Juliana gasped and threw her head back.

"I die! Surely I die!"

"Nay!" He shook her. "You do not! Now hold to me and 'twill soon be done—I swear it."

Breath shallow, she lowered her chin and searched his gaze, then reached up and gripped his shoulders. "Our son... is he... ?"

Their son. He pressed his lips to her brow. "He is well."

A scant smile touched her face, but in the next instant it was supplanted by yet more suffering.

"My lord?"

Gabriel looked to the midwife. "Aye?"

"Must I choose between mother and child, who would you have me spare?"

Gabriel felt as if run through with a sword, and nearly roared his pain and anger that it be spoken that Juliana might hear.

"My lord, I must know."

"Spare her," he said in a growl. "Spare Juliana." She returned to the birthing. "Nay," Juliana panted, "the babe." Gabriel looked into her weary eyes and shook his head. "For naught will I lose you. Naught!" "He is your heir. He—"

"He I do not yet love." He rushed the words to her before he could examine them.

Her lids lifted further. "Love?" That single word was more beautiful on her breath than ever he had heard it spoken.

He loosed his vised jaws and nodded. "Aye, love."

She closed her eyes as if to savor what he'd bared, for one moment looked serene, then sucked air.

"Push, child," the midwife commanded. "Now!"

Clutching Gabriel as if he were all there was in the world, Juliana obeyed with a strength he had not known she possessed. And a dozen times more. The setting sun cast its last rays through the open windows when the babe slid slippery and wailing from her womb.

"God has given you a son, my lord," the midwife said, "and he looks to be of good health." She cut the cord, tied it, then motioned Lissant forward.

A blanket over her arms, Lissant stepped to the old woman's side and the two swathed the babe.

"You are a father, my lord." A smile put a glimmer of extinguished youth to the old woman's face as she lifted the bundled infant for Gabriel to see.

He stared at the little one who continued to fill the room with his cries. A father. His son? But the old woman said he was of good health when a child born three weeks early—

"I would hold him," Juliana croaked.

Gabriel looked at where her head rested in the curve of his arm. Never had one looked so weary, yet so beautiful.

"You are not done, my lady," the midwife said. "There is still the afterbirth."

"I shall hold him."

"Your son must needs be bathed, his palate rubbed with honey and—"

"Bring him to me!"

The old woman looked to Gabriel.

He nodded.

She snorted, but passed the babe to Lissant. "For a moment only."

As if the howling child were poured of the most fragile glass, Lissant bore him the scant distance to his mother. "Your son, my lady." She eased the bundle into the crook of Juliana's arm.

Juliana stared, so still he was certain she had stopped breathing. Then she smiled. "Oh," she crooned, and touched the babe's brow, nose, and lips. As if her touch were enchanted, he quieted. Juliana looked up, something very different about the eyes she laid to Gabriel. They were deeper, warmer. "Our son," she said softly as if to a beloved husband. "Ours, Gabriel."

He longed for it to be so, but it did not seem likely. Still, he reached forward and touched the tiny fist that rooted past the swaddling. It was soft. His heart leaped, but the midwife's impatience stole the moment.

"My lady, you must bear down one last time." She gestured for Lissant to take the babe. "Your maid shall tend him that he might return to your arms when the birthing is done."

Juliana's reluctance was as a great weight upon Gabriel, but she deferred to Lissant.

It took more than the midwife's "one last time" to expel the afterbirth, but finally it was done. A short while later, Juliana sank into a deep sleep, the babe suckling at her full breast.

Gabriel sat silent beside her, captivated by the sight. How had he believed he could take a child from its mother? His son or not, they belonged together. And when Bernart came? Finally he let himself go to that place he'd eschewed throughout Juliana's labor, and was torn by it.

"You would hold your son, my lord?"

He pulled his gaze to the midwife, who had come to stand beside his chair, entertained how like a witch she looked with torchlight flicking her sharp nose and chin, lighting her brittle gray hair. He had thought the same when she'd dressed his scored ribs a short while ago.

"He lies awake," she prompted.

Gabriel looked to the babe whose cheek was pressed to Juliana's breast and found his gray gaze upon him. Or was it? It was as if it went through him. "How fares Lady Juliana?" he asked, as he'd asked a dozen times since the delivery.

"Not as poorly as I believed she would, but come the dawn we will know better." Then, as if to reassure, "She is a strong one, my lord, and will likely bear you many more."

More children...

The midwife turned again to the babe. "He has the look of his mother—and you, my lord."

Gabriel sharpened his gaze on the old woman, then the child. Aye, hair like Juliana's, brown warmed through with red, but no other resemblance did Gabriel see—not even to Bernart.

He looked around the room. The women servants having withdrawn, Lissant was the only other occupant. She dozed in a chair near the brazier.

"The child was born early?" he asked the midwife.

Her eyes narrowed as if she considered her answer with care. It could not be the first time she'd been asked to assure a father a newborn babe was his get. "Mayhap. Though he is healthy and of good weight and length, he is somewhat small to be bom of a man your size."

Bernart was not as tall or broad... "If early, how many weeks?"

Her brow rippled like puddled rain. "I cannot say, my lord."

"And if he had remained in the womb a fortnight or more?"

She pursed her lips, then gruffly conceded, "He could not have passed. But your lady is small. Sending the babe early is oft God's way of preserving mother and child." She broke gaze with him. "Now hold your son, my lord."

Bernart's son. The child had to be.
That
Gabriel's recently confessed love for Juliana could not overcome. Such unutterable pain, not only for his loss of the child and, thus, Juliana, but for his needless revenge—the pain he had caused her, Alaiz, and now Blase. He shook his head. "The child is content where he lies."

She heaved a sigh. "You are certain?"

He looked longingly at the infant. "Nay, I am not."

The midwife leaned near him and spoke so softly her old voice revealed a bit of the woman she must have been thirty years past. "All know 'tis good for a father to hold his child soon after birth—especially a son."

But he was not Bernart. "Aye"—he met her gaze—"I would wish it for him, but 'tis not for me to do."

Weariness settled deeper into her face, aged her beyond her years. "As you will, my lord." She turned away and hobbled toward the straw pallet the women servants had placed near the hearth for her. "I pray you shall not regret it."

Already he did. Since he had learned Juliana was with child he'd believed the babe to be of his seed, and in that belief had been made a father. He closed his eyes, finally granting admittance to that skulking in the back of his mind: he'd wanted this child for more than revenge, wanted it nearly as much as he wanted Juliana. Now there was naught to hold either to him.

He looked to Juliana. Though she was spent from labor, there was a radiance about her that made him touch her cheek, then the slightly turned corner of her mouth. This day she was changed. No longer was she simply a woman. She was a mother. Regardless whether or not she outlived her offspring, she would be a mother to the grave.

It was not so with fathers, as Gabriel knew well from his own sire's rejection of him nine years past. Lacking the certainty of parentage granted to women through the womb, it was easy for a man to deny a child, be he right or wrong.

Bitterness of old crept in, but ere it could settle, the babe snuffled.

Was he uncomfortable? Scared? Hungry? Gabriel glanced at Juliana. Should he awaken her? Nay, she needed sleep. The midwife? He looked over his shoulder.

The old woman lay on her pallet, back to him, narrow shoulders evidencing a steady rise and fall.

Gabriel fought himself, and would have fought longer and harder if not for the babe's impatience that put a stronger whimper to the air. He stood, then gently lifted the bundle from Juliana's side. He held the babe out from him a long moment ere bringing him into the crook of his arm.

How strange it felt to hold him, to feel their bodies meet as if they were not one without the other. As if connected. Would that they were...

Juliana's son blinked and whimpered low.

What should he do? Walk him as he'd seen mothers do when an infant turned fretful? Gabriel crossed the room, then crossed back.

Shortly, the babe's whimpers turned to a gurgle, as if he grew content. Unfortunately, the sound was nearly as loud as the other.

"Shh," Gabriel breathed. "I am here, little one." He stroked the babe's small fist, and an instant later found his finger grasped tightly. Something inside him began to melt.

The babe yawned wide, showing pink gums and tongue, then closed his eyes and tucked his chin.

Gabriel grinned, turned at the door, and started back to the bed. But he did not return the infant to Juliana's arms. A few more times around the room, he told himself, just to be certain the babe was fully asleep.

The old woman smiled on her pallet. It was good for a father to hold his newborn child.

Chapter Twenty-one

A son, and with an appetite she would not have expected of one who ought to be sickly. Though he'd come three weeks early, the midwife said he was as healthy as if he had remained in the womb till due. Juliana smiled. God had blessed her.

She looked from the suckling babe to the chair Gabriel had filled throughout the birthing. The joy of holding her child dampened at the sight. The chair was empty, as it had been each time she'd awakened this new day. Would Gabriel return, or leave her summons unanswered as he'd done the past fortnight? She
must
speak with him,
must
tell him the truth of Bernart.

"Lissant," she addressed the maid, who bent to her needlework.

Lissant looked up. "My lady?"

"I would have you go again to Lord De Vere and tell him I must speak with him."

"My lord has said you are not to be alone, my lady."

Unfortunately, the midwife had departed a half hour past to tend a birthing in one of the villages. "Mayhap you could send the guard, then."

"I could, but word was brought Lord De Vere hardly an hour past." She smiled reassuringly. "Do you not worry, my lady, he will soon come."

Juliana was not so sure. Though Gabriel had professed his love for her—the words he'd spoken forever inscribed upon her mind—he likely regretted speaking them. But Lissant was right. She must give him time. An hour more, then, but that was all. If siege was to come to Mergot, Gabriel needed the weapon that only she could provide.

On that last, she considered Lissant, who had returned to her needlework. "The people of Mergot are made busy these past days," she probed.

"Aye." Lissant continued to concentrate on her needle.

"Think you Lord De Vere can hold against a siege?"

Lissant stilled, then raised her gaze. "We pray he shall do so."

Juliana ached for having guessed correctly. "Who comes against your lord? Baron Faison?"

She shook her head. "I know not his name, my lady, only that he soon crosses the channel to make war upon Mergot."

Bernart Kinthorpe was his name. No other. Juliana stared at the one Bernart thought to steal from Gabriel.

The babe suckled a moment longer, then loosed her breast with a loud smack.

She chuckled past her pained heart. "Full, little one?"

He blinked; a moment later he started at the creaking of the door.

Juliana looked around.

Gabriel hesitated on the threshold ere stepping within. "How fare you, Lady Juliana?"