Читать книгу Dragon's Daughter - Catherine Archer - Страница 11

The next afternoon Christian was still teeming with frustration as he waited for Rowena to return from another seemingly imperative errand in the forest. He felt a renewed wave of frustration each time he thought of what had happened when he attempted to question her about her life before coming to Ashcroft. He groaned, wiping a hand across his brow as he lay on the bed in the tidy little cottage.

His deep desire to return home could not be fulfilled until he had done what he’d come here to do. He must find the patience that had been so much a part of his nature all his life, but seemed to have deserted him of late.

He recalled the sad expression on Hagar’s face as Rowena had left them the previous afternoon. At the time, he had been so filled with enthusiasm and hope that she, against all probabilities, might be Rosalind—even though the name appeared to bring no hint of recognition whatsoever. The fact had continued to trouble him as he’d questioned Hagar. “Why did Rowena leave so suddenly?”

She’d raked him with a glance. “Why do ye ask? What can it matter to ye?”

He’d realized that he would need to go carefully with these folk, who met few strangers, especially if Rowena were the one he was searching for. She would have been taught caution from an early age, from what Sir Jack had told him. Christian shrugged. “I would simply know of the one who saved my life. Perhaps I mean to reward her kindness in a way most fitting.”

Hagar had looked at him closely, and he’d held her gaze without wavering, determined to make her see that he meant no harm. Finally she said, “Rowena will expect no reward and will likely take none. Though she’s deserving of more than she’ll ever receive. Her mother brought her here when she was four, just as she told ye. Mary, her mother, was mistrusted at the start, with her English ways and all. But even though she didna welcome prying about her own life, she was kind and helpful enough to others. And Rowena…” Hagar’s fond gaze went to the door, through which the girl had just left. “She was a love from the outset. Our own cottage is just along the path through the wood, and my lad, who is of an age with her, wouldna stay away. He was hers from the start. As she grew, her care for me, Sean, all of the villagers was clear. It surprised none of us when she took to the ways of healing. Only eighteen winters she has seen, but her skill is far beyond those years, for it comes from true care for others.”

Christian attempted to disguise his eagerness, as he realized that along with the age of the child, the mother’s English background were surely too similar to be coincidence. “What can you tell me of the mother?”

Hagar shrugged with regret. “She died. ’Twas slow and painful, and there was naught Rowena or any of us could do to change it, though we tried.”

“You know nothing of them before they came to Ashcroft?”

She clamped her lips together tightly, looking away. “I have told ye all ye need to know. Aught else is for the lass to say, or nay.”

Christian was less than pleased. He wanted to explain that he had only Rowena’s best interest at heart, that he felt she might be an heiress, but he had sworn to speak of the matter to no one. At the same time he chafed at this impasse, for he had heard enough to know that unlikely as it might be, he might have stumbled upon the very woman he was searching for.

It was Rowena herself he needed to question. Yet if she were Rosalind, her nursemaid mother would have taught her to be wary of revealing any information about herself. Her well-being, her very life, depended upon secrecy, for if Kelsey were ever to learn that the child lived he would surely make good on his previous effort to dispose of her. It seemed that even Hagar, who appeared to be quite close to the girl, knew very little of her before her arrival here. Though it did appear that she was hiding something, she clearly had no intention of saying more.

He had found no opportunity to speak privately with Rowena, due to Hagar’s almost constant presence. In the short bits of time the older woman was gone from the cottage on some business of her own, the lovely Rowena engaged herself in some important task, or simply left the cottage. Just as she had not more than an hour ago, when Hagar had gone to prepare a meal for her son.

Christian longed to challenge Rowena, but caution warned him not to create tension between himself and the girl.

Under no circumstances could he risk ruining a possible opportunity to see right done for The Dragon’s daughter. Christian gave another groan of frustration and closed his eyes, telling himself that she could not run from him indefinitely. He must have an opportunity to begin to gain her trust before he could even hope to get her to confide in him.

Even if it meant more delay in fulfilling his long-neglected duty to his father.

So plagued was he by these thoughts that he felt little relief in knowing that in spite of the fact that he had been dreadfully ill, his strength was returning apace. That it had been Rowena’s doing only made him all the more hopeful that she was the one he sought. For he would expect the uncommon in the daughter of a man such as The Dragon had been.

These thoughts continued to torment Christian as he looked toward the open door of the cottage only moments later. He frowned, uncertain as to what might have drawn his gaze there. It took only a glance to realize that the woman who leaned heavily against the sill was in dire circumstances.

The hands she clasped around the great mound of her belly were white-knuckled, and her face was twisted in a grimace of agony. Her pain had marred her face to the point where it was difficult to gauge her age with any degree of accuracy, but the wildly helpless and confused expression in her wide blue eyes told him that she must be very young.

He was on his feet and hurrying toward her before he even thought to move. She practically fell into his arms as she cried, “Is the healer here?”

He felt her surprisingly slight weight as he held her upright. “If you mean Rowena, she has gone to gather herbs from the forest.”

Sudden and desperate sobs erupted, as the girl seemed to lose what little hold she’d had on herself. “But she mun not be gone. She was me only hope. The babe is coming and I’ve no one to help me.”

He had suspected the part about the babe. As calmly as he could, Christian said, “I can fetch other help should Rowena not come back in time.” He had no notion as to how long Rowena might be in returning. It could be any moment or hours, for all he knew. But the village was purported to be quite nearby. Hagar had said she lived only a short distance up the path through the forest.

With a desperate strength that shocked him, the pregnant woman grabbed Christian’s hand, her eyes boring into his with inescapable entreaty. “You canna leave me. ’Tis too late. There is nay time. The babe comes.”

Christian felt a shaft of panic, accompanied by disbelief. “Would this be your first babe?” When she gave a brief nod he added, “I have heard there’s no way to measure the length of the first birthing with any certainty. Surely there is more time left than you imagine.”

Those blue eyes held his and there was no mistaking the certainty in them. “I ken the truth. The babe has been many hours coming, but none would help me in my own village, as the babe’s father is wed to another. I walked for many hours, even crossed a swollen river, ere a man on the road told me that there was a woman here who might…”

She doubled over, leaning her full weight against him once more as her whole body tensed and the breath left her lungs in a moan of misery.

Not knowing what else to do, Christian scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. Once he got her there he realized she was clutching his tunic so tightly that he could not move away. Thus he was forced to remain leaning over her until the spasm that gripped her had passed and she released him.

Though what he should do after she finally did let go her tight hold on his woolen tunic, he did not know.

As a boy Christian had loved the animals around his father’s lands. His mother had shared that love, encouraging him to assist her as she tended the horses, sheep and cattle about the demesne through illnesses and births. His beautiful and much beloved mother…

After she had died and his father had become so morose, Christian’s love of animals had helped to sustain him. Later, at Dragonwick, his life as a squire was so ordered, his growing friendship with Simon and Jarrod so enthralling that there had been little time for such things. As a knight in the Holy Land he had been even further removed from animal husbandry. Yet he had not forgotten.

With animals, keeping up a strong, steady presence was often all he need do.

Something told him that this situation would require more participation on his part. And that was precisely why he was determined to find some way to get assistance.

Hopefully, he told himself that the girl might be wrong in her assessment that the babe was coming now. He could think of only one way to determine that.

Gently, he put his hand on her leg, as he looked at her exhausted face. “I will need to look….”

Eagerly she nodded, pulling at her gown to raise it. “Aye, you mun help the babe come.”

Knowing that she had misunderstood his intent, Christian chose not to discuss the matter…yet. Carefully he took a glance…and sucked in a breath of shock and frustration. For the blood-streaked fuzz could be naught but the child’s head.

Quickly he drew away, his mind reeling. She had been right—the babe was coming and it was happening now. There would be no one to see to it but him.

He felt her watching him, waiting for him to do something, to help her and her babe.

Taking a deep, silent breath, Christian met her eyes. “What is your name?”

“Nina.”

He nodded. “I am Christian.” Then, with what he hoped was more confidence than he was actually feeling, he said, “We’ll see it done between us.”

Her sigh of relief was short-lived as another spasm of pain tightened her face and made her close her eyes as she cried, “Please, now!”

Quickly he rolled up his sleeves.

Minutes or hours, Christian lost track of how much time passed before he lifted a shriveled and screaming man-child from his mother’s body. In the end there had really been very little he could do but catch the infant as the young mother pushed him into the world.

But the rush of exhilaration and relief he felt at hearing the child’s cry was great. He lifted the tiny boy, who would someday be a man, and as he looked into that wrinkled little face, thanked God for the gift of life with an even deeper reverence than he had each time he had helped a colt or a lamb come into the world.

Rowena stopped dead in the doorway of her cottage and stared.

She could not credit what she was seeing with her own eyes. There stood Christian Greatham with a damp and screaming infant in his two large hands. On the bed behind him lay the limp form of a young woman, her pale face lined with exhaustion. The expression on his own face as he met Rowena’s gaze was at once triumphant and relieved. The same emotions were obvious in his voice as he said, “My God, Rowena. Look at him.”

She shook her head in confusion as she moved to look down into the pink and wrinkled little face. “What has happened here?” She flicked a glance toward the mother, who still did not rouse herself.

There was barely leashed excitement in his voice as he said, “The babe was coming and there was no time to find you or anyone else. I had to…” He seemed overcome with his own sense of amazement.

“You delivered this babe?” She could hear her own incredulity, even as she ran practiced eyes over the infant, listened to the clear, healthy ring of its cry, took in the pink flush of its plump little body and maleness. “He seems fine enough.”

The knight’s face was filled with pride and wonder as he looked down at the tiny boy. “Aye, I believe he is.”

Again she looked to the young woman. So white, so still. A tendril of alarm slithered through Rowena.

Deliberately calm, she said, “Look in the chest beside the door. You will find clean clothes to wrap him in.”

Christian seemed to read her unease even as she moved toward the bed. “What…”

She did not look back, and her heart fell at the sight of the blood that was beginning to soak the bedcover. “Was there much bleeding during the birth?”

The man replied, with obvious surprise, “There was some bleeding, but not an untoward amount.”

Rowena answered with forced calm. “Please, look after the babe. I must see to his mother.”

Obviously Christian had now seen what she had, for he murmured in a tone of horror, “Dear heaven, is she…”

Rowena was already bending down to listen to her heart. “She is alive.” Her own relief was great, but the amount of blood the young woman had lost told her that she must act quickly or it would not be true for long.

With haste born of desperation, Rowena examined the young woman. Then she turned to the knight. “Did you remove anything?”

He stood there holding the infant, his face now dark with anxiety. “Nay, nothing. You came just as the babe…”

She nodded, then quickly scanned the bed once more. Although she had never encountered this complication, she had learned from a midwife in a nearby village that the afterbirth could cause hemorrhage and death if it failed to be expelled.

Rowena took one deep breath and was immediately encompassed by a feeling of intense focus and calm. It was a feeling that often came over her when a situation was most desperate. She did not know from whence this gift originated, but it had enabled her to do what she must time upon time.

The fact that it had not come in relation to tending Christian Greatham had troubled her greatly. Its return now when she needed peace most was all she required to face the task at hand with self-possession.

The young mother was so weak that Rowena could only rouse her with a tone of command. But Rowena did command, telling her that she must find the strength to help herself lest her child be orphaned, and the girl did manage to expel the afterbirth.

Only then did the bleeding ease. Rowena could take little relief in this, though she hurried to prepare a mixture that would help her patient rest as well as strengthen her.

The girl had lost so much blood.

Rowena was aware of the knight as he moved about the cottage, and wondered how he was faring with the babe. She was certain caring for a newborn child was not an accustomed task for him. But he left her to work over the mother, for which she was grateful.

It was not until she had changed the linens, given the young woman a potion to restore her blood, and watched her fall into an exhausted sleep that Rowena took a breath of relief. Slowly, on suddenly trembling limbs, she went to the bench next to the table and sank down upon it.

It was with a start that she felt a large warm hand on her shoulder. She looked up into Christian Greatham’s concerned blue eyes. “I have put the babe in a basket near the fire.” He paused, shaking his head. “That was the most amazing feat I have ever seen. You saved her life.” The gentleness in his tone far overrode Rowena’s awe that he would speak thus to her. It made her long for…what?

She spoke with deliberate restraint. “’Twas no great deed. It is what I have learned to do.”

He frowned. “Nonetheless, Nina is alive because of you. I had no idea that she was not…All seemed to go well….”

Rowena shrugged, but avoided meeting his gaze as she recalled her own fearfulness on first realizing what had gone wrong. The thought of the young mother lying there in all that blood, and what the outcome might have been had the midwife not told Rowena about what could happen with the afterbirth, was overwhelming.

Despite her trembling, she said, “How did she come to be here?”

He shrugged. “I looked up and there she was. She said that a man on the road had sent her here. The folk in her village would not help her because the babe’s father is wed to another.”

“A bastard.” The words were a mere whisper of breath on Rowena’s lips.

Christian obviously heard them, for he spoke with disbelief. “Would you hold the babe’s lack of legitimacy against him?”

She answered roughly, “Never!” She felt a new wave of shaking wash over her.

He seemed startled by her vehemence for a moment, but his voice was filled with concern as he said, “You are trembling.”

She shook her head. “I am—”

Before she could finish, she was being pulled up and into the warm, encompassing strength of his arms. Her face came to rest on the soft woolen fabric over his heart, and she felt the steady and even beat of it beneath her cheek.

Rowena grew very, very still. She did not know what to do, how to behave. For never, in all her wildest secret imaginings, had she thought that something like this would occur.

Yet in spite of her amazement she became aware of a feeling of yearning so intense that it further weakened her limbs and caused her to lean even more fully against this strange but fascinating man. He reacted by holding her even more tightly, stroking a gentle hand over her hair.

For a moment, Rowena closed her eyes. She had one memory only of ever being held this way—by her father, she believed, though she could not be sure. What she was certain of was that the feelings inside her in that memory were nothing akin to the odd but compelling ones that rose up inside her now. Feelings that made her heartbeat quicken and her body become aware in a way it never had been.

Only when he spoke, his voice a deep rumble beneath her ear, did she stir. “You are so very young. There must be someone else who could—”

The words brought Rowena back to the realization of what she was doing here, and to the fact that she could not allow this man to hold her this way. When she stepped back, he released her, and she met those blue eyes with heat as she said, “I do as I wish to do. I have been taken in, loved and accepted by those around me. I want to serve and care for them. Nothing means as much to me.”

He reacted with surprise. “I did not mean to criticize. I but thought—”

“You know nothing of what you speak. You come from a different world. Here in Ashcroft, to care for the folk you love and respect is all important. These folk are my family.”

She looked at him when he frowned in seeming consternation. “What of you, Christian Greatham? You have said nothing of your purpose in coming all this way to find your Rosalind.”

He stiffened, his gaze searching hers for a long moment, before he said, “Fair enough. I have seen that you truly care for others. If you give your word to keep what I say to yourself, I will tell you what I can of her.”

Even more puzzled than she had been, Rowena nodded. “You have my word.”

He took a slow, deep breath. “Firstly, let me say that she is not my Rosalind.”

She could not prevent herself from asking, “You mean you are not in love with her?”

He shook his head. “Oh, nay, not in love. I do not even know the woman.” He seemed to study her more intently then, even as she felt an inexplicable sense of relief.

Rowena collected herself instantly, saying, “Then why are you searching for her?”

Christian spoke slowly and deliberately. “Finding her may be the single most important thing I do in my life.”

She shook her head. “You speak without saying anything.”

He looked away, laughing wryly. “Aye, I do.” When he turned back to her there was resignation in his gaze. “It is simply that I endanger her life and her hopes for a future by speaking of her to the wrong person. She has been hidden away for her own protection, and may in fact not even be aware of her true identity.”

Rowena threw up her hands in exasperation. “Still I understand naught of what you say.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps I should begin at the beginning, with what I do know.” He paused, and she remained silent, realizing that he was quite serious about this. “Fifteen years ago I was fostered into the home of a great nobleman, the earl of Kelsey. He was known to those who loved and admired him as The Dragon. He was a man of exceptional character and taught me much of what I know of being a man when my father was too lost in his grief over my mother’s death to heed my own feelings of loss.”

“The Dragon,” she murmured, not realizing that she had said the words aloud until he stopped to watch her. She smoothed her hair back from her brow with a weary hand. “You spoke of dragons and dead babes when you were ill, and I thought you were…”

“Aye.” He nodded. “I can see why such rambling might mark me as mad, but I assure you I am not. You see, The Dragon was betrayed and murdered by his brother, who made it appear as if he had betrayed King Richard by plotting with his enemies. We—my two foster brothers, Simon Warleigh and Jarrod Maxwell, and I—were forced to give testimony that he had indeed met with these men, though we believed the meeting quite innocent, as he had declared.”

“How can you be so certain that your foster father spoke the truth?” Rowena asked.

Christian seemed to hold himself more erect, as if the mere memory of this man was ennobling. “Did you know of him, you would never ask that question. He held truth and honor above all else, and instructed for Simon, Jarrod and I to do the same, no matter what the outcome, though it helped to secure his downfall.”

Rowena felt that such blind faith might be foolish. Yet what Christian chose to believe was his own folly, so she said nothing for a long moment.

But she could not remain silent. Perhaps because, in spite of what her mother had said about her father and her own anger toward him, Rowena was desperate to know something of his world, of him. “What has any of that to do with this Rosalind you search for?”

Christian rubbed a weary hand across his brow. “Rosalind was—is—the daughter of my former foster father. It was believed that she was killed in the battle for Dragonwick Castle. I myself saw the body, though it was covered at the time. We were told by Kelsey’s men that she had fallen from the upper stair whilst trying to get to her father as he fought below.”

“Then why do you search for her?”

“Because it has come to my attention that she may not have died that day. That she was hidden away by the nursemaid in order to protect her.” His gaze now met Rowena’s with a strange intensity.

She frowned. “You imagine she was brought here to Ashcroft?”

He did not break the force of that gaze. “That is what I was told only weeks ago by a dying man.”

“But who was he and how would he know this?”

“He said that it was he who helped the child and the nursemaid to escape the castle. It was the nurse’s red-haired child who Jack saw Kelsey push down the castle steps that day. Though the nurse was grieving her own babe’s death, she was determined to save the little one who had also nursed at her breast. She begged his aid, as they had been lovers. Jack loved The Dragon as loyally as did I and my friends, and abhorred the fact that the earl’s own half brother had wronged him so vilely. Jack felt that parting from his lover was not too high a price to pay in order to see the child safe. They never saw one another again, and it was only because he was dying that he told me what had happened. He knew someone had to know of Rosalind’s existence if there was ever to be any hope of her returning to Dragonwick. Naturally, I had to come and discover if he had spoken true, and then to help her gain her rightful place if he had.”

For some reason Rowena felt an agitation she could not explain. She rose and began to clear the table. “So you took him at his word, coming all this way with no more than that to go by. It could have been nothing more than a delusion brought on by wishful thinking. You said that this Jack felt as you did, that The Dragon had been wronged by his half brother. Perhaps in his illness he fabricated this notion in order to avenge his master before he died.”

Christian stiffened, drawing himself up. “Aye, to a point, though I have told no one else of my quest. And not only because I gave my word to remain silent on the matter until I knew that she would not be placed in danger by my revealing the information. I…did not wish to give false hope to Simon or Jarrod. We have long waited for the day when we might see Kelsey brought low for all he has done.”

Her brows rose. “So this quest you are on is a matter of vengeance. You have no thought for the woman herself.”

He scowled. “Of course I want what is best for Rosalind. She deserves to have what is rightfully hers.”

“Even if she does not wish to become involved in this vendetta? She may very well be happy wherever she is, especially if, as you suspect, she does not know.”

He shook his head. “She must be made to see that she owes it to—”

Rowena interrupted him. “She owes nothing. Why would anyone choose a life fraught with treachery and murder, to be placed in danger that is not of her making? It matters not, at any rate, for you have not found her. Whatever caused your dead friend to imagine that she might be in Ashcroft, he was mistaken. That is misfortune for her, for she would have found a good home here amongst the folk of Ashcroft. She could not have been expected to exchange her life for lands and titles.”

He frowned, but his reply was not what Rowena expected; he changed the subject so abruptly that she felt disoriented for a moment. “I see that you love the people here as a family. But what of your real family, Rowena? Surely there is someone out there, even if both of your parents are dead. What of them?”

This unexpected question brought overwhelming feelings of shame and loneliness. Suddenly she could not hold the secret inside her. “What of them, Sir Christian? I do not know. You see, my father was a knight, my mother a servant in his household. He never wed her, and his family did not want me after his death.”

Christian became very still. “Your father was not wed to your mother? Who told you this?”

“My mother. Who would know better than she?”

He raked that thick dark hair straight back from his brow. “But that is not possible—”

She stiffened. “I assure you it is possible.” She turned her back on him. “I cannot stand about discussing matters you do not understand. I must fetch Hagar before Nina awakens. I will need her help.” She hurried to the door.

He went after her, grabbing her wrist in a tight grip, desperate to get her to listen. “Rowena, please, I must speak with you—”

She winced, jerking away from him.

Christian held up his hands in supplication. “Forgive me, I had no intention of harming you. I but wanted to…”

Rowena did not linger to hear him out. She could not reveal the pain she felt at seeing him so shocked by her revelation. As she ran down the path, she asked herself why she should even care for the opinion of a knight about whom she knew so little.

She was but a moment’s delay in Christian Greatham’s life. Even if being held in his arms had made her feel truly safe for the first time in her memory.

Once he was fully recovered he would be on his way, possibly to continue his search for the young woman he hoped to use to avenge his former foster father. Whatever he chose to do, it did not involve her.