Conquest Bride by Meriel Fuller

Author:Meriel Fuller
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2005-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

An eerie silence filled the hut as Eadita lifted the small lifeless bundle into her arms; it had been a long struggle to haul the baby out. Eadita’s hair hung in damp wisps around her tight-lipped expression, her veil and headdress long since discarded. She had broken her promise not to touch Margaret, but she cared not. Tasting the salty perspiration on her top lip, she laid the baby boy on a linen rag, starting to wipe away the blood and murk from its tiny limbs.

Varin, stripped to his shirt, lifted a blanket over Margaret who shivered with the exhaustion of her labour. His concerned regard questioned Eadita. She shook her head sadly, kneeling to wash her hands in the pail; the child had been dead long before he had entered this world.

‘My baby?’ Margaret stuttered timidly as she laid a weary arm across her eyes. Varin spoke to her in hushed tones. A low keening wail trickled from her mouth, a tragic sound of loss filling the ramshackle walls. Eadita closed her eyes, biting her lip in consternation. No stranger to death in childbirth, this loss was particularly hard to bear. Most villagers had family and friends to comfort them when tragedy struck; Margaret had nobody. How cruel Fortune was, to allow this woman her hopes and dreams in all those heavy months of waiting, only to have nothing at the end of it. She swaddled the child, her mind parched with sadness.

‘Can I hold him?’ Margaret asked in a shaking voice. Eadita frowned.

‘It can do no harm.’ Varin left Margaret’s side to wipe his own hands. ‘Let her spend some precious moments with her baby.’ Drawing solace from his calm, assessing tones, she picked the baby up to place him carefully in Margaret’s arms. Turning her head quickly to avoid witnessing the devastating scene of mother and child together, she struggled to hold back the tears.

‘The child must be christened and buried,’ she announced tonelessly, her face a white mask. ‘I would fetch the priest.’

Varin blocked her path.

‘Eadita.’ His big arms came around her as he folded her into his sturdy chest. She breathed in the familiar smell of leather and woodsmoke, his scent lapping around her like a soothing balm, blunting her sadness. Without his woollen tunic, the heat of his skin pressed through the gauzy linen of his shirt, warming her cheek as she rested against his chest. Her limbs became weak; the need to sink into his body teased her senses. Conscious of her own vulnerability, she pushed futilely against the enticing embrace.

‘Nay, do not fight me now, petite. Just let me hold you.’ His breath tickled the top of her head, stirring shining strands. Beneath her ear, his heart bumped steadily, a reassuring affirmation of life. Tears clustered around her eyes; she couldn’t bear for him to see her like this, but her emotion would not be stopped. She wept openly, big, choking sobs, her fingers clutching the stuff of his shirt, working their way into the folds to cling as if on to life itself.

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