Forty-One
She awoke him in the night. He sat upwards with a start, reaching for his sword. He recognized the voice and relaxed until he realized what her presence could mean.
“What is wrong? Is Maddie ill?” he said, his voice groggy from sleep.
“She is not in her room! I heard noises since I reside the room next to hers. I heard one name: Binouix!”
Connor’s heart stopped beating. He quickly put on his plaid while the nun waited outside. He stormed out of his room and followed her until he reached Maddie’s. The baby booties and hats caught him off-guard and a lump formed in his throat.
“It looks like there’s been a struggle. Sister, how would he get in?” Connor asked anxiously. His eyes stared into hers.
“I’m not certain!” Her eyes were wide with horror. “How would he have known she was here?”
“Wynton!” he said fiercely.
“Dear Lord, he’ll see her with child and go insane! He’ll try to-”
He didn’t wait to hear the nun voice his fears. Connor gathered his men who were sleeping within the building, and walked out to ready his warriors. In a matter of moments, they rode out. Connor couldn’t stop his racing heart or imagination. He needed to think smart and think fast. Although Binouix’s soldiers tried to conceal their tracks, Connor still saw them with the light of the fast approaching dawn.
“Faster! We must reach her! Ride harder!” Connor roared as he galloped his mount to a furious pace.
He had to have been on Binouix’s heels. The tracks looked fresh. After riding for what seemed like an eternity to Connor, they reached a massive fortress.
They encountered Binouix’s men, who waited in fighting stances. The two groups faced one another as the wind blew.
Connor roared his battle cry and his men charged. Though Binouix’s men were double in number, Connor’s warriors were superior and had the advantage. Soon they overpowered Binouix’s men.
“Follow me! I must get to Maddie!” Connor shouted, kicking his steed forward.
Iain, Kiel, and Athyn flanked his sides, while Kirk and Hugh protected Connor’s rear.
Metal against metal clashed around them. The agonized cries of men falling to their deaths, and the sound of steel on steel were familiar to Connor.
The furious beat of his heart wasn’t.
Maddie hadn’t just found a place in his heart. Nay, she was his heart.
With a fury he’d never before known, Connor combated the enemy. He fought and killed a path amongst the adversaries imprudent enough to fight him. His rage made him cold, lethal, and savage. His sword sliced through every man who stepped in front of him as he made his way to his wife. Once through the first line of paltry defense, Connor and the men dismounted and made their way to the door of the structure’s entrance.
Connor’s massive sword struck down the men who challenged him. He howled in triumph as the adrenaline surged through his veins like a potent herb. Only one thought remained in his head: he must get to his wife and unborn babe.
Quickly.
That one thought gave him superhuman strength.
Savagely and barbarically, he killed his way through the enemy. Some of Binouix’s soldiers actually ran away from him when they saw his crazed eyes. Connor’s sword slashed and felled dozens before he was able to reach the entrance. With his men beside him, he slowly entered and heard her weeping.
“Please!” she begged. “Henry, please do not!”
Connor stood transfixed as he tried to pinpoint where Maddie’s voice was coming from.
He heard a slap and a loud whimper.
“First you denied me that night long ago. Then you allow that bastard heathen to take you away after I attempted to save you. Now, you have married him and are carrying his bastard! Nay, Madeleine,” Binouix said, shaking his head, “The baby will come out now and will die. You’ll not have his bastard. You belong to me!”
“No! Henry, oh God, Henry please! Do not do this! Put the blade away,” Maddie screamed crying.
The men were looking around the rooms on the ground floor but didn’t find her.
Connor’s fear grew tenfold.
“Find her! When I get to him, I’ll bleed him dry!” Connor roared.
“Henry! No! Oh God, please help me! Please!” she cried, an anguishing cry that reverberated off the walls. “Someone! Please come help me!”
“Nay! That bastard will not be birthed!”
“No! Don’t touch me! You’ll kill me and the bairn!” Maddie was hysterical. The cramps began anew and she moaned.
“Bairn? Scottish words, bah! You deserve to die. You are a disgusting whore! His whore!” Henry yelled until his voice was raw.
The men looked on the first floor but they weren’t there.
“Connor! Oh God…Connor, I’m sorry! Please forgive me…please help me…” she cried in anguish. “Connor!” She was pleading to the walls and air, for she knew that Connor was not there.
Connor’s own heart reacted to her call. In what she thought were her last minutes of life for her and their baby, she called out for him.
“He’s not coming, Madeleine. He hates you and the bastard bairn!”
Connor rushed up the stairs and onto the landing. Room by room they searched. He came across a door that was locked. Slamming his foot against it, it crashed to the floor.
Binouix stopped midpoint and looked towards the door.
Connor nearly fell to his knees when he saw how close he was to losing them. Maddie was strapped to the bed and her stomach was exposed. Binouix had already cut Maddie beginning from the left and had stopped at the center. He saw the blood running down her belly. It looked like a shallow cut, to Connor’s relief.
Binouix’s eyes flashed fear when he saw Connor’s cold stare. The rage on Connor’s face was palpable. His eyes had turned a dark blue, and were icy. His body was tense as every muscle was engaged ready for battle. Connor and the other giants behind him chased the air out of the room.
“Connor!” Maddie yelled in relief.
“Step away or I will kill the baby and her!” Binouix yelled in a hysterical voice. Expecting an attack, his eyes darted everywhere frantically.
Connor’s silent stance scared Binouix more than if Connor would have said something. Connor’s eyes remained intently fixated on him. He acted so swiftly, Binouix was caught off guard. Binouix was sprawled on the floor suddenly.
“We’ll settle this now. I relish the thought of feeling yer life drain as I squeeze it from ye,” Connor growled, standing over the Binouix’s stooped form.
Iain and Kiel rushed over to Maddie after their initial shock faded. Connor had not told them that Maddie was expecting.
Iain and Kiel untied Maddie. Iain let her sit up and she grabbed his arm as a cramp overtook her. She whimpered, catching Connor unaware as he looked over to her. This gave Binouix an advantage.
Binouix stood quickly and swung at Connor. Connor caught the punch in his fist, twisting the arm and breaking it. He punched Binouix in his middle. Binouix grunted as Connor punched him over and over in his stomach.
Connor was lost in a world of madness. He wanted Binouix dead. He let go of Binouix’s fist and backed up a step. Connor’s smile gave Binouix a chill down his spine. That, and the laird’s wild soulless eyes.
“Why doona ye try yer antics on me, bastard? See what it is like to have a man hit back instead of preying on a defenseless woman!”
Iain carried Maddie to a chair on the other side of the room. Immediately, Iain, Kiel, Athyn, Kirk, and Hugh stood around her as a protective wall. Maddie could see the fight, though it was only through a tiny opening between Hugh and Kirk.
Binouix lunged at Connor with a dagger. Maddie kept herself from crying out so that she wouldn’t distract Connor again. She also kept silent throughout the next couple of excruciatingly painful cramps. She held on to Iain’s plaid, twisting it in her grasp. He looked down at her questioningly, but said nothing when he saw the pain on her face.
Connor took Binouix’s hand, the one attached to his broken arm, and broke the wrist. The crack of bone resounded, as did Binouix’s scream of pain.
“Bastard!” he moaned.
“A little broken wrist will be the least of yer worries.”
Connor advanced forward and Binouix took his sword in his good hand.
“Ah, playing fair eludes ye. To grab a sword and threaten to use it when yer adversary is unarmed is dishonorable, but it will make us as evenly matched as ye could possibly get.”
Connor laughed at Binouix’s frightened expression.
The hair on Binouix’s arms rose. Connor’s laugh was bone-chilling.
Connor disarmed him quickly and the bloodbath began. Over and over Connor punched him. Binouix’s nose broke, then his other arm, and then his ribs. The man was so bloody that Maddie was having a difficult time seeing any resemblance between the grisly man barely able to stand on his feet and Binouix.
“Ye do not…touch…what is mine!...Ye filthy…dishonorable… bastard!” Connor said through clenched teeth, each word stressed with a forceful punch.
After more than a dozen punches, Binouix made no noise. In one last gruesome act, Connor snapped his neck. Rage had his hands shaking. Connor stood and looked down at Binouix’s lifeless form. Iain walked to his side then, and Connor sensed his presence.
“Let us go, Connor. Ye are drenched in blood.”
Connor looked down at himself. Aye, his body and hands were covered in it, but it wasn’t his blood and it wasn’t Maddie’s- that’s all the mattered.
Connor turned then and looked at Maddie. She sat in the chair and held a hand protectively over her belly, looking at him all the while.
He saw fear in her eyes.
Dear God, how he wanted to take her into his arms.
In Gaelic, he instructed Iain to carry Maddie outside and to wait for him. Without so much as another glance at Maddie, he left the room.
Maddie was so hurt she almost cried out. Iain stood before her and lifted her into his arms.
“Let’s go, for I carry two precious packages here,” Iain said and smiled down at Maddie’s plump face.
She tentatively smiled and began to cry.
“Do not cry, Maddie. Things are not as bad as ye believe they are.”
They headed downstairs and through the castle door. The sun had reached its zenith and Connor stood waiting by his horse. His hair was wet and the blood had been washed off.
Connor’s warriors stood waiting for his command. He yelled in Gaelic and the warriors bustled with activity.
Binouix’s men lay dead on the ground.
Iain headed towards Connor and Maddie began squirming as if she didn’t want to head in his direction.
“Easy. It will be aright, Maddie. He loves ye,” Iain said calmly. A few more steps had him standing before his brother.
Iain handed Maddie over to Connor, and Connor closed his eyes enjoying the feel of her in his arms. He dropped his head onto hers and inhaled her sweet familiar fragrance.
The warriors and Connor’s men started departing, leaving them alone.
“They’re leaving us!” she said in a frightened whisper.
He looked down at her as the tears he had held back for so long fell from his eyes.
“Please do not ever leave me again, Maddie. I canna live without ye. I canna breathe without ye. Maddie, ye are my life.” He paused to inhale a shaky breath. “And now this bairn is as well,” he said gruffly.
Relief and happiness surged within her. She reached up and hugged him, her own tears gliding down her cheeks as her sobs became uncontrollable.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! If I hadn’t left, none of this would have happened,” she said painfully. “Forgive me, Connor. Please tell me you forgive me.”
He leaned his forehead down atop hers.
“Only if ye forgive me.”
“I do! I do, Connor! I was so scared you didn’t love me. I was scared that you really had married me for vengeance. Then I was frightened that you would take the baby from me once you found out I was carrying, and banish me.”
“Never, Maddie. Never would I do that to ye, my love. Ye’re my everything. I canna exist without ye. Ye are the sun in my dark existence. Ye are the breath to my starving lungs. Ye are the water to my parched soul.”
“I love you, Connor,” she said in a small whisper.
“Not nearly as much as I love ye, Maddie.”
He placed her on his horse, mounted behind her, and gently settled her on his lap.
“It will be a difficult journey because of yer condition, but I will slow down as much as ye require it.”
“I just want to get home,” her voice broke. “I want to see and hug our family. I’ve missed home and them so much, and I never thought I’d return again,” she said and whimpered.
Connor massaged her gently and rubbed her abdomen. He felt their child move within her as he placed his hand on her belly. He was so overcome with emotion that a tear escaped his eye. He had thought he had lost her, yet God was merciful on him, for now he had been granted another opportunity with her.
And his child.
Maddie slowly fell asleep within the comfort of his arms. She basked in his strength and security.
Connor held her tightly. He kissed the top of her head, feeling the completeness that he hadn’t felt in months.