Twenty-two
“You must relax, Genevieve!” Edwyna implored her. “It—takes time to bring a babe into the world!” Tenderly, she wiped the beads of perspiration from Genevieve’s forehead, trying to smile as she stared into great violet eyes that looked to her beseechingly for solace.
Genevieve had been frightened that she would deliver her infant right on the bishop’s chapel floor! But that was hours ago now. Hours since Tristan had carried her here, to the bishop’s warmest guest room, and laid her down. To sit beside her tensely, his jaw twisted and locked and his fingers so tightly entwined with hers that she had nearly cried out at the pressure. Still she hadn’t wanted him to go. She had wanted to cling to him.
But a tall, slim woman with iron-gray hair and no-nonsense eyes had appeared. The bishop called her Katie; she was kind and competent, and she quickly had the room cleared of the men, including Tristan, the ornately decked bed stripped down to simple sheets and Genevieve dressed in a loose robe against the chill. Katie assured Genevieve that she was the eldest child in a family of twelve and that everything would be fine—she had been delivering babies for years. Chilled and shaking, Genevieve had stared at her, and she knew that her lip quivered lamentably, and she had whispered, “Will it—die?” And she’d had to wet her mouth to form words again. “I’m at least a full month early.”
“Now God gives none of us guarantees, milady! But neither is there reason to assume you’ll lose the wee one!”
That was hours ago—or was it days? She felt like giving way and just crying until she died, the pains came so quickly and so close, and so she swore instead. Two of the young housemaids had been summoned to help change linen and keep Genevieve warm, and so she tried to stay quiet to show some dignity.
But it was impossible when she felt that knives sheared again and again against her spine. She refused to scream, and so she grit her teeth and swore to Edwyna once more, ranting on and on.
“Oh, I shall never do this again, never! And to think that we women willingly partake in the act which brings us here! Edwyna, how could you—marry again, having known this! Be with that man when you were aware of what could come with it?”
Edwyna had to laugh. “You get over it, Genevieve, honestly. You will forget it.”
“If you’d just give out a scream or two, milady, it might ease your spirit. And mind ye, lass, this has not been difficult. I believe the babe is coming soon,” Katie said cheerfully.
And Genevieve looked at her with hope, but just then the agony constricted around her with merciless ferocity and she choked back a cry, tears spilling from her eyes as she wound her fingers into the torn sheets Katie had tied to the bedposts for her use.
“Milady, now you must push with all your might!” Katie commanded her. “Hold your breath, sit forward, and bear down hard!”
Genevieve did, straining, then lying back, panting and gasping.
“The next time,” Katie promised. And in misery, Genevieve tried to nod. She looked at Katie.
“Does this mean he—lives?”
“Have faith,” Katie told her.
“Edwyna!” She clasped her aunt’s hand and held there, swearing again. “Oh, never! I’ll never do this again . . . Tristan, oh, I’ll rip him to shreds if he thinks to touch me ever, ever again!”
“You just married him, Genevieve.”
“But I didn’t!”
“Ah, but you did, milady!” Katie offered. “And the wee one will be an heir, noble and legitimate!”
Tight, suffocating pain welled in her again. She tried to hold it back. She felt the sweat break out all over her flesh in beads and she was freezing at the same time. Face sick, hair soaked, and in anguish as the pain squeezed and squeezed and she tried to listen to Katie and Edwyna, and could not. For the first time, she screamed. High and loud and long . . .
* * *
Tristan strode across the dining hall for at least the hundredth time, past the displays of pikes and armor, beneath the banners of the bishop’s prominent family. Jon, standing near the fire, glanced at Thomas, and Thomas glanced at the bishop, and the bishop started to say something soothing, but Tristan erupted again with a groan, stopping at the mantel, dragging his fingers through his hair and staring at the fire.
“It’s too soon, and whatever goes wrong—”
“Tristan, quit blaming yourself.”
“And who am I too blame? Who dragged her here? Who half-strangled her to force words from her lips?”
“My son!” The bishop stood, pursing his lips together, bringing his fingers, prayer-fashion, to his chin. “You formed a union before God Almighty. You must not question Divinity!”
Tristan slammed a fist against the wall with a cry. Where had God been at Bedford Heath, and where was He now? What great sin had Tristan committed that God had seen fit to slay Lisette and her unborn child and now take this toll upon Genevieve, when . . .
“I did this to her,” he breathed, and he sat before the fire.
Jon brought Tristan a glass of hot, potent wine, in one of the bishop’s beautiful Venetian glasses. Tristan sipped it mechanically.
“You married her,” Jon said softly. “It was the right thing to do.”
“Surely! Surely!”
He was pacing again. The glass seemed to be in his way, and so he drained the wine and set it down. He crossed his arms over his chest and strode up and strode down. “I should have married her,” he said thickly, “as soon as I knew. I should never have—”
Touched her? Loved her? Which had hurt her the worst? And when she had vowed with all her heart that she would not have him, he had dragged her here, forced this upon her. Now she lay upstairs and he could not hear a cry; he could only flex and unflex his fingers and try to pray to the God who had forgotten him that this child not die. Oh, God! Find mercy on me this time, let her live, and I’ll not force her ever again . . .
And then her scream pierced the air, high and shrill and full of torment, reaching him through closed doors.
He was instantly in motion, bolting for the door. Jon tried to catch him, but he pushed his friend aside. Tristan took the hallway and stairs at giant leaps, bursting through the door.
He first thought that she was silent, that her lustrous lashes lay heavily over her cheeks, that she was white, oh, paler than the moon. Her hair was a damp tangle about her, and Katie smoothed that hair from her forehead. He had an image of her body, limp, on the bed, a sodden, bloody pool.
A keening groan escaped him, and he fell to his knees.
“Lord Tristan! You must be patient! We’ve still to bathe your lady and the wee lass and—”
“What?” He stared up at the bishop’s housekeeper. The graying woman with the shrewd and gentle eyes touched his shoulder, leading him back to his feet. “Milord, she is well, exhausted merely. And the babe is a perfect little thing, howling like as if she was scalded, milord.”
“She . . . lives!”
“They both live, Lord Tristan.”
Tristan couldn’t move then. His legs were weak and his stomach was doing somersaults. He couldn’t even see anymore; the world was a cascade of shimmers and gray.
“Tristan, look at her! She’s amazing. My dear Lord, all that hair! Dark as a winter’s eve!” Edwyna was talking to him.
Something was stuffed into his arms. He looked down and saw in a pile of swaddling his ... daughter. She was not fully cleansed; her hair was plastered against her tiny head, but Edwyna was right, it was tremendously plentiful for an infant. And she had little dark brows and a puckered face and a little fist that waved in the air suddenly as she opened a generous mouth and let out a screech of indignation and fury.
Tristan stared in joy and disbelief, fighting tears, finding incredible gladness. Ten fingers, ten toes, a plump little belly with its cord just cut, beautiful, beautiful flesh. “She is perfect!” he whispered. Almighty God! He prayed in silence, thank you, thank you, thank you.
“Aye, a bonny lass!”
He turned and saw Edwyna, smudged and sweaty but smiling, reaching out to take her again.
“Oh, Tristan! She is a beauty! Tiny but sound and such a temperamental little thing already! Oh, Tristan, look how lovely she is!”
Edwyna touched the babe, but Tristan felt tremors sweeping over him again and he looked past Edwyna to the bed. Katie had drawn a clean sheet high around Genevieve, and all that he could see was the pale almost translucent elegance of her fragile features and the loose tendrils of hair curling around her forehead. He handed his newborn to Edwyna without a word and strode over to the bed, kneeling at its side, reaching for her fingers, rising petallike over the hem of the sheet.
“Genevieve ... ?”
Her lashes fluttered and her eyes opened on him and for a moment they went wide, then fell. And she shuddered and tried to speak, and it was a pained whisper.
“You wanted a son, I know. I am ... sorry. I . . .”
Her voice trailed away, the effort to speak seeming to be too much for her now. Tears and exhaustion glazed her eyes, and he wondered if she really knew that he was there. He tightened his grip around her fingers and whispered tenderly against her cheek.
“A son! Milady, I wanted a living child, and a living wife. Genevieve! She is the most wonderful gift I have received in this life! She is perfect and whole and beautiful and—”
“Milord!” Katie urged him. “Please now, go and lift a glass with your friends to your new daughter, for we must bathe mother and babe properly. You are in the way!”
Genevieve’s eyes were closed. Tristan nodded, then kissed her on the forehead. Tremors raced through him and he touched his lips to her flesh once again, reverently. He placed his cheek next to hers and he knew that she slept again.
“Thank you, my love,” he breathed to her, and then he stood. He took the babe from Edwyna one more time, and he laughed when she howled again with outrage. He lifted her high and scanned her perfect little body again, laughing again with sheer joy as she howled and flailed tiny fists.
Edwyna smiled at the male crow of possession in his voice; then she reached for the babe.
“Tristan, please! Let me bathe her. Oh, I am a great-aunt! And I’m ever too young to sound so old! Give her to me, please. And Jon, what are you doing here? Get out.”
Tristan swung around to see Jon slumped against the doorframe, grinning out his pleasure. Thomas was just behind him, and the bishop was a more discreet distance away in the hallway.
“Will you all get out of here, please! Now I mean it!” Edwyna stamped a foot against the floor. “Tristan,” she added more softly. “Genevieve needs some rest. Please, go get drunk or something.” She rescued the babe from her father’s arms, and a thrill of happiness swept through her. She had never seen a man so pleased with the birth of a daughter—in fact she had never seen a man so tenderly pleased with the birth of any child. “Go,” she said with a smile. “Go get wantonly drunk!”
He grinned at her in turn, and walked past her. Edwyna met Jon’s eyes across the room and they smiled together; then Tristan reached Jon and they looped arms and proceeded back downstairs. At the bishop’s invitation, they did proceed to get rollicking drunk.
* * *
She was in love, and she was in awe, and she had never felt such a joy in her life.
Genevieve stared at her daughter on the bed beside her and marveled at her beauty. Surely no child on earth had ever been so precious. She seemed tiny, oh, so tiny! But splendid in every way. Katie had dressed her in an elegant little gown with fine smocking that had belonged to one of the bishop’s little nieces or nephews, and though the gown was too big for her daughter, Genevieve was convinced that she was more than exquisite in it. Her absolute fascination with the baby had swept her far, far away from any thoughts of pain, and she felt lethargic and content. Nay, she felt like an angel surrounded by a gentle, mellow, almost heavenly glow.
She was still tired and sore but she could do nothing but smile, shyly and proudly, and think that she was indeed encased in magic, engrossed in love. She could vaguely remember the overwhelming exhaustion and what had at first been only vague wonder at what should come of all her misery. But when she had awakened, clean and refreshed, and Edwyna had handed her the baby, she had known instant adoration. Such a small, small creature! The babe’s eyes were her father’s—so deep a blue that they would never go light. And that hair, all that hair . . . dark, too. But the incredibly small fingers that had brushed her cheek were long and feminine, and, Genevieve thought, there is something of me in her, even if only my sex! And then the babe had gazed upon her and let off the saddest little cry, and Edwyna had laughed and told Genevieve that she was hungry. And when the babe had first tugged against her breast she had felt herself possessed for all time.
Genevieve was so rapt that she did not hear the door open and quietly close. And when he had come in, Tristan was loath to disrupt her. She was all in white, her hair washed and brushed, floating free like a cloud of golddust behind her head on the pillow. And his daughter . . . she, too, was in white, tiny and feisty, wiggling away beside her mother. Mother stared at daughter, and daughter seemed to stare at mother, and both in that innocent white, so beautiful, so sweetly pure.
Tristan felt extremely awkward. He was afraid to walk forward, afraid to intrude. Yet the virginal blond beauty in white was his wife, and the babe was the fruit of their passion, their child, to be shared. Reminding himself that the child was his, he strode over to the bed.
Genevieve turned with alarm, as if she would battle anyone fiercely who thought to reach for her babe. She saw him then, and a shield seemed to fall over the delicate mauve beauty of her eyes. For a second her breasts ceased to rise and fall, as if she held her breath—and awaited some word from him.
He gazed at her, not knowing what to say now, wondering what she remembered of his words before. Then he looked from her to the baby, and sat upon the foot of the bed, leaning over to gently touch her cheek, barely larger than the thumb that caressed it with such tenderness. Instantly, her perfect little miniature rose mouth puckered into a noisy motion; startled, Tristan drew his hand back.
“She’s hungry,” Genevieve murmured, and a lovely flood of color came to her cheeks. She hesitated only briefly; then, loosening her gown, swept the baby to her breast.
Tristan laughed, and the tension eased from him as the tiny infant latched onto her mother’s engorged nipple with a far less than ladylike suckling noise.
“She sounds just like a squealing little piglet!”
Genevieve cast him a condemning stare, but then she, too, chuckled softly, touching the fine dark hair on her daughter’s head and conceding, “Aye, she’s not a very refined eater.”
Tenderness overwhelmed Tristan then. With a swift, graceful motion he stood, sweeping an arm around Genevieve to stroke the babe’s hair as she nursed. Genevieve’s head was bowed toward her daughter, and Tristan could not read his wife’s feelings in regard to his arms about her. He remembered his vow, but knew he could not deny himself the simple assurance of feeling his daughter’s life or his wife’s warmth.
“We need to name her,” he said softly. “The bishop intends to baptize her right away.”
“Why?” Genevieve asked with alarm. “She is well and strong, Tristan, is she not?”
“Aye.” He could not look down into the eyes that now searched his, for he felt responsible for the fear in her voice. “Aye, she is well and strong and beautiful. Any babe should be baptized in all haste, milady. What would you call her?”
He felt Genevieve’s eyes widen on him. “I may name her?”
“Well, I should like to approve it.”
Genevieve trembled, wondering if he cared little about the name since she had given him a daughter—and not a son. He felt the movement in her.
“Genevieve?”
“I did fail you. And to think, milord, of all you did to assure things for an heir . . .”
“What are you saying?” he demanded with annoyance.
“She is a girl,” Genevieve coolly stated the obvious.
“Aye,” he said with a softness that caught at her heart. “So lovely a lass that already she has my heart at her feet; my life with the greatest pleasure I would lay down for her!”
Genevieve dared not look at him, dared not believe that his pleasure could be so ardent, and so real.
“Katherine?” She whispered.
“Katherine. Katherine . . . Marie. Katherine Marie de la Tere. I christen thee, little one, ere the formality!”
Genevieve could feel his warm breath against her cheek and the firm power of the arm lightly over her. She was his wife—the sudden remembrance swept through her like fire, and she ached with it. She had fought it from pride, from honor—and from fear. It had come to pass . . . and they were now a family. I love you! she longed to shout suddenly, I love you, oh can’t you see, I am afraid, and I know that loving so greatly brings about the greatest pain ...
She laid her hot face against the cool pillow, and swallowed with pleasure as baby Katherine made a last frantic little tug against her nipple. Tristan laughed softly, using the baby’s hem to clean the little drop of spilled milk off of her lip. “Katherine ...”
Genevieve smiled, too, and closed her eyes. Her husband’s hand rested with casual intimacy upon her hip then as he smiled at their daughter. It seemed like the most beautiful moment of her life, and her eyes were closing again. She tried to flutter them open.
“Sleep, Genevieve,” Tristan whispered to her, and again she felt the delicious rush of his breath against her cheek.
“I can’t. She will need to be held—”
“And I can hold her very well, thank you, madam. Now go to sleep. You promised to obey me.”
“I did not.”
“Oh, but you did. Under duress, but the vow was made. Close your eyes and sleep.”
Her eyes closed. She resisted the urge to draw the soft form of her daughter back to her side, and allowed the babe to go to her father. With a long yawn, she gave up the battle to remain awake.
* * *
Genevieve was to be the guest of the bishop for a fortnight—no one seemed to think she had recovered enough to move.
She quickly felt well enough herself, though she could admit to a weakness when she remained up and about too long. And in the days that followed she grew ever more attached to her daughter, ever more in love. Tristan was ceaselessly polite to her. On the second morning he brought her a gold and emerald locket on a velvet chain, a lying-in present, a husband’s appreciation for a newborn child. Genevieve loved the locket. He had promised her they would have a miniature done of little Katherine, and she could wear it by her heart. He had kissed her on the forehead.
She longed for him to kiss her on the lips but he withdrew quickly, and the distance between them seemed to grow with the days that passed.
He could not be with her always; he was working on the charter to be granted by the King to make Edenby a city, and so he returned to the bishop’s only by night. He did not sleep with her. She knew that it would be some weeks ere she healed well enough to behave as his bride, but she ached for his touch. The simple intimacy of being beside him, curling against him, feeling the casual and tender stroke of his hands. Battling now and then in verbal warfare perhaps, but touching . . .
Holding her baby by the window, delighting in her one afternoon, Genevieve felt the most horrible burst of panic. Had she become his wife—only to lose him completely? Things were going well, that she knew. He spoke of his business with the charter and of the afternoons he had spent with other knights on a practice field.
He also told her that he intended to finish some business at Court, return to Bedford Heath to settle last-minute things before leaving Thomas to manage his homeland, and then—once Katherine was two months old—they would travel back to Edenby. It sometimes surprised Genevieve that Tristan should be so much more attached to her home than his own, yet it was undeniably so. But then of course Lisette had died at Bedford Heath.
Genevieve looked forward to his visit daily. The bishop was a wonderful host; he was a grave man, pious in one way, worldly in another. Genevieve apologized for hitting him; he apologized for forcing the issue, yet told her that he was not wrong—and didn’t she know it now? Was she not glad of the marriage for her beautiful little daughter’s sake?
To that Genevieve could only flush and lower her head. She was glad, oh, aye! She’d die for this tiny life that trusted her so completely and claimed her heart.
But somehow she had lost Tristan. She was his wife. But now not only did he not love her, he did not even want her! Not to tease, not to claim, not to fight with passion, not to hold with triumph and laughter.
He was merely her husband—handsome, cool, ever-polite; the stranger who came with the darkness of night, held his child with love and laughter—and then spoke to her cordially of his schedule! She could not understand, and it hurt terribly. Oh, she had fought the ceremony! But no amount of fighting on her part had ever deterred him before. He’d always claimed what was his, when he wanted it.
She wondered if he blamed her for the early birth, for risking the babe, yet she dared not ask him. They had shared anger and hatred, tenderness and laughter. Whatever their emotions in the past, they had been filled with passion. But now there was a void, curiously created by the birth of the daughter they both so adored.
Henry and Elizabeth took time to come to the christening, and the King presented Genevieve with a grant of land for the baby. She was surprised and grateful. She did not reproach the King for forcing her into marriage—for Henry had probably known her heart better than she. “Katherine ...” In a quiet minute alone, he whispered the name to her. “Not after another lady of such name? That beauteous ancestress of mine who came to be John of Gaunt’s bride—after many years and children born between them?”
Genevieve smiled. “I have always loved her story, Your Majesty. It is a bitter-sweet romance.”
“This Katherine shall have her pick of noble swains,” the King promised her, and she kissed his ring; and then Tristan was there, and the King winked, and she was glad that they shared a secret.
But not even that night did Tristan stay with her.
On the morning of her fifteenth day in the bishop’s manor, Genevieve woke to hear gurgling noises. She looked across the room to the window where Tristan, clad only in hose, tight breeches, and boots, leaned against the wall. Katherine, naked as birth, lay against his chest, batting against the muscled breadth of it with a tiny fist, and catching the crisp dark hair there between her fingers. Tristan, his handsome head bent to his daughter, was telling her about her fine future.
“You’ll ride in a fine coach with four dappled mares, my love! Gilded it will be, in the finest gold. And the noblest lads in the land will come to your door, but you’ll send them all out on their heels, my beauty! You’ll wear soft velvets and softer silks, and diamonds in your hair . . .”
He broke off, suddenly aware of Genevieve’s scrutiny. For a long moment their eyes caught and held across the distance, and Genevieve longed to speak, longed to reach her arms out and beg him to come to her, to hold her.
But there was a rap at the door then. Balancing Katherine with exemplary grace, he rose to his feet and called out, “Enter!”
Glancing at Genevieve, he was cool and distant again. “Katherine did see fit to gurgle upon her dress and my shirt! Here’s help, now.”
Katie came in, bearing a gown and swaddling for Katherine and Tristan’s cleaned shirt. It was blue velvet, and when he slipped it over his head and adjusted his scabbard around it Genevieve could think only that the color and style of the elegant Court garment lent itself beautifully to the bronze of his skin and the clean lines of his trim, muscular form.
Pained, she looked away from him, reaching to Katie for the baby, and laughing when Katherine immediately nuzzled against her. Katie promised her a meal in a matter of minutes, and then she would arrange milady’s things for travel.
Katie left, and Genevieve silently watched Tristan while Katherine continued to whimper.
“She’s hungry,” Tristan reminded Genevieve sharply.
“We are going back to Court?”
He seemed to hesitate. “You are going back to Court. Jon and Thomas will be there should you need anything. I’m going to Bedford Heath. Genevieve, have a care. The babe.” She swept Katherine to her, turning her back on her husband to nurse the babe. She felt so very far from him.
“I would rather go home,” she said.
“Not yet. You are not fit for the journey.”
“I am very well, thank you.”
“When I return, we will go home.”
She fought the overwhelming sensation to burst into tears. What was wrong? What created the awful, aching void? Was it true that he had taken a dozen women in Ireland? Had he lost all desire for the one he chose to marry?
There was something of the old Tristan about him; he came around the bed—not willing to allow her to turn her back. He sat on the bed and stroked his daughter’s hair. “I’m leaving in a few minutes, Genevieve.”
“Oh, aye. And you’ll leave me with Henry, you’ll leave me with Jon, you’ll leave me with Thomas.”
“And what, milady, does that mean?”
She could not look at him; and she did not like the idea of his having the privilege to watch his daughter nurse. She pulled the covers up around the babe’s face. She felt his sudden wrath, when what she sought was understanding. He caught her wrist and drew her eyes to his.
“You’ll smother her!”
“I’ll not!”
“If you’re not fit for such a task—”
“Go on, go about your business. I will see to mine.”
He stood angrily. “Edwyna will be with you, then.” He held his anger in check, nodding to her briefly and curtly, pausing to kiss his daughter’s head, but not the mother’s. He strode toward the door. Genevieve choked back a little sob to stop him with a demand that sounded far more shrill than she had intended.
“Why am I always left to your watchdogs! Never trusted, never—brought along . . .”
She was never sure whether he heard the last, or nay. He spun quickly to answer her before she could finish.
“Because, milady, you cannot be trusted, as we all know well.”
“I have your child!”
“Aye, and I wish to keep her!”
“I’d not take her from you!”
“I shall see that you do not.”
“You married me!”
He paused, inhaling sharply, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Aye, milady. I married you. But you did not wish to marry me. I have documents that claim us man and wife, yet they are really nothing more than paper—are they? Paper that brought about extreme duress . . . and near tragedy,” he added bitterly, his eyes lowering. But they quickly blazed into hers again. “I have to go, Genevieve. Jon is your friend, as is Thomas. See them as guards and keepers if you so choose. I leave you at Henry’s Court, for I know that you are safe there, and cared for. Good-day, milady wife. Stay well, and I will return with all haste. Though I do feel I am the most detested of your—keepers.”
He bowed to her, while she stared at him in stricken confusion. He opened the door, stepped out, and was gone.
Genevieve set the baby tenderly aside and raced after him. She reached the door barefoot and shivering, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Katherine set up a reproachful and outraged cry from the bed.
“Oh, Katherine!” Genevieve whispered, and, with tears stinging her eyes, she gave up the pursuit of her departed husband.
She walked back to the bed and scooped the baby into her arms, urging Katherine’s trembling little mouth back to her breast.
The baby ceased to cry with a satisfied little gasp.
But Genevieve started up. She bit her lip to calm her sobs, and silent tears of confusion and loss streaked down her cheeks.