“Frequent enough. If I am too tired, or upset, sometimes I become overwhelmed.”
He was coming to understand. “And my being away has not helped your situation.”
She smiled weakly. “My worry for you has been great.”
He went to her, pulling her into his enormous embrace and kissing her forehead. “I am sorry, sweetling,” he murmured. “I know the strain has been difficult.”
She snorted softly, wrapping her arms around his narrow waist and hugging him tightly. “Compared to what you have endured, I am ashamed to mention my troubles at all,” she said. “They seem inconsequential.”
“Yet they are not. They are more important to me than anything.” He kissed the top of her head and laid his cheek upon it. “Will you please return to bed until the physic arrives? It would give me comfort.”
She sighed heavily and he knew he had her. With gentle coaxing, he got her back into the bed and covered her up. But she would not lie down, instead, sitting up and demanding he sit beside her. He did without hesitation, pulling her into his massive embrace and holding her close. And that was how the surgeon found them almost a half hour later.
He was a small man with red hair and a red beard. His movements were sharp and quick, like a little bird. He entered the room, his aged gaze falling on the crowded bed. His eyebrows lifted.
“That is why you find yourself in difficulties in the first place,” he was looking at Devereux as he pointed a finger at Davyss. He focused on the enormous warrior. “Lord de Winter, I presume?”
Davyss released his wife, eyeing the blunt old man as he climbed out of the bed. “You are correct,” he stood up, hands on his hips. “You have examined my wife?”
“I have, my lord.”
“Then tell me why my wife is confined to bed. I cannot get a straight answer out of her.”
Kerby cocked an eyebrow. “Because this child is draining her strength, my lord. If she does not rest, she may do herself and the child serious harm. But the difficulty is in having her obey me. She does not want to listen.”
Davyss listened to the old man seriously. “If I take her to London with me and promise that she will stay in bed until this child is born, would that be acceptable?”
The old surgeon looked at Devereux, who was gazing at him anxiously. After a moment, he exhaled sharply.
“This pregnancy is tenuous, my lord,” he told the man bluntly. “Your wife bleeds daily which tells me that the pregnancy is not secure.”
Davyss’ eyes widened. “Is that why she is fainting? Because she is losing blood?”
The old man shrugged. “Partly,” he replied, looking between Devereux and her husband. “Some women are better suited for child bearing than others, my lord. Perhaps your wife is not. With all of the blood she continues to expend, the child might already be dead for all I know. Only time will tell.”
Devereux sat down on the bed, facing away from them, and succumbed to quiet tears. Davyss passed a sympathetic glance at her before turning an angry one to the physic.
“I will take her to London and have the finest physics in England examine her,” he was already moving towards the old man as if to physically remove him from the room. “She and the child will be fine.”
Kerby could see how agitated the man was; he also knew who Davyss de Winter was. With the king’s recent defeat at Lewes, the news of which was swiftly traveling the country, he was frankly surprised to see the man at all. As the king’s champion, the man was powerful and legendary, now shamed by a stunning defeat at Lewes. Much was happening in Lady de Winter’s life contributing to a pregnancy that was slowly draining the life from her.
The old man slipped from the room just as Davyss slammed the door shut behind him. With his hand still on the latch, Davyss turned to his wife, still seated on the bed with her back to him. He watched her shoulders gently heave, his heart heavy as he went to her.
“I will pack for you,” he said softly. “I will take you to Hollyhock and have my mother’s surgeon examine you. Do not worry so.”
Devereux wiped at her nose, her cheeks. “I… I am sorry I did not tell you all of it,” she whispered. “I did not want to disappoint you.”
He knelt beside the bed, his big hand on her head. “Sweetling, you could never disappoint me, not ever,” he kissed her wet cheek. “I told you that I did not need for you to bear me a son in order for me to love you. I meant it.”
She looked at him with her sad gray eyes and he kissed her again, pulling her forehead to his lips gently. Then he took her feet and put them back on the bed, pulling the coverlet over her.
“Now,” he tried to sound firm and confident. “You may lay there and direct me to your heart’s content. What must be packed?”
Devereux leaned back against the pillows, wiping at her nose. “You truly do not have to pack for me. I can have the servants do it just as well.”
He smiled at her. “You may never have another opportunity to order me around like this,” he winked at her. “I suggest you not let this chance slip away.”
She grinned at him in spite of herself, finally pointing a finger to the wardrobe. “Everything in there must go,” she said. “The servants have my trunks stored in the cellar, I think. There are four of them.”
