23
Thistle Muir rested in a ghastly sort of silence.
Deafening, roaring silence.
Fox stood in the parlor, listening to faint footsteps moving in the principal bedroom overhead. The one where Aileen labored in childbirth.
The midwife had come and gone, replaced by the local doctor.
And now, a boy had just run across the front garden, arrowing for the small parish church down the road and the vicar, living in the manse behind it.
The descending hierarchy of life. Medical people giving way to religious ones.
The tiny form of Malcolm’s stillborn son already lay wrapped in a muslin shroud atop the dining table.
Aileen had screamed for hours.
It had taken all of Fox’s strength to remain in the house. To not hear her cries as an echo of those from his past.
Of his mother and her mad wailing. Of Susan’s screeching descent into insanity.
Of Coorg, horses and men dying around him. Of a bullet splintering his batman’s head.
Of the knifing betrayal that had slated him for death.
But just as with Coorg, the stillness in the aftermath of Aileen’s suffering was somehow worse.
Fox equated such silence with death.
“It won’t be long now,” the doctor had murmured to Malcolm, Fox, and Leah in the upstairs hall not ten minutes past, eyes red-rimmed. “Sometimes, there is nothing I can do tae stop the bleeding.”
Malcolm had immediately returned to his wife’s side. Fox had watched him through a crack in the open door. How the larger man had climbed so very carefully into the bed, cradling Aileen’s swollen body against his and pressing his forehead to her hair, tears streaming soundlessly down his cheeks.
Did Malcolm’s imminent loss partially explain why Fox had reacted so viscerally to the news that Leah had loved him fortwentyyears?
Fox had thought Leah and himself to be equals in their emotional attachment to one another, exploring their marriage together.
But even in that, Leah was already miles ahead of him. As usual.
The thought of her love had sent panic churning in his chest because . . . well, because Fox feared he didn’t have the strength to love her back. Not as maturely she loved him.
In his experience, love only ever ended in heartache, whether through betrayal or loss.
And the pain of loving and then losing Leah would be shattering.
The hellscape of Malcolm’s current situation illustrated that with stark clarity.
Fox had stared at Malcolm wrapped around Aileen’s body, met Leah’s tear-streaked face at the foot of the bed, and then retreated to the parlor.
The vicar, Dr. Ruxton, came racing up the drive, Bible in hand, black cassock flapping in his hurry.
Not even a quarter hour later, a moaning sob echoed through the house.
Malcolm.
Bereft and lost. Keening his anguish.
Fox had never felt so helpless.
