MacAlester Keep
Spring 1786
Scottish Highlands
“She is asking for ye,”Mrs.Robeson said from the doorway of the solar.The worry in her voice and the way she kept wringing her hands in her apron deepened the terror already simmering in Grant’s gut.
He shot a tortured look at Henry and Lachie, who paced alongside him.“I have heard no cries.Did ye hear any cries?”
Henry avoided his gaze, then shook his head.“Nay.No cries.”
“Lachie?”Grant willed the man to give him hope.
Lachie turned away and stared at the floor.“No, my brother.No cries.”
Old Griselda burst into the room, shaking her bony fist.“The goddess wants ye at her side.Are ye such a coward that ye would refuse her when she fights to bring forth yer bairns?”
Ashamed that he had hesitated in Jessa’s time of need, Grant charged out of the room, crossed the hall, and entered the suffocating darkness of the bedchamber.“Jessa—I am here.”
“Will you please make them leave that freaking window open?I cannot breathe with it shut, and they’re fighting me on everything!”
“Do as she says,” he told the shadowy figure by the window, who could either be Molly, Jessa’s personal maid, or some other servant.The room was too dark to tell.“’Tis hotter than the seventh level of hell in here and too feckin’ dark.Ye know yer mistress hates the darkness.”He was none too fond of it himself.Neither of them tolerated a darkened room all that well ever since their time in Morrigan’s ravine.
“Too much air and brightness are bad for the babes, my laird,” Mrs.Robeson said.“The wind still has a bite of winter’s touch to it.”
“I’ll open the damn window myself, then.Again.”Jessa snarled and hissed like a cornered animal fighting to escape a snare as she floundered across the bed.Huge with the children she had yet to bring forth, she roared with frustration.
“Nay, love.I shall open it.”Grant sprang across the room, ripped open the heavy curtains, and pushed the panes open wide.A hearty gust of sweet, damp air whooshed into the room along with the blessed softness of light from the rising sun.He turned from the window and pointed at each of the wide-eyed women who had refused to listen to his beloved wife.“Ye will always obey her.Always.Is that understood?”
Mrs.Robeson, Griselda, Molly, and the MacAlester Crag midwife bowed their heads and shifted in place like bairns caught misbehaving.The midwife inched forward and dared to settle a glare on him.“We ken well enough what to do for the safety of the mother and the wee ones.We protect them, my laird.Would ye have us do that which we know to be wrong?”
Jessa wallowed her way off the bed, holding her swollen middle with one hand and her lower back with the other.“I know what my body tells me is right.You will listen to what I know is best for me and mine, or you can haul your ass out of this room and never return.Got it?”
Grant caught her and steadied her as she doubled over and groaned.“Lore a’mighty, love.Should ye be out of the bed?”
“Don’t you start.Walking makes me feel better, and I think it moves things along.”She curled against him, burying her face in his chest with another loud groan.“And for the record, we are never having sex again.”
He glared at the gloating women across the room while praying his overwrought wife would change her mind about that once she had healed from having the wee ones.
“Light more candles,” he told them, barking the orders so loud they jumped.“Ye know she hates the shadows.”
They hurried to light every lamp and candle in the room as he helped Jessa slowly walk back and forth beside the bed.
“I don’t know how long this is going to work,” Jessa told him as she halted for another pain and dug her fingernails even deeper into his arm.“I feel like they’re hanging down to my knees.”
“Aye, well—” He didn’t know what to say.Men did not belong in this sort of chaos.“If one comes out, I’ll be sure to catch it.”
She stopped walking, leaned against him, and laughed.“Good.I may take you up on that.”
Lore a’mighty, he hoped not.While he’d helped deliver foals, calves, and lambs, the complicated process of a bairn coming into the world was better left to the women.But he didn’t tell her that.She needed him here, and by heavens, here he would stay.He nodded at Molly.“Fetch a cool cloth for yer mistress’s face.’Twill give her some ease.”
“I cannot stand this much longer,” Jessa said, leaning heavier against him and breathing harder.“These babies have got to come out soon.”She shoved at the damp curls stuck to her face and started to cry.“I would kill for an epidural.”
He had no idea what anepiduralwas and wasn’t about to ask.
“We put a knife under the bed to cut the pain,” Mrs.Robeson said.“It canna help ye if ye walk, m’lady.”
“And I told you that was superstitious bullshit!”Jessa growled through her clenched teeth, hanging onto Grant while leaning forward.After a long, pained groan, she jerked on his arms.“Are you ready to catch one?”
