“Let them bring the whole English army,” his brother said in his naturally lilting, challenging voice. “I’m here.”
Nicholas nodded and smiled. He could fight, thanks to his brother teaching him, and he commanded a proper guard, but he was a more diplomatic earl. Besides, no one fought like Cain. If there might be fighting, Nicholas was glad his brother was here.
Putting thoughts of the English and his Scot’s comrades to rest for now, he folded the parchment and shoved it into his gray woolen doublet. “Let us return to the keep and my wife. Soon, I am to be a father.”
“Mayhap nottoosoon, Brother,” Cain laughed, coming around the table and tossing his arm over Nicholas’ shoulder. “It has only been five hours. Remember, it took almost a score and three hours fer my son to arrive.”
“I remember it as if it occurred yesterday instead of two years ago,” Nicholas told him with a frown darkening his eyes to smoky silver. They had traveled to Invergarry for the birth of Cain and Aleysia’s first babe. “Mattie remembers it as well. She’s been afraid because of it. Now she is going through it. Why can I not be there with her?”
“Aleysia and Mattie’s maids are with her,” Richard reminded him as they left the gathering hall. “They know what to do. You do not.”
Cain leaned in closer to his ear. “I went to Aleysia’s side when she was havin’ Tristan. She nearly tore oot my eyes. The things she said, I think I will never ferget.”
Nicholas moved away and stared at him in the dimly lit hall, looking less sure than he had a moment ago. Until Cain laughed again and pounded him in the chest.
Nicholas thought he preferred it when Cain had always been solemn and serious. “I think I shall go to my wife anyway.”
Father Timothy held up his hand to protest. “I dinna think ye should—”
“Do it,” whispered Cain, coming close again.
“You will distract the women,” Sir Richard said, thinking to stop him as they reached the massive doors, and then the narrow door of the tower.
Before they left, Cain pulled him in by the shoulder and looked him in the eye. “Are ye brave enough, little brother?”
Nicholas nodded. Aye, he was. He smiled when Cain smiled at him.
“Then go.” His brother gave him a shove toward the door. “And remember this is yer castle when my wife tells ye to get oot.”
Nicholas hurried out of the tower and down the stone stairs. He’d wanted to go to her since this painful task had begun, but there had been much to do. Father Timothy, the lover of celebrations, had begun planning an hour after her pains started. Since the priest didn’t live here, but in Invergarry with Cain and his family, he did not know who to go to for anything, and much of the female staff was with Mattie, so he ended up going to Nicholas.
He crossed the short walkway and moved quickly toward the keep. He wondered as he went what his life would be like as a father. He couldn’t help but smile thinking about all that had changed in the past two and a half years. He was no longer a servant but an earl, and he wasn’t going to spend his life with Julianna, as he had always dreamed, but with Mattie, a woman who loved him passionately, a woman who had taken the place of every other. She crept into his heart when he thought he would never love again and sang a new song.
He entered the keep, ready to help her start their new life together, eager and ready for it.
He didn’t waste a moment on Rauf, his steward, when Rauf demanded to know how the cook was supposed to prepare so much food in so little time.
He didn’t let his thoughts wander too much to the three people who would soon be arriving and if an army might be arriving with them.
He saw Emma, Tristan’s nurse, chasing the lad down the hall. His heart swelled with love for his family, and he hurried past Emma and called out that Cain was on his way.
When he reached the door to his bedchamber, someone—Mattie—wailed in agony. Nicholas nearly pushed the door down. He wanted to run inside but stood beneath the doorframe for a moment, paralyzed with uncertainty about what to do next.
Aleysia and the other women stared at him, startled. He expected Cain’s spirited Norman wife to shout at him, but she said nothing as he entered and hurried to his wife.
“My dove, I am here.” He stepped up onto the bed and leaned over her.
Her pale blonde hair was damp with sweat. There were dark circles under her eyes and her skin was pale. She barely had time to smile at him before another wave of pain gripped her.
He tried to comfort her, but failed. Still, in the end, he was thankful he had gone to her. Thankful he was there to hold her while she left him and his baby son alone on the earth.
