Hawke looked only at Katherine, his face set in stone. “’Tis better that you do not hold him—that you do not know him. It will be easier for you, in the end.”
“Wh-what?” Katherine cried, struggling to sit. Juliet propped her up. “Hawke! I want my son!” She turned to stare at the midwife, who was bustling out of the door, the child in her arms. Tears filled Katherine’s eyes. “My son! Bring me my son!”
“Katherine, listen to me,” Hawke said.
“No!” Katherine screamed, kicking at the sheets and forcing her feet to the floor. She had to grip the bed for balance as a wave of dizziness swept her. Panic, huge and terrible, terrifying, filled her. “Did you lie! Did you lie!I want my son!”
“I did not lie, but my plans mean naught now,” Hawke said grimly. “The queen has decided to take the child into her own household, for reasons she has not declared.”
Katherine stared at him, panting, speechless.
“And because she said it was most important, I agreed,” Hawke said. Then, flushing, “I am the queen’s man, Katherine. I could not refuse her.”
Katherine shrieked. Terror engulfed her. “She is taking my son away from me? And you have let her? You cannot do this—you cannot!”
“He will be well cared for, Katherine,” John said. “I promise you that.”
Katherine screamed, doubling over in pain that felt physical and was far more severe than all that had gone before. When she finally straightened, her face was ravaged with rage, with fear, and with grief, making her appear old and ugly. “I want my son!” she screamed. “Give me back my son!”
“I cannot,” Hawke said. He hesitated. “I am sorry.” And he turned and walked away.
Katherine gasped, lunging to her feet. Juliet caught her before she could topple to the floor. “Let me go,” Katherine cried. “Let me go before they take my babe away! Oh God!God!Help me,please!”
Tears streaming down her own cheeks, Juliet held Katherine upright, preventing her from leaving. “Katherine, dearest, there is naught you can do, not if John has allowed this.”
Katherine ignored her. She found superhuman strength and managed to break free of Juliet. She staggered to the door, pulled on it. The wood seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. Panting, Katherine wrested it open. She stumbled into the corridor, clung to the railing at the top of the stairs. “Ginny! Come back! Ginny! Help me! They are stealing my son!”
But no one responded to her cries, and Katherine collapsed upon the floor. Juliet, rushing after her, found her prone, clawing the parquet with bloody fingernails, moaning like an animal.
Her tormented whispers filled the hall. “They have no right! They have no right! God help me—I want my son!”
Hawke stared blindly at the moors, which werealmost lushly green and dotted with yellow wildflowers. The sky was so blue overhead that the day appeared idyllic. Yet it was an illusion. Hawke could still hear Katherine’s screams. Not her screams during her labor, but her screams afterward, the anguish far greater, when he had ordered the midwife to take the babe away.
The courtyard was filled with saddled horses and soldiers. A covered cart had been prepared for the wet nurse and the child. Elizabeth had stressed how important the child’s safety and survival were, and she had ordered Hawke to bear the babe to London personally.
He was sick. He was sick from it all. His wife loved O’Neill fiercely, and on this day, he had finally realized that she was the kind of woman to go to her grave still yearning for the other man. Oh, she might do her duty toward him, she might never discuss the pirate again, she might run his household willingly and warm his bed, she might bear him half a dozen sons, but she would always love Liam O’Neill. Hawke wondered what it was like, to love another so much, so completely.
And now he was denying her not just her lover, but her child, as well. Bile rose up in his gorge. God’s teeth. He had become weak. To tear a child from its mother’s arms was one of the most grievous crimes he could think of—one he wished never, ever to have to perform again, not even for his queen.
But Katherine would survive. She was made of strong stuff. Yet his confidence in that did not chase away his anguish.
“How could you!”
Hawke turned around to face an enraged angel. It was Juliet.
“I thought you a noble man, a decent man, a good man, but what you have done is monstrous!” Juliet was crying.
Hawke had stiffened. Her accusations stabbed him hurtfully. He knew he did not need to defend himself to this moon-eyed chit. “I could not refuse the queen.”
“Yes, you could!” she cried.
He saw that her fists were clenched. “You do not understand.”
“I understand,” Juliet said bitterly. “I understand that I have harbored a great illusion about you. I understand that you are not half as noble as you appear. I understand that you are jealous, yes, jealous, because Katherine loves another man. Perhaps you planned this all along!” she cried furiously. “To rid yourself of O’Neill’s child!” She held her head high, daring him to refute her.
He did not. She would not believe him if he tried. “How is Katherine?”
Juliet’s laughter was sharp. “How is she? She has finally collapsed—damn you.”
