She gave a loud tsk. “Don’t you think I look at the household receipts? Who else would you send milk and cheese to? And well done, too. A woman in a delicate condition needs it, for herself and that babe.”
Doug didn’t know what to say to that.
“Well, did you tell him to continue?”
He nodded. “One more week.”
“May as well go week to week. That way you can make sure he’s delivering it. Have you been over to check on her?” The shrewd brown eyes in his aunt’s wrinkled face bore into him.
“Why would I want to do that?”
“A woman on her own ought to have someone look in on her. Besides, how do you know the milk is being delivered? You don’t want to throw good money away.”
He couldn’t shake the feeling it wasn’t the money his devious aunt cared about. One unfortunate woman was not Doug’s problem; he had enough dependents. Aunt Edna refused to break eye contact.
“You’re right,” he finally agreed. “I better make sure it is being delivered.”
The corners of the old woman’s mouth twitched as if she hid a smile when she dropped her gaze and sipped her tea. “Best check if she has a midwife, when you do. Poor mite, on her own like that.”
Midwife?Doug’s stomach clenched.
* * *
The pains started at dawn, but the sun began to dip to the horizon before Esther realized through the fog of discomfort and despair that they came in regular intervals. She had placed neatly folded clean towels—she refused to call them rags—at her bedside, and she had managed three trips to the well to fetch water for the basin Mrs. Smalley lent her. The basin and some advice were the sum of all help she could expect from the woman.
“Walk. Walk as long as you can. First one takes a while. Don’t expect much. It will come easy or it won’t.” Smalley offered nothing more, and Esther walked alone across her little room and back again.
It will come easy or it won’t.That had been hours ago, and now, Esther thought the pains came closer together. They certainly felt stronger. She began to recite, measuring the time between the pains with words and pacing her small room all the while. The poems kept the terrors pressing in on every side from knocking her to the floor. The words kept her from longing for the mother she could not have or from remembering the woman’s cold rejection when her father turned her out.
She longed to scream, to run, to escape the inevitable, but nothing could stop the onslaught of childbirth, any more than she’d been able to run from her disgrace.
A quiet knock sent her heart racing; she pressed one fist to her chest to quiet it.
Has Smalley relented enough to check on me?
“Open, please. It isn’t locked.” She stared at the door as it clicked open, stopped as if the knocker hesitated, and then inched open.
Her breath caught at the sight of the stranger from the bakery—Sergeant Marsh, the dairyman’s boy called him—in her doorway. The man radiated strength in spite of the cane he leaned on, and she felt a frisson of relief at the sight. A moment later something near hysteria seized her.He’s come to collect on my debt—his bad luck to catch a woman laboring to birth a baby. He wouldn’t—would he?She held herself together by breathing deeply as another spasm passed.
The panic subsided when he made no move to come past the door, and she dared a closer look at the expression on his face. Examining his gentle blue eyes, she found only compassion.Surely, I would see lust if it was there.He didn’t speak, however, and Esther struggled for words to break the silence.
“Has the dairyman been delivering as he ought?” the sergeant blurted out. “You have to eat.” His words were as gruff as she remembered, but she felt the kindness under them.
“Thank you, sir. The cheese is a godsend as well.”Please go away before another pain comes over me, one I may not be able to hide.
“Y’ve more than yourself to consider.” His careful study increased her unease as if he could see not only her labor pains, but her fear and the shame under it all.
When her belly tightened again, and she stiffened under the force of it, her visitor’s eyes narrowed. “Are you well?” He glanced around the room, his sharp gaze raking over the pile of towels and the basin of water.
The pain began to peak, but she remained as still as she could, jaw clenched, and desperately wished him gone.
“Are you alone here, woman?” he demanded harshly.
She longed to cry out, to beg for help, to lash out at him for berating her. Before she could do any of those things, something let loose, the pressure intensified, and she felt liquid running down her thighs to her feet.
The sergeant crossed the room in three long strides, cane and all, and took her in his arms.
“I’m so embarrassed. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t—”
