Page 142 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
Little Dimitri gave Adeline a flower. It was only a dandelion, but his mother and I swooned over the sweetness of the action. Dimitri decided he did not like the noise we were making, and scowled, throwing the flower in the water. Adeline cried and Elliott handed it back to her. My sweet, sweet boy.
Adeline paused. She did not remember this moment, of course she didn’t. She had so many memories of the stream, of course they’d all become tangled up together. How could she separate Dimitri from all her other childhood friends? She would only have been about four at the time.
But they knew each other.
And their mothers had been friends.
There was little mention of Liana after Dimitri turned about five. That tracked with her own memories, and she wondered if the meetings had stoppedbecauseshe was getting older, asking questions that maybe had no answer. Because it was no longer deemed appropriate for lords to play with commoners.
Finally, a mention several years later, one Adeline wished she didn’t have to read.
Liana came to me last night in a state, long after the children had gone to bed. It had been years since we had met, since our eyes did little more but pass over the marketplace. She confessed to me that she had lost a child, and that her husband had been angry about it.
“Not with me, but at the world!” she wailed. “He thinks we’re cursed.”
She seemed more upset with this than the loss of the child, sobbing about how he’d changed, how cold he was to their son, how he still had the “look of love” in his eyes but she never quite felt it. She begged for me to help her conceive another, but there was little advice I could give here. I comforted her as best I could, and promised to help her if she conceived again.
“I have to conceive again. I have to. I can’t disappoint him, but…”
And then, in a sentence that broke my heart, “Why isn’t Dimitri enough for him? Why doesn’t he love him anymore?”
Adeline stopped reading. The Duke had never told his wife about his prophecy, about Dimitri being foretold to bring misfortune on his house. She suspected Liana had died never hearing the truth.
She hated Edvard Von Mortimer more than ever.
There was no more mention of Liana. Adeline spurred through volume after volume, searching for news, another meeting, another child, knowing she grew closer and closer to tragedy—
The date of death came and went, and there was nothing.
Nothing.
How could her mother, who Minty told her had been there, writtennothingabout such an occasion?
She’d just… skipped over it. There were entries about other births, other consultations, but no mention of Liana until—
An undated entry, squeezed in several months later.
Liana Von Mortimer died late winter, three months ago.
I was there.
A messenger came to our cottage late one night, with a note that Liana was in labour and that anyone with any expertise was instructed to go to the manor immediately. I left without another word, although it seemed strange that Liana had not told me she was with child again.
It had been years since we had spoken, but I was sure she would have come to me for this.
I was escorted up to Liana’s chambers immediately. A young boy stood in the shadows outside her room, a hood drawn up. I had heard the stories, of course, but never given much thought to them. Though he barely stepped into the light, it was clear that there was something wrong with the left side of his face.
The right side was worse, pale and gaunt and utterly wretched. For a moment, our eyes met, and he looked at me like he was praying for a saviour.
I think I always knew that she was going to die, and I offered him no words of comfort.
I think I regretted that most of all.
I have nothing else to regret. Nothing else could have been done. And yet I think, for the rest of my life, I shall replay that night in my head and wish I could send the man to the afterlife with his life to grovel for forgiveness.
There was another physician there, young, untrained, pale-faced, cowering at the feet of Liana’s bed where she writhed and moaned, her husband screaming over everyone.
“You’re the midwife?” he bellowed.“My wife is in labour. You need to help her. Ease her pain, I beg you, but keep the child inside her—it is too soon. It will not survive.”
