Page 94 of My Warrior
How could he live without her? What in God’s name had he done? Cambria was the most precious part of his life, yet he’d put her in danger. He’d filled her womb with a child, and because of it she might die. Like his mother. His throat tightened painfully as he traced her altered silhouette with his eyes—the full breasts, the subtly widened hips, the gently rounded bulge of her belly.
His feet moved of their own accord, bringing him closer, quickening his step until he was running toward her. She reached forward for him until, with a cry of relief and fear and desperation, he took her in his arms.
She felt like home. Her warmth permeated the fog and his chain mail and the armored recesses of his heart. Her body cleaved to him perfectly, though she was fat with child, as if it had been made for just that. Her hair curled against his cheek, filling him with her scent—the scent of heather and moss and wood smoke and all things fresh and green. If anything happened to her… He took her head in rough hands and with his thumbs brushed away the tears marring her cheeks. He searched her eyes, looking for…what? Reassurance? Forgiveness? Compassion? He found only sorrow.
Heedless of the crowd about them, he tilted his head and captured her lips with his own. She tasted as sweet as love itself, as sweet as heaven. He poured his own bittersweet emotions into the kiss, pledging her his soul, giving her the one promise he hadn’t the power to keep—the promise of life. And then he tore himself away.
If he lingered one moment longer, he knew he wouldn’t go to fight for any man. And yet if he remained, he’d shortly drive himself mad with worry. It was best this way, he told himself, striding across the courtyard without a backward glance. A hasty farewell. Blunt and brief. Like the merciful blow given a mortally wounded knight. Why then, he wondered, did his heart languish in pain for weeks afterward?
CHAPTER 20
Beyond the shuttered windows of the solar, fall-grayed leaves twisted in death throes and floated to the earth. Frost laced the hard ground. Breath came out in steamy curls. The morning mists lengthened with the season, and the shroud of night, too, stretched out its cool hand until they met across days that were gray and unchanging. Only the black skeletons of trees marred the soft, hovering fog, like dark lightning against a pale sky, and the crunch of autumn leaves grew muffled in the damp caress of winter.
All Saint’s Day passed, and Christmas. Cambria grew round and unwieldy, waddling from room to room, snuggling up to the fire one moment, then asking Katie to throw open a shutter the next. And soon, as if nature winked in mockery at the de Wares, one day Linet discovered that she, too, carried a babe. Every morn, as regular as the bells of Mass, pale and quivering, the poor woman emptied her belly of whatever she’d eaten the night before.
Behind the confining walls of Blackhaugh, the ladies of de Ware grew restless.
A log popped and shifted on the fire. Cambria spread a parchment out across the table. Scrutinizing the drawing, she ran a hand over her huge stomach and pressed back the tiny foot that always managed to wedge itself beneath her ribs. Linet looked up briefly from her spot by the hearth, where she bent over a lapful of needlework, and chuckled.
Cambria frowned. “Robbie suggested wings on the poleyns. But Malcolm thinks less weight is better.” The babe must have been in accord. It aimed a particularly hearty kick at her rib. She winced. “Still, against those new Italian thunder tubes…”
“Faith, Cambria!” Linet laughed. “The babe won’t go to war till he’s at least…six! Italian thunder tubes indeed.”
Cambria’s temper simmered beneath the surface. “Perhaps English babes are coddled till they’re half-grown, but in Scotland we wield a sword as soon as we can walk.”
“Oh, la!” Katie crooned, sweeping into the solar. “Would you wield a sword even now in the solar, my lady? And against your poor sister?” She clucked her tongue and squinted down at Linet’s handiwork. “Ah, never mind, lass. You must be near your time. Your mother was the same way, all waspy-tongued and thistly.”
“I am not thistl—“ Cambria began. Then she glanced down at the corner of the parchment. It was wadded in her fist. Sheepishly, she released it. Katie was right. She hadn’t been herself lately. So far, she’d designed a half dozen variation on poleyns, several gauntlets with padded woolen wrist guards, and two different coats of plates, all for the tiny knight who wasn’t even born yet. Maybe itwasridiculous. She picked up a sliver of charred wood from the table, made a few subtle changes to the sketch, and then tossed the parchment aside.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
Linet smiled engagingly, quick to forgive. “I spoke to the armorer this morn. He’s already stamped the de Ware crest on all the plates. All it wants is for a seamstress to stitch them to the gambeson. If you can settle on the finishing touches soon, it will be finished in time for the babe’s arrival.”
Cambria nodded, but she knew her polite smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. She was weary. Weary of being sequestered indoors. Weary of the burden in her womb. Weary of worrying about her husband. The last word from him had come weeks ago. The missive had been succinct and careful. After all, treason could be construed from less than enthusiastic reports. But Cambria could tell he was frustrated. His “messenger’s mission” had stretched into an absence of months.
At times it seemed to her Holden de Ware must have been a dream she’d had long ago, that she’d imagined his deep, compelling eyes, his warm, insistent kiss, the comforting sweep of his arms around her. And yet the evidence of their intimacy stirred within her, substantial, alive, real. She ran her palm over her swollen belly for the hundredth time.
Katie patted her hand. “Why don’t you nap in your chamber, my lady? You must be worn out. You’ve been working on those designs of yours all morning. I’ll come up with a warm posset later.”
A nap did sound good. She’d slept badly the last night. The babe had kicked and struggled in her womb like a bagged cat. If she slept, perhaps she could find some peace. Perhaps she could forget her melancholy.
She bid Linet a good day and let Katie steer her to her chamber. Katie saw her settled comfortably in the plump bed, stirred the banked fire to life, and placed a motherly kiss on her forehead. Cambria was asleep before Katie reached the door.
It seemed hours later that the serenity of her dreamless sleep was shattered as a servant burst into the room.
“M’lady!” the woman cried breathlessly.
Disoriented and drowsy, Cambria struggled to sit up in the tangle of the bedclothes and her wits. The woman looked vaguely familiar, but Cambria couldn’t quite place the strange hazel eyes and thin lips. She was probably one of Linet’s maids.
“What is it?”
The maid nervously secured the door behind her. “I was told to come straightaway to you,” she whispered hastily.
Cambria rubbed the fog from her eyes.
“It’s about yer husband.”
The blood drained from her face.
