Page 98 of My Warrior
Her head whipped around, and he could see the shine of her wide eyes.
“Holden?” her voice was weak.
Tears filled his eyes. He let them fall. “I’m here now. You’ll be safe. I swear it.”
She groaned again.
He touched her cheek tentatively. “Oh, God, Cambria, what’s been done to you?”
A sound eerily like a chuckle escaped Cambria, but it was immediately wrenched from her mouth as another wave of pain overpowered her. When she could speak again, she said rapidly, “Fetch a clean blanket or something, Holden, hurry.”
She was dying, he thought. But he didn’t question her command. He would have brought her the moon. The best he could offer was his cloak.
“Now cut me loose,” she gasped before pain rendered her speechless once more.
He swiped at his tear-blinded eyes and carefully severed the cords about her wrists and ankles. It was all his fault. If only he’d stayed with her…
Cambria huffed heavily, and Holden closed his eyes. Tears squeezed between his lashes and left burning trails down his cheeks.Please, God,he prayed,don’t let her die.He was afraid to touch her, afraid of what mortal wound he would find. He cast his gaze away in despair, and it was then that he divined what the lump beside him was. He nearly fell back on his haunches as he recognized the ashen face of Sir Owen’s slut, Agnes.
“She’s dead,” Cambria whispered. Then she moaned loud.
Her cries were driving him mad. He had to do something. He wiped at his trembling mouth with the back of his hand.
“Cambria, we have to get you home, to Blackhaugh, to the physician.”
“Not…now. Too…late.”
“I’ll carry you,” he pleaded, reaching beneath her. God, her garments were drenched. “Cambria, if you lose any more blood—“
She barked out a little laugh. “It isn’t blood.”
She must be delirious. He tried to move her.
“Nay!” she cried. “It comes! It comes!”
She clenched her fists and lifted her head from the floor. For an awful moment, he thought she’d seen the specter of death coming for her, that she was about to breathe her last. Her features contorted in a grimace that seemed part anguish and part ecstasy. Then his eyes adjusted to the low light of the room. He could make out Cambria’s profile. She was as round as an overstuffed goose.
“You’re not having… Holy Mother of God,” he breathed, and for an irrational instant wondered how it could have happened. “You’re not…”
“Not…for…long,” she panted.
Reality hit him like a mallet. Cambria wasn’t wounded. She was in the throes of labor.
Any other man would have been relieved. But dread ran icy fingers along Holden’s spine. Nightmares of his own mother, screaming and writhing in agony as she succumbed to a bloody death, racked his mind. Cambria bore down, her body heaving with effort, and an overwhelming urge to flee consumed him. But he was immobilized by panic.
“You must…help…” she gasped.
Holden turned his head away in terror. He’d done this to her. He’d gotten her with child. He was fated to kill another kinswoman.
Suddenly Cambria’s fists tangled in his tabard, and she yanked him down to her. “Listen, Englishman!” she hissed like an angry cat between gulps of air. “If you don’t help me…I’ll tell your son…his father is an English coward.”
Her threat brought him around faster than a hard slap. It wasn’t what she said. It was the determination with which she said it. She had faith, even if he didn’t. Together they would get through this. Had he been gone so long he’d forgotten Cambria’s stubbornness, her will, her tenacity? She was nothing like his pale, delicate mother. Cambria was a Scotswoman, by God, a laird, a warrior. She would battle heaven and hell to survive, if only to scoff at the weakness an Englishman had shown her. She would live, if only to boast about how she’d birthed her firstborn by herself in a humble cottage. And she’d gloat about the fact that he’d sat helplessly by while she did it.
Holden swallowed hard and pushed back the sleeves of his hauberk. He murmured a prayer and moved between Cambria’s knees. If she could fight the battle, so could he.
He looked into her pain-glazed eyes and saw no fear, no hesitation, only challenge and determination. “God, I love you.” His voice broke, and his hands trembled as he placed them upon her bloody thighs. But he told her.
“And I love you,” she said between ragged gasps, giving him a brilliant smile.
