Page 1 of Sinbound to the Highlander
Prologue
21 Years go
Lobhdain Castle
The healers tugged at him, forcing Aidan Milleson, Laird of Lobhdain, out of the birthing room where his wife, Grace, was crying out in pain—but he was not going to leave. He felt hamstrung, wanting to help but knowing there was nothing he could do. Grace’s hold was excruciatingly tight on his hand, and her lovely blue eyes were rife with fear.
“Me Laird,” a midwife urged. “Tis nay the place for ye.”
“The hell it isnae,” the Laird roared, “me wife is in pain.”
The woman was adamant, and Aidan memorized her face, to have a long talk with her after. “I ken, Me Laird, but there will be blood and—”
“I daenae care,” he snapped, firming his grip on his wife’s trembling hand. “I’m nae leavin’ unless God himself drags me out. It’s the middle of the bloody night for Heaven’s sake. I’m nay movin’.”
Grace had begun to feel the pain of childbirth not soon after they had retired to bed, somewhere near the ninth hour, and now, somewhere toward dawn, she was still travailing. Aidan felt the hours passing by.
“Mayhap…” Grace panted, “mayhap ye should, love. These women will care for me, and I’m…” she grimaced and bit her lip as pain lanced over her face, “goin’ to get through this.”
His face contorted with displeasure as it was not only the midwives pressuring him to leave. Now it was his love. “But I daenae—”
Grace arched so tightly she nearly doubled on the birthing bed, and the metallic smell of blood turned his stomach upside down. Swallowing thickly, he dropped a kiss on her forehead and left the room, feeling that his place was still back in with his wife.
The moment he stepped out of the room, a piercing cry had him spinning on his heel and rushing back inside, they barred him from entering. It was pure torture hearing his wife in pain, and there was nothing he could do. He had vowed to protect his beloved from anything that would harm her but now…he rubbed his face hard.
All along when she had started increasing, he had felt his love for her doubled every day. Waking up with his hand resting on her belly had been his delight, and nothing she did, her strange cravings or hurling in the morning, had turned him away. Now, his happiness was changing to dread.
What if she doesnae make it through this?
He began to pace, trying hard to not let the noises from the inside trip his heart into a panic. It was an instinct honed into him from childhood to rush to any woman’s help when she was in peril.
I am the one to put her in this peril, now.
His feet paced so hard there was a miracle he had not left a deep furrow on the stone floor. He vowed never to put his wife through this again, as he could not bear hearing her in so much agony. Was this how long childbirth took? He did not know if he could manage any more of this crippling worry that cramped his stomach when he heard her cry out. Grace’s long plaintive cry had had his heart about to leap out from his chest. He hated himself to his very core for her pain.
“Never again,” he swore while resting a hand on the cold walls. “Never again, me Love.”
Then, he heard nothing coming from the room, and his heart leaped in fright. Why was he not hearing anything from Grace? Had she made it through? His heart cramped at the thought that he might go back inside to see his wife, graying and cooling on the bed—dead. Not caring that he was banned, Aidan rushed inside, franticly praying his heart to find his wife alive. His eyes found her, laying on the bed—and heaving.
“Oh, thank God,” he exclaimed, leaping to her side and taking her hand. “Look at me, Love, please.”
Her eyes blinked open, and he saw pure exhaustion dimming her once bright blue orbs, “Twas…” she swallowed. “T’was two bairns, Aidan. I had twin lasses.”
A shaky smile tugged at his lips. He had prepared for one bairn, not two, and secretly, he had hoped it would be a boy-child, but he was not going to complain. His wife had gone through hours of pure anguish, but had come out alive. He could manage two girls.
“I’m happy, love,” he said, grasping her hand and lifting it to his lips. “I’m so happy ye’re all right now. We’ll do the best for these lasses, I swear it.”
A shuffle behind him had him twisting to see a midwife carrying a squirming, crying bundle, wrapped up in swaddling clothes, to them, and he frowned. Hadn’t his wife just said she had birthed twins? Where was the other? Worry that something had gone wrong, that the bairn had passed away or had come out a stillbirth, leaped into his chest even before the look on the woman’s face confirmed it.
“I’m sorry, Me Lady,” the midwife said while resting the bairn on his wife’s breast, “The other one did not take a breath.”
His eyes clenched tight as Grace gasped out a bereaved cry. He swallowed over his sorrow and leaned in to snake an arm under his wife’s shoulder and hug her to his chest.
“She’s with God now, Love,” he kissed her lightly freckled cheek. “But, He let us have the other.” Tucking a finger into the swaddling cloth, he peered down as his daughter, whose face was scrunched uptight. “We’ll call her Elspeth, aye?”
Tears lingered at Grace’s eyes, “Aye, as she was chosen by God to stay with us.”
Dropping a kiss on his bairn’s soft cheek, he smiled through his pain, as he looked over her, committing her infant face into memory, “And she’ll never want for anythin’.”
