Chapter Twenty-Five #3
Her drugged eyes tried to focus on him and the tears began to fall uncontrollably. She cried feebly, like a child, and he buried his face against her head, murmuring words of comfort to her and stroking her head sweetly.
“The bleeding is growing darker,” the midwife announced softly, throwing a saturated towel on the floor. “It will lessen now.”
Burwell let out a sigh, the evidence of his relief. He had been positive the baron’s wife was going to bleed to death in front of him and he had no desire to confront the man with the news, for he would most likely have been the recipient of a blade to the belly.
Christopher heard the woman, too, and was flooded with relief so great he went weak. His grip tightened on his sobbing wife, so very, very grateful for her life.
“You will be fine, sweetheart,” he kissed her cheek, brushing his lips on her hair.
“My baby,” she squeaked miserably.
“I know,” he whispered. “I am so sorry.”
She coughed and twisted with discomfort as the midwife did something Christopher could not quite see.
“Your son is gone,” she sobbed. “Oh, Christopher, can you forgive me?”
He didn’t even realize there were tears in his eyes. “There is nothing to forgive, Dustin, ’twas an accident.”
The midwife closed Dustin’s thighs and pulled the coverlet over her. “Let her rest a bit, baron. I shall check her in a few minutes.”
Christopher nodded, his attention still on his wife. Burwell leaned over him and lifted the bandage on her forehead, checking on the huge bruise underneath.
“Well, at least you did not crack your skull open,” he commented. “Great Gods, it’s amazing you survived at all.”
Christopher turned to shoot the man an angry look but the surgeon was already moving across the room, helping his assistant with the dirtied instruments.
Dustin’s sobbing had lessened, sounding more like weak whimpers and Christopher tried to hold her as close as he could with the strange angle of the bed.
“Do you hate me now?” she murmured.
“Of course not, Dustin, I love you,” he responded before he thought about what he was saying.
He froze, and her crying stopped. Then, her head moved a bit and her swollen gray eyes focused on him questioningly.
“Tell me again,” she begged.
He blinked at her, almost refusing, but he didn’t know why he should. He loved her, she knew he loved her, but the matter of saying those three simple words had been the most difficult of tasks. To say them was opening him up, laying himself vulnerable, and giving her power over him.
But she already had power over him. She was his wife and he loved her like nothing else on earth.
The time had come for him to stop being such a coward and tell her over and over how much he loved her until she grew tired of hearing it.
He hated himself in that it took something of this magnitude to bring him to his senses.
“I love you,” he whispered, gazing into the depths of the stormy gray eyes. “You are my reason for living, lady, and I love you with all my heart.”
Her clammy hand came up to weakly caress his cheek and her pale lips formed a wonderful smile. “Tell me again.”
He grinned. “I just did, but I will say it again if you wish it. I love you madly.”
Her eyes closed but the smile was still there, and her hand dropped limply to the bed. “I love you, husband,” she sighed.
He clutched her hand tightly, holding it reverently to his lips.
They stayed in that loving position the longest time.
The midwife continued to check Dustin periodically to make sure the hemorrhaging had stopped, offering an encouraging smile to Christopher now and again.
Burwell and his assistant remained, seated quietly in the corner of the bedchamber in case they were needed again.
The afternoon passed into early evening.
Finally, the midwife was satisfied that the bleeding was minimal and would stop in a few days.
She instructed Christopher to keep the head of the bed down for the night and in the morning she would return to see how Dustin was faring.
Burwell, too, was full of instructions as to the care of Lady de Lohr and Christopher listened intently.
When the man turned to leave, Christopher stopped him.
“Burwell,” he said in a scratchy voice. “Is…..is there enough of the babe to bury?”
Burwell looked thoughtful. “The babe was about as big as my thumb. Intact, I might add.”
Christopher swallowed at the distaste he felt at even asking the question, then hearing the answer. It bordered on disgust, but for some reason, he had to know. The fetus was his flesh and blood and a part of him, a part of Dustin.
“Was….what was it?” He hated himself for asking, for sounding so petty.
“A son,” Burwell’s voice was hushed.
Christopher’s eyes stung and he lowered his head. “I would appreciate a Christian burial for my son,” he said, his voice choked with emotion as he gazed on Dustin’s sleeping face.
Burwell merely nodded, closing the door softly behind him.
In the darkness of the room, with his wife sleeping and the world around him silent but for the crackling of the logs in the hearth, Christopher allowed himself the luxury of tears.