Chapter 27
“What happened?” Brice forced the words through a tight throat.
“You best come with me,” Lachlan said.
“Tell me.”
Lachlan shook his head. “ ’Tis best ye see this for yerself.”
For once Brice didn’t have the breath to argue or demand. Feeling more helpless than he ever had, he meekly followed Lachlan through the thick brush and trees.
They rode for about ten minutes until he could see a faint light through the trees.
He thought he should probably yell at someone for lighting the way for the English to find them, but he found he didn’t have the voice to do so.
The light was faint anyway, and they were well away from the main road.
He heard it first, the cry. It didn’t sound human; it was more animal-like. “What the—”
Lachlan held up his fist, the sign they used for “quiet” and “halt.” Lachlan reined his horse in and slid off.
Brice followed suit only to have his knees almost give out on him, his legs were shaking so badly.
His entire body was shaking. He didn’t think he’d ever felt such fear.
He had no idea what he was going to find on the other side of those trees, but to judge by Lachlan’s expression, it couldn’t be good.
They cleared the trees, and at first all Brice saw were his men in a semicircle, looking at something on the ground. They parted when they saw him coming.
Eleanor was sitting on the ground, her back to them. In front of her was the woman they had been transporting, her husband at her head.
Eleanor looked over her shoulder and smiled a weary smile. Brice swore his knees buckled, but with some force, he straightened them and walked over to her. She held something in the crook of her arm. Brice dropped to his knees.
“It’s a girl,” she whispered, tears shimmering in her eyes. Gently she pulled a blanket away to reveal the scrunched-up red face of a newborn baby.
His gaze flew to hers. “What in the—”
“She was born just minutes ago. Isn’t she beautiful?”
Brice sat back on his heels, stunned. Never, in all the time he’d been running the Staran, had someone given birth on the trail.
It led to complications, but for now he couldn’t think of those.
He looked at the mother, clearly exhausted, and the beaming father and the son, now an older brother, who was watching it all with wide, unsure eyes.
“Where are the soldiers?” Lachlan asked softly so the family didn’t hear.
Brice stood and stepped away. “They’ve moved on. Unless something pulls them back, we’ll no’ be hearing from them this night.”
Lachlan looked at the group of people before them with a troubled frown. “We still have another group to pick up.”
Brice nodded. “I know. We need to get the mother and babe to Cait. She’ll know what to do with them.”
Cait Campbell was the only healer in these parts, since Brice had lost his healer in the spring. Though it was difficult not having someone near, he trusted Cait, even though she was a Campbell—but only by marriage. There was a difference.
His gaze followed Lachlan’s, but all he could see was Eleanor sitting on the ground, the babe looking so natural in her arms. Her head was bent toward the baby, and he could see her whispering in the wee’un’s ear as she stroked the tiny fingers.
The scene looked so right, so natural, that it made his heart hurt. If she were with child, he would never be able to see her hold his babe.
He dragged his gaze away. “I’ll take the other men and Eleanor and fetch the others and move them. You take the family to Cait.”
Brice knelt next to Eleanor and glanced at the babe, but that hurt too much, so he concentrated on Eleanor. “We have to move. ’Tis too dangerous to stay here like this. Lachlan, Oliver, and Samuel will take the mother and babe to the closest healer.”
Eleanor nodded and handed the babe back to her mother. The woman was crying, silent tears dripping down her cheeks. The father cradled mother and baby to him and cried with her.
“Please let us go with ye,” the mother begged Brice. “We’re all in danger if we stay.”
Brice shook his head. “It’s no’ safe for ye. Ye need to be looked over by the healer, and the wee’un, too. If all’s well, ye can be on the next boat.”
“We’ll be fine,” Morna said, desperation in her voice. “I promise we won’t be a burden.”
Brice hesitated. He understood how she felt.
They were being hunted, and the longer they stayed in Scotland, the bigger their chance of being found.
But he couldn’t risk it. He had to leave them behind.
“I’m sorry,” he said before turning his back on her.
The mother wept louder, and her husband patted her on the back, while Brice felt like he’d sentenced these people to death.
Cait would protect them, and he would do everything in his power to get them on that next ship.
“It’s her fifth birth,” Eleanor whispered as she stepped up beside him. “All the others died except for her son and now her daughter.”
Brice nodded briskly. He knew he was appearing heartless, although he was anything but.
He felt so keenly for these people that his heart was breaking.
At this point in the journey, they’d accepted that they were leaving their homeland and their families behind.
They were looking forward to a life without fear.
To be told they had to wait was torture.
He’d had to do it before, and he had to think of the whole.
He couldn’t put others’ lives in danger for a few.
Eleanor helped the woman stand and held her steady. Brice knew nothing of birthing and wasn’t certain it was safe for the woman to be up and walking, but they needed to move. Traveling with her and a baby who could cry at any moment would be dangerous.
“I want to go with her,” Eleanor said.
“Nay.”
“It wasn’t a question, Brice. You can’t send this woman and her newborn baby out into the wilderness with a bunch of men. It’s not right.”
“It will have to do. Ye’re no’ going with them.”
Her eyes flashed, and he almost winced at the anger directed at him. “I’m going. She needs another woman with her until she gets to the healer.”
Brice took an angry step toward her. “Do ye know how dangerous this is? That babe could cry out at any moment and alert passing soldiers.”
“It doesn’t matter if we’re heading toward the healer or the next safe house, the same could happen either way.”
He was toe-to-toe with her, angry that she wanted to put herself in danger. Hell, he’d just calmed his racing heart from when he thought she was in the hands of the enemy. “Ye promised ye would follow what I told ye.”
She hesitated and he knew he had her. The only reason he’d brought her was because she’d sworn to him that she would do everything he said.
“I brought that baby into the world,” she said softly.
“Me. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was beautiful and unpleasant at the same time.
I caught her with my own hands.” She held up her hands.
Blood was caked in her fingernails, but she looked at her hands in awe.
“I was the first one to touch her and hold her, and I’ll see her to safety. I will, Brice.”
He drew in a breath through clenched teeth.
“When I couldn’t find ye after the soldiers passed, I thought they had ye.
I thought ye’d been captured, and I…” He stopped, never having been one to easily express his emotions.
“It tore me apart, thinking ye were with them. I went after them, and Eleanor, I don’t know what I would have done if ye had been with them.
I think I would have gone mad and killed them all. ”
Her expression softened and she touched his cheek.
“I’m sorry I put you through that. I was alone in the woods until I stumbled across Oliver and Morna.
She was already laboring. I didn’t know what to do, but she told me.
Even in her pain, she walked me through it.
It was a miracle, Brice. A beautiful, wondrous miracle. ”
“We have to go in the direction of the soldiers to get her to the healer. I do no’ want ye that close to them.”
“They’re far ahead of us. I have to do this, Brice.”
He knew when he had lost, and he had definitely lost this battle.
“Mount up,” he said, furious with her. Furious with himself.
Furious with Morna for putting them all in danger.
But more than these, he was furious with his life and the fact that everything conspired against him.
All he wanted was to live peacefully with Eleanor at his side, but that was never to be.
So instead he mounted up and watched as his men headed to the other safe houses.
The father and mother rode together. The boy rode with Oliver, and Eleanor and Brice rode their own mounts. He had to admit that the babe was quiet in her mother’s arms.
About halfway there, the mother was falling asleep from exhaustion and handed the babe off to Eleanor. For not having ridden, Eleanor was adept at handling her horse and cradling the wee babe in her arms.
The look on her face was pure joy as she gazed down at the baby.
—
Eleanor had wanted a child only because it was expected of her to provide Charles an heir.
She’d never had an active maternal instinct.
When months went by and she had not conceived, she’d thought very little of it.
Both families would comment that it was time she and Charles start filling the nursery, but Eleanor would laugh them off, not overly concerned.
But watching this newborn baby come into the world, witnessing the mother struggling to expel it from her body and the joy on her face when she heard the lusty cries of her daughter, had tugged at something deep inside Eleanor.
She looked down on the baby, who was fast asleep in her arms, her hands tucked up around her cheeks. Tears welled in Eleanor’s eyes, and she had to blink them away in order to guide her horse.
Brice was watching her closely with a look on his face that she could not describe. It was as if he yearned for something he could not have and didn’t want to show.
Eleanor now wanted her own baby with a desperation that she had felt only one other time in her life, and that had been the desperation to escape Blackwood’s prison.
She wanted a baby. She wanted Brice’s baby. She wanted to live with Brice forever, and make and raise more babies, but that was not to be. They had only seven—now six—days left together. Six days to live a lifetime of memories, and none of them would be to see the children they could have together.
They reached the healer’s house. It wasn’t a hut, like Eleanor had been expecting. It was a two-story stone structure tucked far into the woods and accessible only by a very narrow path that they had to ride single file.
The baby was beginning to wake up in Eleanor’s arms. Soon it would want to be fed, and that was something Eleanor could not help with.
They reached the healer’s front door. Brice held out his arms for the baby, and Eleanor hesitated before handing her over, knowing she would never hold her again.
She hoped the family would make it to Canada and live a rich, full life, and she hoped the mother would tell the baby girl all about her birth and the woman who had helped her come into the world.
She watched as Brice curled a big strong arm around the tiny babe and took her to her mother.
The healer—Eleanor had heard Brice call her Cait—stood at the door, watching.
Eleanor was surprised to see that Cait was young and beautiful, with red hair and sharp, observant eyes.
Brice handed the baby to her mother and walked over to Cait.
They conversed quietly, Cait shooting occasional glances at the small family.
She nodded and then smiled at the family, who were huddled together as if protecting the baby.
Cait held out her hands to them and spoke quietly. The father and son entered the healer’s home, but the mother hesitated before walking over to Eleanor. “I thank ye,” she said with tears in her eyes. “If no’ for ye, I don’t know what would have happened.”
Eleanor smiled through her own tears. “It was an honor to help. I wish you and your family luck and a happy life.”
Morna nodded before she turned around and disappeared into the healer’s home.
“We must go, Eleanor.” Brice helped her back up on her mount, and they all turned to go home. Eleanor’s arms felt empty and her heart cold.