Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ROWEN
It had come to Rowen as something of a surprise when they realised she was with child. Her monthly courses had stopped, and her curves had become fuller. Cassandra seemed happy, anxious by turns, and delighted. A new adventure.
This was nothing like the distant, orderly future he had once imagined. He had always meant to secure an heir, but wanting one had never entered his calculations.
To be a father himself? How in God’s name?
Perhaps he would feel differently once he saw it. Would he feel anything at all?
Certainly, his father had felt a great deal of pride at having sired a son, his heir, but any sort of particular interest in Rowen the person? Never.
He was relieved and pleased that Zandra had Aunt Isobel to share with the myriad details of being with child. Although his aunt had never been able to carry a child to term, she was thrilled at the prospect of being a support to Zandra.
Zandra’s body had changed and kept changing week by week.
Dizzy and nauseated at turns, retching in the mornings.
And now, five months on, positively feral, coming to his bedchamber in the middle of the night and riding him feverishly.
He was not sure if such activity was safe for her and the child, but he willingly and just as feverishly complied.
She was, by turns, racked with a variety of aches and pains, strange appetites, and other times, delirious with a heightened joy.
After it was born, Rowen decided he would go back to that shop in London and purchase a whole set of prophylactics. He didn’t want Zandra burdened.
Long and drawn out, her groans filled Greywick, filled his dark soul.
He grit his sore jaw as the candlelight cast immense flickering shadows on the wall of the parlour.
She was exhausted now, he could hear it, but it was too soon to deliver the child.
Edmund had told them the child would be born in two months time. Not now.
Not now, he pleaded with Providence.
He’d been with her at her bedside until Aunt Isobel had arrived and thrown him out. Rowen desperately wanted a drink, but he didn’t dare. He needed to stay sober and conscious in case….in case of anything.
At last Edmund arrived.
Relief sank in Rowen’s veins as his cousin charged up the stairs.
Edmund was the only medic Rowen trusted.
After his education in Edinburgh, he had served in the army in the American colonies, where he had much experience on battlefields.
His perspective was modern, not arrogantly tied to the old ways like his father’s doctors were.
Hours went by. He’d had a servant bring a bowl of ice-cold water to refresh himself. Rowen smoothed his wet hair back in its tie, pulling tightly on his mane. It was past two in the morning. A low, long shriek sliced through the air. A loud gasp. Crying erupted.
Rowen charged up the staircase, his heart fisting in his chest. One of the young servant girls carried a large basket filled with bloodied cloths. Spotting him, she scurried down the hallway into the darkness.
His heart pounded as he crossed the threshold of her chamber. Cassandra lay on their bed, looking lifeless, unmoving, her gaze hung on the window where the curtains had been left open, and faint moonlight filled the room. Edmund and his aunt bundled up a …
His mouth dried. “What has happened? Cassandra? Is she…”
“Rowen!” Her face pale, Aunt Isobel clutched the bundle tightly.
Edmund stepped forward. “She lives, but I am very sorry, Rowen, the child does not.”
“Does not?”
“The babe was born without its heart beating.”
“Because it was too soon?”
“Certainly, it was too soon.” Edmund’s brow furrowed. “But I believe the babe had not been alive for some time.”
An icy cold prickle razored over his skin at the horrid words. He went to Cassandra, her lips a pale blue. He touched her cheek. Cold. “Zandra? Zandra?”
All that effort for this. For suffering. For nothing.
All that hope and anticipation come to nought.
Finally, her eyes moved and hooked on his gaze. His breath cut. Stony and bleak. “I want to see him.” Her voice was low. “I want to see our son.”
A son.
“Rowen—” said Edmund, touching his arm. “It is best that I take the body and—”
“Best?” He sneered at him.
“It would be a most extraordinary sight for Her Grace, and —”
“Aunt! Give my wife her child.”
“Rowen, darling…”
“Now.” Rowen lifted Cassandra up in the bed so she leaned against the carved headboard as Aunt Isobel, her eyes swollen with tears, unwrapped the bundle and brought it to her, placing it gently in her arms.
Cassandra held it, her eyes swallowing in the sight. Tears slid down her face, but there was no crying out, no whimpers. Only silent tears. Rowen’s insides clenched at the sight of the tiny shriveled human. She brought it close to her face and laid a kiss on it.
“Oh, my darlings, I did not want this for you. Why, why, O Lord? Why?” Weeping, Aunt Isobel wrung her hands and left the room.
Edmund gestured for Rowen to step outside the chamber. “Rowen, the child was born far too soon. Had he drawn breath, he would not have lived long, and he would have suffered.”
Rowen shifted his weight, his jaw tight. “My wife. Will she live?”
Edmund quickly glanced back at Cassandra. “Her Grace had an excess of bleeding, and she will require much rest and care.”
That was code for no sexual relations.
“Be assured, she shall have it.” He would never take her again if that would assure her health and life.
“There’s something more, Rowen.” Edmund’s voice had gone low, his features drawn. “In the aftermath of extracting the child, I had to perform surgery to stop the bleeding.”
Rowen blinked, and now, in the light from the candelabra that had been recently placed in the hall, he noticed how much blood stained Edmund’s sleeves and shirtfront. Even one side of his face. Rowen’s head swirled, and he lost his footing. Edmund grabbed his arm and steadied him.
“Tell me,” his voice broke.
Edmund took in a deep breath. “Her Grace will not be able to have more children.”
“It was that violent of—what did you do, damn you?” Rowen launched at Edmund, pushing him against the wall.
“I realised early on that the child was already…and so I put all my efforts into saving Cassandra.”
“She could have died?”
“There was no time to waste, and I wasted none.”
His fingers curled in Edmund’s shirt. “She will live? She will heal?”
“She will. But as I said, I urge great caution—”
“Of course. Do you have powders for her discomfort? Teas, concoctions, anything? She must have all of it. Everything.”
Edmund put his hands on Rowen’s arms, and Rowen released his grip on him. “I do, and I shall leave them with instructions for her care.”
Rowen’s head hung, and he wiped at the edge of his mouth. “See that you do. You shall return on the morrow to check on her.”
“Indeed, I shall, cousin. I am so very sorry for your loss.”
“Get out.”
Edmund went back into the bedchamber.
Rowen sank back against the wall, his chest heaving for air.
His cousin exited the room, his medical bag in hand.
Rowen knew very well that no other doctor would have saved Cassandra.
That old dithering overpaid buffoon his father had been so fond of in London would have been utterly useless. “Edmund?”
“Your Grace?”
“I am grateful for all that you have done. I thank you for saving my wife.”
Edmund only bowed his head.
Rowen clasped his cousin’s arm. “Tell no one of Her Grace’s condition. Ever.” His lips curled. “Swear it.”
“I swear, Rowen. No one shall know.” Edmund left him alone with his broken wife and dead child.
“Rowen? You do not wish to look upon him?” Zandra asked, her voice weak.
“I did.” He swallowed hard as he approached the bed. “Such vulnerability I have never before observed.”
“Rowen…” her voice broke. Her beautiful, strong voice. “Oh, Rowen…”
“You need to rest now, my sweet.”
“We will have a funeral. Just you and I, and Aunt and Uncle and Edmund, won’t we?”
“Anything you wish. I shall send for the curate. We do have a family cemetery on the estate.”
She hiccuped in a breath. “I’m sorry, Rowen, so sorry that I could not give you a healthy son. Forgive me.”
A black sensation of fire and vehemence whipped through him.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. It is I who am at fault. My poisonous intentions toward you that very first time in the woods. You, nor the babe, are at fault. You are blameless, innocent angels, both. It is I.” He clenched his jaw to stop the onslaught of emotion that overwhelmed him.
She needed him now. Nothing else mattered.
“You will rest, and when you are strong again we will leave for Tidesfar. And thereafter you shall have nothing but amusements.”
“Perhaps we shall be blessed with another…”
His fist went to his mouth. He wanted nothing more than to agree with her little fragile hope.
Her hand stroked the child’s body, and a moan left her lips. “I am being punished. Punished for killing Francis.”
Rage blew through his veins. “Never. He deserved—”
“No, Rowen.” She grasped his shirt. “I cannot bear to believe that killing can ever be right. Not tonight.”
“Zandra…if you hadn’t come between us, I would be dead or worse.
You saved my life.” Sitting on the bed, he took her cold, stiff hand in his and kissed it.
“If I could take this pain from you, in your heart, in your bruised body, my darling, I would. I cannot lose you. The thought alone makes me desperate. You are the only person on this earth that I trust. My only friend. Our time here at Greywick has shown me that I cannot do without you. I am grateful you survived this madness. For it is madness, a woman bringing a child into this bloody world.”
“But it is our destiny to do so. Our God-given nature. A blessing.” Her weak, weary gaze returned to the babe. “A blessing I am not worthy of.”
“That is a lie.”
“He’s so very tiny, and yet I feel so weak before him, so useless. So dishonourable. If only…if only my body could have held onto him for a few weeks more…a few weeks more…” Her head dropped to the side, her body slumped. She’d drifted off to sleep, their dead child in her embrace.
Cassandra, the innocent girl who had become ensnared in his family’s wickedness, had suffered, yet again. That icy truth slammed through him like the violent North Sea, which churned just beyond Greywick.
But she was alive. She was alive, and he would cling to that. “I promise you, Zandra,” he whispered roughly, wiping her wet hair back from her face, his lips brushing her temple. “You shall not endure this alone.”
Rowen gazed at his wife and child one last time. A horrid Pietà of a different sort. An image forever torched onto his soul. He would keep it there. Feel the burn of it evermore.
Gnashing his teeth, he took up the bundle from Cassandra’s limp arms and folded the blanket around the babe once again. “Goodnight, sweet prince. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest,” he whispered to the lifeless form.
How pathetic I am, Rowen thought. The quote from Shakespeare came easily, blithely.
But this was cruel reality, not theatre.
Rowen nestled the bundle closer to his chest, his grip tightening.
This child would have been their prince indeed.
His body was lighter than the blanket, and yet the weight in his arms was considerable.
Rowen glanced down at his child, and a noise unfurled in his chest. He had lost his father, and in the next instant, he had lost his son.
Abruptly. Violently. These sudden blows pressed upon him like slabs of marble and made him numb.
More numb than his carefully cultivated self-imposed numbness to which he had become accustomed to all these years.
This?
Oh, this.
He had no name for it, no words to describe it.
Nothing.