Chapter 14 #2
stain darkening his palm. She reached down between her legs and
felt the thick, viscous discharge and smelled the coppery scent of
her blood.
“My moon-flow has come,” she said, and burst
into tears.
“Don't cry, Ali girl,” he crooned. He sat up
and embraced her, running his hand up and down her back as she
buried her face into his shoulder. “There’s no need to cry. This is
a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she cried into his shoulder. “No. I
don’t know.” What was wrong with her? Of course, it was a good
thing. Her being pregnant with his child would’ve complicated
things even more than they already were.
So why did it feel as if her soul had been
ripped out of her? How was it possible to mourn a child who had
never been? To feel bereft of something she’d never had? She lifted
her tear-streaked face to Roark’s. “I kn…know it’s foo…foolish of
me,” she bawled. “But I…I wanted our chiiilld.”
“I know, love,” he soothed. “I know you did.
Crazy as it was, so did I.”
He held her and let her cry, whispering
sweet, tender words of love and endearment as she sobbed her heart
out over the child they would never have, the love they’d have to
walk away from for the sake of others. Over losing her one true
love. Her Somebody.
When she had no tears left to shed, he laid
her down on the bed and gently wiped the salt of her drying tears
from her face with a wet washrag, kissed the tip of her nose, and
handed her the washrag to serve as a temporary bleeding rag.
“It’s coming on dawn, lass,” he murmured,
leaning over her and kissing her cheek. “You should go back to your
room before the household starts to stir.”
***
Roark stepped out of his room and almost
smack into Lady Siusan and two maidservants, one carrying a basin
and ewer, and the other a stack of small absorbent cloths to
Alina’s room.
“Is Alina unwell?” he asked Lady Siusan.
“She is indisposed,” she told him, “and will
likely remain so for another day or two.”
Roark eyed the basin and the bleeding cloths.
“Ah, I see,” he said, acting like he’d figured out that Alina’s
moon-flow had come, but not fooling the lady in the least. It was
perfect timing it happened here, instead of their long journey
through the wilds, and before she’d set sail with a ship full of
strange men.
But she’d been bereft, crying over a babe
that was never to be. Crying over leaving him when she’d never once
cried over what had been done to her. Her sad expression when she’d
left him early this morning, assuring him she’d be fine, had been
troubling him since. “If I may ask, how is she?”
The lady of the manor gave him a stern,
motherly look. “She is as well as can be expected,” she said, not
exactly easing his worries. “I’ll tell her you asked after
her.”
“Thank you.”
Lady Siusan nodded and waved the maidservants
on.
“Lady Siusan,” he called. She stopped and
looked over her shoulder. “Will you give her my love, please?”
The lady’s stern expression softened. “Of
course.” She stepped up to him and lowered her voice to a whisper.
“Shall I tell her to expect you tonight?”
“I, ah, um.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Roark was still shaking his head as he walked
down the stairs to a mostly empty dining hall and grabbed a piece
of bread, a slice of cold mutton, and a handful of cherries from
the serving table, eating them as he strolled over to the stables
where he found Cullen feeding Etain carrots.
“My mother said Lady Alina wasn’t feeling
well today,” he told Roark, “so I’m making sure Etain gets her
treats.”
“That’s verra considerate of you,” Roark
said. He grabbed two carrots from the bucket and fed one to Beasty.
“I’m sure Alina will appreciate it almost as much as Etain.” He fed
Beasty the other carrot and sent out a prayer to the bog
loshadi, the horse gods Alina had told him about, for Artur’s
healing and safe return. “I was going to let Etain and Beasty out
in the paddock for a bit,” he said. “Would you like to help me with
them?”
Cullen nodded eagerly. “Do you think they’ll
get along with Godfrey and Damon?”
“They should,” Roark said. “Beasty here seems
to get along with anyone as long as they’re friendly, Etain too.”
As long as they didn’t try to nurse from her.
The image of an auburn-haired babe with eyes
as green as spring grass suckling at Alina’s breast came unbidden,
hitting him like a blow to the chest. He braced his hands on his
knees pulling in air, but he still couldn’t breathe.
“Roark?”
He looked over at Cullen’s big green eyes, so
like Alina’s, so like the child he’d envisioned, and lowered his
head. “I’m all right,” he lied. “I need a moment, lad.”
After his breathing returned to normal, they
led the horses out two by two, keeping an eye on them as they
approached the other horses, sniffing and flicking their tails
before settling down to graze under the late morning sun. Roark was
showing Cullen how to use the spyglass when Owen and Gavin came
into the paddock, and he showed them as well.
“Here,” Roark said, holding the spyglass out
to Owen. “I want you to have this as thanks for all you’ve done.
For all you intend to do for Alina and myself.”
Owen eyed the spyglass for a moment and then
waved it away. “While I appreciate the offer,” he said, “you should
hold on to it. You’ll have more need of it on your journey back
to—” he glanced at Cullen, “your home. Which you’ll be accompanied
on by Niels and Grant.”
“While I appreciate your offer,” Roark said,
“may I ask why you’d be willing to send two of your men on such a
long, arduous journey with me, and back?”
“Because it is such a long, arduous journey,”
Owen said. “And because Lady Alina asked me to.”
Roark snorted. “Of course she did.” He toed
the ground with his boot and rubbed his jaw. He hated bringing more
people further into his mess, but the company of two armed men
would almost guarantee his return to clean up the rest of it. He
held his hand out to Owen. “Of course, I accept.”
“Good,” Owen said, clasping Roark’s forearm
and giving it a shake. “Now that’s settled, we were about to go
taste test a batch of whisky. Care to join us?”
***
Roark woke fully clothed on top of a bed in a
strange room that spun when he tried to sit up. He fell back on his
elbows and squinted at the glaring daylight streaming in through
the open window shutters and groaned as his head started
pounding.
“Water,” he croaked, forcing himself to sit
up slowly and scan the room for a drinking pitcher. Spying one on a
table, he pushed himself onto unsteady legs, grabbed his throbbing
head with both hands, and stumbled over to the pitcher. His hands
shook as he poured himself a cup of water and drank it in three
long swallows. He refilled his cup and gulped down the water until
the pitcher was empty. Now he recognized where he was.
He remembered going to the distillery with
Owen and Gavin and drinking whisky, telling tall tales, and
laughing until his belly hurt. He was fairly sure they’d sung a few
bawdy songs before staggering across the yard to the manor house
sometime after dark. He had a vague memory of attempting to climb
the stairs to their rooms, and thought they may have fallen a time
or two—which his sore backside and shoulder attested to. He’d
obviously made his room, where he must’ve passed out in a drunken
stupor and remained the rest of the night.
A night he was meant to spend with Alina.
“Damnation.”
Ignoring the constant, throbbing ache in his
head, he splashed water on his face and left his room to end up
standing in the hall trying to decide whether to go straight to
Alina’s room or go down to the dining hall and get something solid
into his empty, queasy belly. With his belly threatening to revolt
and the smell of whisky sweating out of his pores, he decided it
would be best to eat and bathe first. Alina would understand. He
hoped.
Loud, boisterous voices assailed his head as
he entered the dining hall, and then the heat and smell of bodies
and food hit his nose and belly. He glanced at the bowls of
porridge people were eating as he headed for the high table and
almost retched, twice.
He took a seat by a dour-faced Owen and
peered into the laird’s bloodshot eyes. “How much whisky did we
taste yesterday?” he croaked.
“Gallons,” a sallow-skinned Gavin answered
from Owen’s other side.
Roark took in the fried eggs, buttered bread,
and ale the laird and his brother-in-law were eating and asked the
serving maid for a plate and a cup of the same.
“O’course, m’lord,” she answered.
He started to raise his hand, to stop her and
tell her he was no bloody lord, but it took too much effort. He
propped his elbows on the table and laid his head in his hands
instead and tried to remember more of yesterday, but it only made
his headache worse.
The maid brought his food and drink, and by
the time he’d sipped half the cup and eaten most of the food, his
belly was feeling almost normal and the pounding in his head had
dulled enough for him to think without hurting, though his memory
was still muddled.
“I’ve been drunk a few times before,” he told
Owen, who’d finished eating his food and was nursing his second cup
of ale. “But never like that.”
“I’m not surprised, lad,” Owen said with a
subdued chuckle. “Whisky’s a stronger drink than most men are used
to.”
Gavin turned a jaundiced eye to Roark. “I
must say, lad, you handled it better than most their first time
overindulging. Right up until you started singing.”
“I apologize,” Roark said. He sounded like a
stag in rut when he tried to sing. “Anything else I said or did I
should be aware of since I can’t remember a thing after the third,
or maybe it was the fourth, cup?”
“Not much,” Owen told him, “other than your
entire life history up until the moment you spied Alina racing her
horse on the beach with her legs bare and her long mane
flowing.”
Roark buried his head in his hands and
groaned.
“Then you went all moon-eyed and
introspective,” Owen continued. “After that, I admit I don’t recall
much either, other than Gavin and me helping you up the stairs.
It’s all still a bit hazy.”