Remembrance Read online

  John was still standing in the doorway, staring at his wife, and the hatred in his eyes was enough to set the room on fire. It was a while before he could find his voice. It didn’t matter to him that the words he said he’d said a thousand times before. With each daughter his rage was fresh.

  “How can this worm of a girl breed a son and you cannot?” John asked, glaring at his wife. Gilbert Rasher’s tiny wife had now been covered with a blanket so the wound that split her body in half could not be seen, but her lifeless form barely made the blanket rise. Beside her, Alida was big and healthy, her skin glowing with life in spite of what she had just been through.

  For several minutes John told his wife what he thought of her, humiliating her in front of her maids and Rasher, whose eyes gleamed with delight at the altercation.

  Through all of this Meg clasped the children to her and they had not uttered a sound, still awake, still alert and looking into each other’s eyes.

  For the first time John seemed to be fully aware of the children, or rather, the boy. With one stride, he went to stand in front of Meg and look down at the two babies she held. John was not a superstitious man and he did not have the cunning of Gilbert. When he saw the two children clinging to each other, no feelings of oddity occurred to him. Nor did any thoughts of fastidiousness cloud his mind. All he saw was a large, perfect son, a son such as he had always wanted.

  With one great wrench, before Meg could protest, he pulled the two children apart and clasped the boy to him.

  Never had such a howl been set up as when the children were pulled apart. If there had been any thought that the boy was weak from the birth, it was dispelled the moment he opened his mouth and began to bellow—as did the girl. The sheer volume of the cacophony was startling. It was as though a hundred banshees had been loosened into the old stone room and the sound reverberated off the walls.

  The eyes of everyone in the room widened, one maid put her hands over her ears, Meg looked frantically at the boy squirming in John’s arms, while Gilbert, seated near his dead wife’s body, thought that by having to stay near this he had to work too hard for a living. Only John seemed oblivious to the noise.

  “This is a son, madam,” he shouted to his wife. “This is what you should have given me. No twisted feet. No weak lungs. Do you not know how to make sons in that belly of yours?”

  Gilbert saw that John was going to keep on in this way for some time and might never arrive at the bargain he had in mind so he took the initiative. “Oh, my beloved wife,” he wailed and had to raise his voice to the level that he used on the tournament field. What with those damned brats squalling and John’s bellowing, he could hardly hear himself.

  “My beloved wife!” Gilbert yelled. “You of all the women did I love. And now I must try to raise yet another son alone, with no mother. I can hardly afford to feed those I have. How will I feed this one? And what about teaching him? When will I find time to teach him what a boy needs to know? Who will ride with him? Hunt with him? Who will celebrate with him when he brings down his first boar?”

  John had at last stopped his tirade against his wife and was looking at Gilbert, blinking as, slowly, thoughts came to him.

  “Give the brat to the woman to feed,” Gilbert said crossly. Was the man unnatural that he could not hear that din?

  When John realized that he might be starving the precious child in his arms, he acted as though a fire had been lit under him. In one step he was across the room to Meg and tenderly handed her the baby. As soon as the boy and the girl were again touching each other, the crying stopped.

  With satisfaction John watched as Meg pulled her rough gown open and revealed a pair of splendid, full breasts and within seconds both children had latched onto them and were hungrily sucking.

  This bit of diversion had given John time to consider what he had heard—and in case he did not fully understand Gilbert’s meaning, the man started again.

  “Oh Lord,” Gilbert loudly prayed, “give me strength in this my hour of need. You know that I am a poor man. I have been blessed with connections to the throne through the Stuart line but I have not been blessed with money. I do not know how I will afford to clothe this son as befits his rank. I do not—”

  “You may leave us now,” Alida said coldly, knowing full well what Gilbert was trying to accomplish.

  John was thinking so hard about what he wanted and the seed that Gilbert had planted in his head that for once he did not rage at his wife. He merely held up his hand to her for silence. It did not enter his head that Gilbert Rasher wanted to give his son away; to give away something as valuable as this was tantamount to giving away a mountain of gold. Hadn’t he worked for this all his life? But to Gilbert sons were easily made; gold was much more valuable.

  “I…,” John said softly, praying he wouldn’t offend Gilbert, “I will undertake the care of your son. I will feed him, train him.”

  Gilbert looked as though this were a startling idea. “You could not do such a kind thing for me,” he said. “No man is capable of such generosity.” As though weighed down by grief, Gilbert lumbered to his feet and started toward his hungrily nursing son.

  John blocked his way. “I must do something to help a man in need.” Frantically, he searched his mind for something he “owed” Gilbert. “Your wife died in my house. It is the fault of the midwife who works for me. To repay you I will toss her out and pay for the care of your son.”

  At that Berta began to protest, but a look from Alida shut her up. Alida wanted to stop what she could see was going to happen but she knew of no way. She had given her husband many daughters and two sons but all that pain was now being thrown away. It would have been all right if she could have switched the children without the knowledge of her husband. He would have loved her for giving him a son. But now he would know that she had failed and he would hate her. And what is more, he would give everything—all land and property—to this child who was not his.

  “No, no,” Gilbert said with a great sigh. “You cannot throw your midwife onto the streets. I’m sure she is good. It was not her fault, it was mine. I breed sons of such great size that the women cannot bear them. Had I any consideration I would give my women small, golden girls as you do.”

  “The horse you admired yesterday,” John said. “It is yours.”

  Gilbert looked offended. “You think I would trade my son for a horse?” he said righteously.

  “No, no, of course not.” All the horses in the world would not have made John part with a large, strong, healthy son.

  Slowly, to give John time to come up with a richer offer for the boy, Gilbert sauntered over to where Meg held the babies. When John could think of nothing else to say, Gilbert helped. “I cannot take a nursing child from its milk. I must wait.” With another dramatic sigh, he said, “I wish I could leave the boy with you.”

  At that John’s eyes widened.

  “If there were only a connection between our families. Perhaps a marriage bond. I need a new wife.”

  “Take your choice of my daughters,” John said quickly. “You may have any of them you want. For yourself, for your sons. Whatever you want. They are yours.”

  “I will take that red-haired one,” Gilbert said instantly.

  At that Alida gasped, for her daughter Joanna was only ten years old. “You cannot.” She looked imploringly at her husband.

  John did not so much as look at his wife. “She is yours.”

  “And what of her dowry?” Now that the bargaining was under way, Gilbert was dropping his guise of grief.

  “Peniman Manor,” John said quickly.

  Alida’s hands tightened into knots at her side. Peniman Manor was hers, given to her in her own right by her father. It was where she went whenever she had a chance, a place where she could have a beautiful garden that she knew was not going to be trampled by the hooves of men’s horses. It was a place where no man was welcome and it was where anything that she had ever owned or made that was beautiful was