Page 24 of The Autumn Wife (King’s Girls #3)
Cecile’s hands still trembled as she gathered the bloody linens from around the cabin’s one bedroom and tossed them in a sack for laundering.
She kept a keen eye on Marie, lying under fresh covers, her dark hair damp from sweat.
It had been a little more than an hour since the birth, long enough to get Marie cleaned up, bound in dressings, and her hair combed into a neat plait.
Still, her friend didn’t sleep, her eyes fluttering half open and then drifting closed again, a saint’s smile fixed upon her face.
“Will she be all right?” Cecile whispered to the Huron midwife—Hateya—now returning a bewildering array of medicinal herbs and mosses to her reed basket. “There was so much blood.”
“No more blood than usual.” Hateya nodded at a dozing Marie with affection. “She’s very strong. You have children?”
Cecile shook her head with a wince. In truth, this was the first birth she’d ever seen.
When she’d been married, her husband had forbidden her to leave the grounds of his cabin, purposely isolating her from the other women and the entire community of Trois-Rivières.
Nor had he wanted more children. One hungry little mouth was enough, he’d said, referring to Etienne.
But it wasn’t until now, having held Marie’s warm-from-the-womb daughter against her chest, that she realized the full extent of the joy Eduard had stolen from her.
“I will come again tomorrow.” Hateya slipped the handle of the medicine basket up to her elbow, the pale pink shells around her neck clinking. “The after pains will begin soon.” Hateya nodded to a cup on a side table. “Give her that to drink when they do.”
“And the babe…” Currently being rocked in Captain Girard’s arms in the other room. “Is there something I must do for her?”
“When her daughter cries for milk, Marie will take her up.”
The Huron woman nodded and left, closing the door behind her. Through that door, Cecile heard Captain Girard’s rumbling voice and words spoken in the Huron tongue.
Theo must be in the parlor, too, and the thought was a jolt. Since her arrival here, time had been a blur, but Cecile remembered the beautiful words he’d spoken to her by the banks of the river.
Marie murmured, “Ceci?”
She hurried to Marie’s bed and plopped down into the cane chair set beside it. Her friend lay back on the pillows but could barely keep her eyelids open.
“I’m so glad”—Marie patted the linens until she found Cecile’s hand—“that you made it here in time.”
“Barely.” Cecile gripped Marie’s hand, damp from washing. “You were fighting to push her out when I stepped into the room.”
“All the hours before were boring, just me pacing and complaining.” Marie shifted her head on the pillow, forcing her eyes open. “Did it terrify you?”
“Absolutely.”
Marie laughed, her beautiful gaze weary but suffused with joy. “But it was miraculous, wasn’t it?”
Cecile ducked her head and nodded. If Marie’s breasts were not so swollen, Cecile would have laid her head on Marie’s chest, slung her arms around her, and hugged her tight. She was so relieved Marie had made it through.
“How is Lucas faring?” Marie asked. “I fear we’ll have to replace the porch floorboards after all his pacing.”
“He’s fine. He didn’t just birth a child.
” Cecile remembered, as Lucas entered the room, how he’d bent over Marie to run his hands through her hair, whispering words so loving that Cecile had found herself overwhelmed by the intimacy.
“Right now, he’s in the other room, sitting by the hearth, rocking your daughter who is sleeping. As you should be.”
“I’d love to, but the after pains are starting.” Marie winced as she slid her free hand over the covers above her somewhat-deflated abdomen. “Talk to me, Cecile. Distract me.”
“Drink this first.” Cecile swept up the cup of medicine that Hateya had brewed and, lifting Marie’s head, held it to her friend’s lips.
Marie drank it down and made a face. “Just as bitter as I remember. I don’t understand why I can’t add maple syrup to the brew.” She winced, trying hard to swallow away the bad taste. “Tell me, did that pirate of a stonemason come with you today? I thought I heard his voice on the porch.”
“Yes, he’s here.” Cecile put the cup back on the bedside table and gave Marie a hard eye. “Was it you who planned it, having both of us come here together?”
“Ceci, what a suspicious mind you have.” Marie widened her eyes in an exaggerated way. “Didn’t Mother Superior make the travel arrangements?”
“My goodness.” Cecile leaned closer to her friend as realization dawned. “You saw Sister Martha just yesterday. You two set this up together.”
“Not exactly. I mean, I did ask Sister Martha to send Theo here. But I only joked about how nice it would be for you to come at the same time. Because you hadn’t agreed to spend the winter with me yet.
” Marie shifted her shoulders against the pillow, her smile turning puckish.
“In any case, I’m thrilled you both made it here.
After witnessing the lightning arcing between you two yesterday, I did wonder if having you both in the same canoe would set it on fire. ”
“Goodness, Marie, listen to you.” Cecile tried to stop the flush, but it swept over her. “Is there even a plan for a stone church, or is that a ruse, too?”
“Not a ruse, just a convenient excuse.” Marie winced as another spasm gripped her, held, and then released. “Lucas and I have been discussing the matter for some time.”
“Well, your plans—both of them—are doomed to failure.” Cecile sighed at her friend’s audacity. “Theo is going back to France in just a few weeks. So, he won’t be building your stone church, nor spending any more time with me.”
Marie’s brow rippled. “But you’re in love with him.”
Cecile ducked her head. Damn Marie and those all-seeing eyes.
She definitely felt something.
Could it be love?
“Ceci, I know you have feelings for that man.” Marie twisted a little on the bed to better face her. “Don’t you dare deny it—not to me and not anymore. For too long, I denied my feelings for Lucas. That didn’t make them go away. I only found happiness after I came to understand and accept—”
“Please stop.” Cecile pulled away, for every word out of Marie’s mouth felt like a pike through her gut.
“I won’t deny that I’m drawn to him. Strongly.
” A prickling showered over her, a thousand tickling needles, as she thought about Theo looming over her only a few hours ago, his mouth shaping the words you deserve to be happy.
“But…I’ve never experienced love, Marie. I’m not even sure what it looks like.”
But she did, she realized, as she gazed down at a woman still suffering from the birth of a beautiful baby girl. Despite the pain, Marie glowed with joy and contentment. In the other room sat her loving husband, who’d nearly gone mad with worry during the birth.
“Is it a passion for him, then?” Marie’s brow rippled with confusion. “Is that what the lightning is all about?”
Heat blazed up from under Cecile’s bodice. Really, why were they having this conversation?
“Passion is a wonderful thing.” Marie squeezed her hand. “If that’s what’s drawing you to Theo, you should accept that, too, acknowledge it, even embrace it. Especially after all you’ve suffered with—”
“Shouldn’t you be sleeping by now?” Cecile fussed with the sheets, desperate to end this conversation.
“Don’t let fear stop you from loving.” Marie went still, then breathed through another cramp. “Most of all,” she continued, as the cramp slowly abated, “don’t let that bastard of a husband ruin your life anymore. You deserve to be happy.”
Overcome at the same words Theo had spoken to her, she turned away from Marie to stare blindly toward the oilskin-covered window.
“Explore all those confusing feelings,” Marie persisted. “Listen to the natural pull of your body.”
“Please tell me you didn’t say any of this to Sister Martha while you both were meddling.”
“Oh, my darling Ceci, Sister Martha understands the world better than you think.”
She planted her head in her hands, groaning. To have such a friend as this was the greatest gift—Cecile had once helped Marie defy a king all those years ago—and yet, now Cecile wished she could stop Marie from talking.
“Enough, Marie.” She straightened with a long exhale. “All this talk is futile. I told you, there is no future for Theo and myself.”
“I’m not talking about the future.” Marie’s eyelids fluttered as the medicine began to take hold. “I’ve done my part to get you together…the rest is up to you.”
“The rest of what?”
“The parlor,” Marie murmured. “That’s where you’ll be sleeping.”
“I know. Lucas set up a pallet for me. Now what—”
“While you’re in the parlor,” Marie interrupted, “Theo will be sleeping in the barn. Lucas and I will be here in this bed, behind a closed door, deaf and mute to anything but a baby’s cry.”
At the implication, Cecile went prickly warm, though the fire in the hearth had banked to coals and needed another log. “Heavens, Marie. To think that you were raised in a convent.”
“Don’t worry…about pregnancy.” Marie tugged on the blanket, her eyes sliding closed as she fought exhaustion. “A man as handsome as that…must have plenty of experience in avoiding—”
“Saints alive.” Cecile bolted to her feet. “Your pain is making you delirious.”
“I want you happy, Ceci.”
Those words again. Of course she wanted to be happy. But she’d never found any joy in the marriage bed. And to lie in a bed with Theo—whether he gave her joy or not—would make parting from him only more difficult.
“This conversation is over.” Cecile headed to the door. “You get some sleep, Marie.”
“I’ll try…But I hope you don’t sleep at all.”
Marie’s fading laughter followed her out of the room.