Page 39 of The Secret of Drulea Cottage

“Daniel! You must get Briony Fairborn now!” Freda screamed from her bed.

Daniel Calhoun, who could no longer enjoy his lunch, meager as it was, yelled back, “Stop being dramatic, woman! I’m too busy to go find the midwife, so get over it!”

Freda waddled out of the bedroom to her husband with such a hateful countenance that it would terrify anyone stupid enough to earn it. She was in her eighth month, practically bursting, and she refused to letanyoneyell at her.

“Daniel Calhoun, if you don’ get Briony Fairborn right this minute, I’m going to kill you!”

Mr. Calhoun looked up from his bread angrily, but when he saw Freda’s face, he knew he had gone too far.

He replied, “I’m already on my way!” as he leaped from the table and rushed out like a scared dog.

When he didn’t find Mistress Fairborn at her house, Daniel asked Penelope McGuff where she might be. Penelope wasn’t in a good mood and practically ran him off, but she did say that Briony had been spending a lot of time with that Mr. Mendes at Everton Inn. Daniel hurried that way, and when he entered the inn’s sitting room, he was relieved to discover Mrs. McGuff had been right.

He came up to Briony, so desperate to get her help that he didn’t even bother to wait until she and Mr. Mendes noticed him.

He heard her say, “—something else I need to tell you,” and interrupted:

“Mistress Fairborn, I’m so glad to see you!”

“Mr. Calhoun! What’s the matter?” Briony asked. She hoped he hadn’t overheard them—she knew for a fact that Daniel didn’t share Santiago’s opinion on her illegitimacy.

“’Tis Freda…,” Daniel panted. “She says she needs you right now, and I think she means it this time. I ran all the way to yer house, but you weren’ there. I was lucky Mistress McGuff pointed me in the right direction.”

Briony bolted to her feet. “Let’s go right now. Is she in labor? Is she hurting?”

Daniel, wide-eyed at the thought that his wife might truly be in labor, raised his hands to show he had no idea.

Briony turned to Santiago with an apologetic look. “Please excuse me.”

“Of course! Good luck!”

Briony lifted her skirts and hustled toward the Calhouns’ house. “So? Tell me what’s wrong with her.”

“Well, I don’ rightly know. She just said she needed you right away,” Daniel admitted with a hand on the back of his neck.

Briony stopped in her tracks and sighed.Is this another false alarm?

Freda Calhoun had always been notorious for her melodramatics, and pregnancy had only worsened that personality trait. “Did she seem unsteady on her feet to you?”

“I did na notice, but I was out burning kelp this morneen. She was in the bed when I got home.”

Briony nodded in understanding. Daniel had been working much more in the past few months, supposedly to make up for the fact that his wife could no longer help him turn the seaweed into ash.The real reason, though, is probably to escape his wife’s orneriness.

“I just brought on a new fellow to help me. He says he recently arrived here and plans on staying a while—Niall Moreland. Have you met him yet? He seems mighty peculiar…” Daniel trailed off.

Briony’s breath caught at the man’s name. “Aye, I met him. I’m na sure what to make o’ him.”

I wonder why he’s planning to stay fer a while. I hope that means he came up with a good apology fer Adaira.

Daniel opened his mouth to say something else, but then he seemed to recall whom he was speaking with and clammed up. Silence spread over them like a thick fog that didn’t let up until they reached the Calhouns’ house.

A low groan sounded as Daniel opened the door, and the two of them hurried to Freda’s side.

“’Tis about time you showed up, Briony Fairborn! It hurts so much! I’m sure the bairn is almost here already with how long it took you!” the woman screamed from the bed. Her hair was matted with sweat, and her face was red.

Briony bit her tongue to keep from retaliating and began checking to see if everything was all right.

The woman’s pain turned out to be a false alarm, just as Briony had expected it would be. Freda was just nearing the end of her first pregnancy and didn’t seem to realize that what she was feeling was pretty common.