She opened her eyes and there it was again, that adoring look that made him feel like a king, a look so soft and warm it made him hard as a stone, a look that made him know there was something beyond what he knew was in this world and perhaps that something could be his. He came into her and she gasped with the pleasure of it.
A long time later, when Caroline sat in his lap on a huge wing chair in front of a fireplace that wasn’t lit, when they were so sated with pleasure that they should have been quite content to just sit there and think about nothing at all, Caroline said, “There seem to be an awful lot of bad people around us, North. Understand, I haven’t seen all that much of the world, or known many people, but most of the few I have met haven’t been very nice.”
“I know,” he said. He raised her hair off her neck and kissed her. She tasted like salt and woman and Caroline. “I know and I’m sorry for it. At least you found me and I’m a nice person.” He seemed surprised that he’d said that, but perhaps not as surprised as he would have been even two weeks ago.
“You’re more than nice. You’re the very best. You make up for all the others.”
He hugged her, felt her breasts against his chest, felt the precious surge
of lust wash through him, and wondered vaguely how he could possibly want her again so very soon after nearly killing himself two times before in far too short a time. He raised his hand and began to caress her breast.
She pushed forward, filling his hand, smiling at him, looking absolutely delighted. He made love to her yet again with her facing him in the chair and it was surely the finest moments he’d ever experienced in his life, if he didn’t count the other finest moments he’d been with her, loved her, and caressed her.
Caroline’s face was against his throat. She was panting, utterly limp. He very much liked her this way and knowing that he’d pleasured her so much she was ready to fall into a collapse. “I don’t think I’m going to make it this time, North. It was too much.”
“Yes, and I’ll do it to you again just as soon as I’ve regained a modicum of vigor.”
She giggled against his throat and bit his chin. “I love you, but I do need some reassurance. What do you think Polgrain and Tregeagle will do?”
He stilled, his hands now loose on her hips. Her gown was a mess, one of her stockings was hanging off the edge of the desk, the other lying like a white snake curled around the hearth sweep. Her slippers were at drunken angles by the chair. She looked well loved and it pleased him inordinately. “I don’t want to think about them right now, but I know I must. I’ll speak to them in a little while. This time I will be alone.”
She was a coward, she realized, because she agreed with his plan immediately. “Not yet,” she said, as she leaned down and kissed him. “Not just yet.”
That night Caroline dreamed of Timmy the maid. He was pointing his pistol at North, and she was shrieking at him not to shoot, that North wasn’t his father, that Timmy was confused. There was a loud report. Caroline jerked awake at the touch of a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see Miss Mary Patricia’s pale face in the dim early-morning light.
“It’s time, Miss Caroline. Oh God, it’s time.”
31
DR. TREATH AND Bess Treath arrived at Mount Hawke within the hour. Miss Mary Patricia, efficient and stoic in giving birth as she was in conducting her everyday business, didn’t lower herself to yelling or crying, and presented a squalling black-haired little girl at nearly noon the following day, the very picture of the master of the house who had raped her, she’d told Bess Treath, then hugged the tiny child to her breast.
Caroline hadn’t been allowed in the room, Dr. Treath having said firmly, “You don’t know about any of this, Caroline. You will learn all about it when you have your first child and not before.”
It seemed strange to Caroline, but Bess Treath just laughed, saying, “My brother believes that if a girl saw another giving birth, she would never allow a man to touch her.” She paused a moment, then added thoughtfully, “ Perhaps he has a point. Giving birth isn’t pleasant. I think it would have to be a very special man before I’d agree to it.”
Caroline wanted to ask her why, then, she was allowed to witness the dreadful ordeal when she herself wasn’t married and never had been, but she didn’t. She supposed that Bess Treath’s age, which was at least thirty, gave her more resistance for such unpleasantness, that and her experience assisting her brother for so many years. But what Bess Treath had said—it did sound frightening as the devil and Caroline said as much to North as they waited downstairs for Miss Mary Patricia to get on with it. “Is it so very dreadful, then?” she asked. She kept her voice low. The last thing she wanted was for Alice or Evelyn to hear her. They were, at present, being distracted by Owen, who even managed to make Alice laugh once.
“Yes,” he said, nothing more.
That diverted her instantly. She grabbed his arm and shook it. “Come on, North, how do you know about birthing babies?”
“I helped a woman deliver a babe in the hills of Portugal. Her husband had just been killed and it brought on her labor. My men set up a tent and I—well, I tried to help her.”
“What happened?”
“The baby boy was dead. She died just moments later.”
“Why did she die?”
“She was trying to birth the babe for nearly two days. She was exhausted. Her husband was dead. The baby was dead. She had no will to live.” North realized then what he’d said, for Caroline’s face was perfectly white.
He kissed her, hugged her. “Caroline, I was a fool to tell you about that. You are nothing like that poor woman. When you become pregnant, I’ll be here to watch over you, to take care of you, and Dr. Treath will attend you. There can be tragedy in bringing life into the world, but not with you, Caroline. I won’t allow it. I’ve felt your belly, you know, and even managed once or twice to look at you without undue lust. You’ve wide hips, surely wide enough to bear as many babes as you want to.”
When Bess Treath came into the salon at nearly noon, holding the small babe in her arms, she smiled and announced, “She’s a healthy little angel. Miss Mary Patricia wants to name her Eleanor. After your aunt, Caroline.”
“Oh,” Caroline said. To North’s astonishment, she burst into tears.
* * *