“Very well, but I want a dozen children.”

A dark shadow descended on his face. “No, Katrine. One is enough. I’m not going to risk losing you to childbirth.”

“You won’t lose me. My sister never had the least bit of trouble with her first child, and I shouldn’t, either.”

“I don’t care about your sister. After this one is born, that will be the end of it.”

“I mean it, Raith. I want a large family.”

“We can discuss it after we’re wed,” he hedged.

“And I want Morag in attendance at my lying-in.”

Raith balked at that entirely. “No, absolutely not,” he decreed, shaking his head fiercely. “You’ll have a score of surgeons from Edinburgh. In fact, you’ll go to Edinburgh for the birth—”

“Then you can find yourself another wife.”

Raith’s eyes narrowed. “You are no doubt the most stubborn, contentious, willful wench I have ever come across.”

Pushing her hands against his chest, Katrine squirmed out of his embrace. “No more stubborn than you. If you want me to marry you, your heir will be born at Cair House, and Morag will deliver him.”

He scowled at her, but Katrine stood her ground, her arms crossed over her lovely breasts, her flaming hair spilling from its pins, her radiant skin flushed with the glow of anger, her green eyes flashing. Surveying her, Raith felt his pulse quickening. After a long pause, he sighed. When she looked at him like that, in that fierce way that roused his temper and stirred his blood, he was lost. He doubted he would ever win many of their arguments. Indeed, with Katrine as his wife, he doubted his household would ever again know any peace. But he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Struggling between the desire to throttle her and amusement at his own helplessness, Raith shook his head again. “Negotiating with you is worse than bargaining with the duke,” he muttered. But the gleam in his eyes was unwilling admiration as he held out his hand. “Come here, then, bonny Katie, and seal our bargain.”

“Raith,” she protested as he pulled her into his arms again, “you never did answer me.”

He lowered his head, desire of a different kind flooding through him. “Hush, love. You always talk too much when I’m trying to kiss you.”

Katrine did fall silent then as his lips claimed hers. She clung to him with all her might, for his kiss was wild and sweet and tender. In truth, it was more than a kiss. It was a commitment, as solid as any verbal vows made before God and man, speaking to her of love and rapture and soul-deep solace.

A long while later, when Raith finally raised his head, it was Katrine’s turn to sigh. Slowly she opened her eyes to find him gazing down at her with a carefree, boyish smile. His face looked heart-robbingly young, his blue eyes alight with contentment and desire and promise.

“I love you,” he murmured. “And you’re going to marry me, just as soon as I can scrape together the proper witnesses.”

“Yes…” Katrine returned his affectionate smile with a dreamy one of her own. For the moment she was content not to protest. For the moment she and Raith were in complete agreement.

No doubt their wills would clash in the turbulent future. No doubt they would argue and fight and make love....

With another breathy sigh, Katrine sought Raith’s lips again.

It was a future she wouldn’t miss for all the world.

Epilogue

Ardgour, Scotland, 1762

Myriad candles blazed brightly in the master bedchamber at Cair House, illuminating a scene of bustling activity—the mistress’s confinement. The three women hovering expertly over Katrine seemed the picture of calm efficiency as they went about the commonplace business of bringing a new babe into the world. What seemed uncommon was that the laird sat beside his laboring wife.

Katrine might have won the argument about having Morag in attendance as midwife, but Raith had made his own demands, insisting on being present for the birthing. When Katrine had been brought to bed early that morning with contractions, he had claimed a chair beside her and refused to leave—despite Morag’s objections and Callum’s amused ribbing. Raith had remained at Katrine’s side nearly the entire time, rising only twice to pace to corridor in an effort to keep his anxiety under control.

The alternative Callum had suggested—to become totally inebriated—Raith had considered only for an instant. If Katrine’s life was at risk, he had to be there. He couldn’t leave her to bear this alone.

It was even worse torment than he had expected. Katrine’s cries and gasps of pain drove him to distraction, but he’d had to endure them stoically. Morag and Flora had both advised him it was better for a birthing woman not to struggle against the pain or withhold her screams. Yet his stomach was churning with fear, for every cry roused bloody memories of the deaths of his first wife and child. He couldn’t watch what Morag was doing at the foot of the bed, or what Flora was doing at Katrine’s other side, or what the crofter’s wife—who herself had borne ten children—was doing behind him to prepare to receive the new bairn. Raith kept his eyes on his wife every moment, telling her with the tight clasp of his hand and low murmurs of encouragement—between prayers to the Almighty—that he loved her and was with her.

His presence reassured Katrine. Through a haze of pain, she felt Raith’s love surrounding her, and when the final moment came, she dug her fingers fiercely into his palm for the hundredth time, and pushed the new life from her body.

“’Tis a son,” she heard Morag pronounce with satisfaction. “A braw wee laddie.”

Tags: Nicole Jordan Historical
Source: readsnovelonline.net