Chapter Fifteen
When Jack returned with the silver ring, he paused only to change into his rags, and then he nipped down to the royal kitchens. The same small boy was stirring the princess’s soup. Jack once again asked him if he might buy a turn at the spoon. Plop! went the silver ring, and Jack was away before the head cook could spy him. He hurried up the stairs and to his princess’s side.
“Why, where have you been all day, Jack?” Princess Surcease asked when she saw him.
“Here and there, thither and yon, beautiful lady.”
“And what have you done to your poor arm?”
Jack looked down and saw that he had a cut from the troll’s blade. “Oh, Princess, I did wrestle a monstrous pill bug in your honor today.”
And Jack capered about until the entire court roared with laughter. . . .
—from LAUGHING JACK
Melisande felt Vale’s fingers pause in her hair. Would he repudiate her now? Get up and walk away? Or would he simply pretend he hadn’t heard her self-damning words and never speak of it again? She held her breath, waiting.
But he merely ran his fingers through her hair and said, “Tell me.”
So she closed her eyes and did, remembering that time so long ago now, and the pain that had nearly stopped her heart in her breast. “I knew at once what it was when I became sick in the mornings. I’ve heard of ladies being confused and waiting months to tell because they were not sure, but I knew.”
“Were you frightened?” His deep voice was even, and it was hard to tell what he was feeling.
“No. Well,” she amended, “perhaps when I first realized my condition. But very soon after that, I knew that I wanted my baby. That no matter what, he would be a joy to me.”
She couldn’t see his face, but she watched his chest rise and fall beneath her hand. There were curling hairs in the hollow of his breastbone. She threaded her forefinger idly through them and let herself remember a bit of that joy. So strong. So fleeting.
“Did you tell your family?”
“No, I told no one, not even Emeline. I think I was afraid of what they would make me do. That they would take the baby from me.” She took a steadying breath, determined to tell him all now, in case she couldn’t work up the courage to talk about this again. “I had a plan, you see. I would go to live with my elder brother, Ernest, until I’d begun to show, and then I would retire to a cottage in the country with my old nanny. I would have the baby, and we would raise him together, my nanny and I. It was a silly, childish plan, but at the time I thought it might work. Or maybe it was simply my desperate wishful thinking.”
She felt the slide of hot tears and knew he must feel their dampness on his chest. Her voice was growing choked. But still he stroked her hair gently, and she found his hand soothing.
She swallowed and finished her sad story. “But I hadn’t been long with my brother Ernest when I woke in the middle of the night with blood on my thighs. I bled for five days, very heavily, and after that it was gone. My baby was dead.”
Melisande stopped because her throat had swelled with emotions and she could no longer talk. She closed her eyes and let the tears overflow, running down her temple and onto his chest. She sobbed once and then no more. She simply lay there and trembled with her grief. This was an old wound, but one that appeared fresh and new at odd moments, catching her off guard with its sharp pain. She’d held the possibility of life once, but that life had been taken away.
“I’m sorry,” Vale rumbled beneath her. “I’m so sorry you lost your baby.”
She couldn’t speak. She could only nod.
He tilted her head up so he could see her face. His turquoise eyes were intense. “I will give you a baby, my dearest heart. As many babies as you wish, I swear it on my honor.”
She stared at him in wonder. She wasn’t ashamed of what had happened—of who she was—but she’d expected anger, not sympathy, from him.
He kissed her, his lips moving gently over hers, and it was like a pledge between them, sacred and right. Vale pulled the coverlet over them, carefully tucking it along her side, and hugged her closer. “Go to sleep, my lady wife.”
His gruff words and tender hands comforted her. Melisande closed her eyes, the last of her tears finally stopping, and listened to the beat of Jasper’s heart under her ear. It was steady and strong, and she drifted into sleep on its rhythm.
THE NEXT MORNING dawned sullenly, the skies gray with a drizzling rain. Aunt Esther sent them off with a hearty breakfast and much calling and waving good-bye. When at last they turned a corner and Aunt Esther’s town house was out of sight, Melisande turned from the window and looked at Vale.
“When will we arrive at Sir Alistair’s house?”
“Today, I think, if we travel well,” Vale replied.
His legs were canted across the carriage floor as usual, and his body lounged bonelessly on the seat, but his wide mouth was turned down at one corner in a small frown. What did he think of her? He hadn’t treated her any differently this morning as they’d risen, dressed, and eaten, but her confession last night must’ve come as a shock. A man didn’t expect his maiden bride to have taken a lover once upon a time and, what’s more, to have been impregnated by that lover.
Melisande glanced away from Vale and stared blindly out the window. Vale had received the revelation well enough, but when he had time to think about it, would it bother him? Would the knowledge that she hadn’t been a virgin on their wedding night begin to fester within him? Would he turn against her? She didn’t know, and with a troubled mind, she watched the highland hills roll by.
They stopped for a late luncheon by a wide, clear stream and ate the cold ham, bread, cheese, and wine that Aunt Esther’s cook had packed for them. Mouse ran about and barked at some nearby highland cows—shaggy things with hair in their eyes—until Vale shouted at him to stop. Then the terrier came over and lay down to gnaw on a ham bone.
They traveled all that afternoon, and by the time night began to fall, Melisande could see that Vale was restless.
“Have we lost our way?” she asked him.
“The coachman assured me he knew where we were when last we stopped,” Vale replied.
“You’ve never been to see Sir Alistair before?”
“No.”
They rode another half hour or so, Suchlike dozing beside Melisande. The road was obviously rutted and poorly maintained, for the carriage rocked and jounced. Finally, just as the last light faded, they heard a shout from one of the men. Melisande peered out the window and thought she saw the dim outlines of a huge building.