Proper Scoundrel (11 page)

“She doesn’t have me, except as a friend. She has a mother. What about her, by the way? I’ve been meaning to ask. Where is Emily’s mother?”

Jade shook her head. “We don’t know. Both she and Emily arrived badly bruised, Catherine, with a black eye, cut and swollen shut, her wrist broken. After a few weeks, Catherine said she needed to go and see Emily’s father and make certain he would provide for his daughter.”

“The fool,” Marcus said.

“I reacted the same way. We all tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t be swayed.”

“Do you know who Emily’s father is?”

“That did not count among the questions Catherine felt compelled to answer, which isn’t unusual,” Jade said. “I assumed ’twas Emily’s father who beat them.”

Marcus swore beneath his breath. “How long since she went to see him?”

“Two months.”

He started as if struck. “Poor baby. Between the beatings and her missing mother, it’s a wonder she trusts anyone.”

“Do you think Catherine intended to leave her here ... permanently?” Jade asked. “I began to wonder after a while.”

Marcus cursed Emily’s father to the devil. “I think it more likely the bast—More likely that Catherine came to a bad end.”

Jade’s legs turned to jelly and she lowered herself to a chair while tears filled her eyes.

Marcus wanted to take her into his arms then. He supposed he simply wanted to protect her from all life’s evils, but she wouldn’t appreciate it.

To counter his need, he looked away and into the fire. He didn’t imagine it’d help Jade to depend on him to protect her, especially as he would have to leave her in the end, because of what he’d done to Garrett.

Strictly business, he told himself, running a frustrated hand through his hair before facing her again. “We—you—somebody will have to initiate a search into Catherine’s whereabouts.”

Jade nodded, still in shock.

Marcus knelt on his haunches before her. “What will you do if Catherine is ... never found?”

“Keep Emily, of course.”

He had never wanted to kiss her more. “Thank you.”

Jade bristled and rose to finish cleaning the cradle.

It wasn’t his place to be thanking her, he realized. He stood too, aware just then how much Jade’s strong and feisty spirit called to him. He realized, too, that by protecting her, he could destroy what he loved best about her.

How did one go about fostering someone’s strength when one wanted desperately to protect them from the horrid experiences that made them strong, in the event said experiences did not destroy them first? Marcus sighed again as he pondered it.

Abigail appeared at the base of the stone stairs, putting a period to his ruminations. “Marcus, Garrett says you should come now.”

“On my way,” he said taking Jade’s hand. “Lester, bring the cradle, will you?”

Abby nodded and left. Lester hoisted the cradle to his shoulder and followed her.

Jade pulled Marcus up short trying to tug her hand from his. “Where do you think you’re taking me?”

Marcus released her hand. “The birth of a child is a wonder. A miracle. I thought you’d want to—”

“Eloisa already has a woman and two men she doesn’t know to help her through a personal and intimate ordeal. A miracle yes, but not for spectators.”

Marcus grimaced. “You’re right. Come and wait outside the door, then, in the event Abigail loses her nerve, or she’s so busy helping that Eloisa needs you to hold her hand.”

Jade nodded and preceded him up the stairs. They walked in silence until Eloisa’s door came in sight. “I do think Eloisa would appreciate your presence,” he said. “But I have a confession to make. I’m the one who needs you there.”

Jade stilled when Eloisa called her name. This time Jade grabbed his hand to tug him along, and Marcus felt a great deal better about the whole prospect.

When they entered the room, Jade stopped at the sight of Eloisa’s awkward and embarrassing position, Garrett and Abby, heads bent together in concentration between Eloisa’s raised knees.

“It’s natural,” Marcus whispered in her ear. “Imagine how Eloisa feels.”

Eloisa, a true beauty with her face and hair washed, seventeen years old at most, looked to Jade for ... something, so Jade prepared to offer all she had, apprehensive reassurance. Nevertheless, she stepped to the bed with a smile and took the girl’s hand.

When a chair nudged her legs from behind, Jade sat down. Marcus then brought in the cradle.

“Abigail tells me she’s always been interested in becoming a midwife,” Garrett said, “the reason she wanted to help. So Marcus, I thought you could prop Eloisa up the way Sara Littleton taught us, so Abby can assist me.”

Marcus nodded with relief, told Eloisa he would be her pillow, then climbed on the bed and sat behind her.

“Jade,” Garrett said. “You might want to wipe Eloisa’s brow now and again, to keep the sweat from her eyes.” He winked at Eloisa. “Try not to break Jade’s hand.”

Eloisa’s laugh turned to a gasp and Jade watched mesmerized as her belly began to change shape. Garrett told her to push and Marcus raised her to a near sitting position.

Eloisa cried out in earnest as her belly arched to a great mound, and when it relaxed, she did too.

Garrett and Abby spoke in low tones afterward and Marcus told Eloisa to rest against him.

The entire process happened again, several more times, exactly the same way, but with no apparent result or relief.

“Can’t we do anything to lessen her pain?” Jade asked Marcus.

“She needs to feel what the baby’s doing. But don’t worry, Sara told us that mothers don’t remember how painful it is to give their babies life, once they hold them in their arms.”

“I’ll remember for you, then, Eloisa,” Jade said patting her hand, watching her sheet-covered middle for further signs of movement.

“Give me your other hand, Jade,” Eloisa said.

The girl placed it flat against her belly, giving Jade more than a vision of the process, allowing her to ride the crest and feel the child inside struggling for freedom.

Jade wasn’t embarrassed by her tears when she squeezed Eloisa’s hand after the contraction. “Thank you for allowing me to share your miracle.”

Eloisa shook her head. “The miracle is that I’m not in that abandoned basement with rats for company. You’re my miracle. People think you’re crazy because they don’t understand someone who’s generous and—”

Another crest.

Another push.

Eloisa relaxed and covered Jade’s hand atop her belly. “I’m grateful you’re here,” she said. “Grateful you’re you.”

“I am too,” Marcus said.

Always the right words, Jade thought, a warmth spreading inside, from both his words and the accompanying look he gave her. Sweat poured off him as he remained a sturdy but gentle wall against Eloisa’s back, a calm voice calling her brave and strong.

Abigail worked easy and content, her attention absorbed by the birth process and the strange man confined to a chair, in whom she amazingly placed her trust.

The only one frightened, Jade realized, was her. Eloisa’s pains were coming closer and closer and seemed to hurt worse and worse.

Seeking reassurance, Jade looked to Marcus.

“This is good,” he said, reading her. “Nice and quick.”

“Quick! You think this is quick? Are you out of your mind? This is taking forever!”

Eloisa gave a spurt of hysterical laughter.

“This is it, Eloisa,” Garrett said. “There’s a tiny someone nearly here with a head of dark hair. Take a deep breath and push.”

Prickles ran through Jade. She felt faint. But she couldn’t let herself go; Eloisa needed her.

Then a baby screamed, furious and shrill, and Jade could barely see the squirming little thing for the tears in her eyes. She stood to hug Eloisa, to allow the child-mother to sob against her.

While she did, Jade felt Marcus stroke her hair, as touched by the wonder as she was.

Jade sat when her legs threatened to give out, terribly relieved that Eloisa and her child were fine. But no sooner did she think so than Eloisa was gasping again.

Confused, Jade placed her hand on Eloisa’s arching belly, shocked to feel the struggle beginning again. How could that be?

“Another baby,” Jade whispered in awe. “Garrett! I think she’s having another.”

At Jade’s shout, Garrett wheeled his chair back from the dresser where he and Abby had been tending the babe. “Abby, I need you, again.”

Abigail brought the wrapped baby to Jade and went back to work.

Jade divided her attention between Eloisa and the tiniest little being she’d ever seen. When Eloisa screamed the house down, Jade expected another child to arrive on the instant, but it took so much more pushing before Garrett held another.

Still. Grey. Lifeless.

Marcus left Eloisa to wash his hands, then he took the baby to continue what Garrett had begun, clearing its mouth and nose of mucus.

Garrett and Abby tended Eloisa, something about blood and afterbirth, but Jade’s concentration remained on Marcus.

He turned the lifeless little thing on its belly, within the palm of his big hand, and slapped its back, once, twice, three times. Then finally, as if someone had been holding a pillow over its mouth, and suddenly took it away, Eloisa’s second baby’s scream vibrated the air around them.

Jade placed the first babe in Eloisa’s arms, kissed her brow, and wept with her.

Marcus handed the screaming child over to Garrett, grasped the dresser and turned decidedly green.

Garrett and Abigail said they had everything in hand, so Jade took Marcus by the arm and propelled him from the room and down the hall.

Shutting the door behind her, she urged him to lie on the bed in the unoccupied bedroom and take several deep breaths. She untied his neck-cloth and unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt, surprised by the dark curling hair on his chest.

She rolled up his sleeves, chafed his arms, and wiped his brow.

When his colour began to return, she placed a hand on his cold, sweaty brow. “You were wonderful in there.”

Marcus mocked himself with a laugh. “I’ll probably kiss the floor when you have ours.”

Jade stilled. Marcus lay there trembling. Icy. In shock. He didn’t know what he was saying. “You saved that baby’s life. I repeat. You were wonderful in there.”

“You were wonderful in here.” His voice trembled still.

Jade lay down beside him. “Hold me.”

“My hands are all bloody.”

“P ... please,” she wailed and he pulled her so hard against him, she knew there wasn’t anything either of them wanted more. She wept and felt a great shuddering in him as well.

They didn’t talk, they held each other, long after they’d both calmed.

“I would have stayed away, if not for you,” she said. “I can’t believe I would have stayed away.”

“I needed you with me. I’m sorry if that bothers you, but I needed you.”

“That you needed me, makes me feel wonderful,” she said. “My needing you is what frightens me witless.”

He sighed and pulled her closer. “Believe me, I understand.” It scared Marcus as much as it thrilled him that he needed Jade so much, when he’d gone his whole life without her and did fine. Except he knew, deep inside, that going forward without her would be less than living and more like dying. He shuddered.

Jade didn’t think, she just kissed him, and he kissed her back, frenzied and in need, but no more so than she. They’d shared life as it came into being, now they needed to share it at its most basic. Lips touched, nothing more, yet her soul felt nurtured.