Rebecca Hagan Lee (39 page)

Cason smiled in reply, then got down to business. "We had better get her home, sir, it's beginning to snow again."

Blake glanced up at the heavens and saw that Cason spoke the truth. He barked instructions to the men bearing Cristina's stretcher and they began to load her onto the wagon. She moaned with each movement and Blake gritted his teeth in helpless frustration as the men carefully settled the stretcher on top of the mattress, gently tucking the blankets around her as they completed their task. He thanked them for their time and effort, removed his wallet to pay them a generous sum, then climbed into the wagon and stationed himself next to the inert form on the mattress.

"Go slowly and carefully," he ordered the driver.

The wagon rolled away from the sidewalk and rumbled over the rough cobblestones. Cristina groaned as the wheels jolted her about; she finally opened her mouth to scream as pain sliced through her. Blake shouted a curse at the driver who hung his head dejectedly and apologized profusely in the flowery Viennese manner for causing the frau pain.

Blake looked anxiously from Cristina to the doctor. "Can't you do anything?"

"I am sorry, Herr, but I dare not give her anything for the pain until I can gauge the child's condition." He shook his head sadly. "She has fainted again. Perhaps nature will be merciful and not allow her to feel the rest of the journey."

Blake found the short distance to the apartment unbearably long. He began to question the wisdom of taking her there when there were perfectly good hospitals in Vienna, but was glad Cristina couldn't read the doubt in his eyes. He cursed Nigel Jameson soundly for not being there when he needed him and prayed that this doctor would be as good as he claimed to be. Unable to keep from touching her, Blake reached his hand under the blanket to find Cristina's. He meant to squeeze her hand reassuringly but found it still covered by her velvet muff. He tugged the bloody muff from her hand and discovered that she had her hand clenched into a tight fist; almost as if she was holding something. Blake gently pried her fingers open. A glimmer of gold fell from her grasp and landed on the mattress in front of him. He bent to retrieve it and discovered a medallion of some sort. Blake removed his gloves and fingered the gold disk, turning it over in his palm, studying it closely.

He found it hard to focus on the tiny script through the haze of tears that stung his eyelids. But he managed to read the words and realized Cristina's intent. This medallion was her gift to him. And it might be the last thing she ever gave him. Blake choked on a sob that lodged in his throat as he held the gold disk against his lips. He kissed it gently, reverently, as if he were kissing the woman instead of the cold metal, then fastened the chain about his neck. He let the disk fall beneath his starched, white collar where it was warmed by the heat of the flesh that covered his heart.

"Always," Blake promised, carefully leaning over to kiss each one of Cristina's fingers and the palm of her hand before gently tucking her hand back inside the warm blanket.

O! call back yesterday, bid time return.

--WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 1564-1616

*Chapter Twenty-four*

The unbearable pain ripping through her body made Cristina delirious. Her world became a nightmare of terror, suffering, and confusion. A world where the sounds of explosions deafened her and cries of unbearable agony mixed with the tune of Strauss waltzes played over and over in her brain and where a man named Retterling tried to kill her. Over and over again.

She awoke with a start, crying the horrible name. She tried to move, but fresh waves of pain made her helpless. She opened her mouth and screamed. She was dying. The barest movement was sheer agony. Breathing required effort and sharp pains knifed through her abdomen in uncontrollable spasms.

Cristina licked feebly at her dry, cracked lips and screamed again, but the sound that met her ears was a thin, mewling wail.

Someone took her hand and Cristina croaked a pitiful plea. "H-help me. I-I hurt and I-I can't see."

"Open your eyes, sweetheart," Blake softly urged.

Cristina recognized the voice and obeyed without question, forcing her eyelids to remain open while she struggled to focus on the beloved face above her. Her vision cleared and as she grew accustomed to the dim light she realized she no longer lay on the cold sidewalk, but on a bed. A low flame burned in the gas lamp above her bed and a warm fire glowed in the hearth, illuminating the familiar bedroom she had shared with Blake.

"Blake..."

"I'm here, sweet," Blake assured her. "And Leah is in the kitchen preparing everything while Doctor Kraus washes up."

"It hurts." She gasped as another contraction tore through her.

"I know, sweetheart," Blake sympathized. "You've been injured. You've broken an arm and bruised several ribs and been nicked by flying debris in a dozen different places."

"Th-the baby? What about the baby?" She focused her gaze on her stomach and was comforted by the presence of the familiar mound under the covers.

"The baby is coming, Cristina," Blake said the words very carefully, not wanting to add to her fear yet knowing he had to tell her the truth. "Your labor has started. The trauma you've been through has probably brought it on earlier than normal."

Cristina understood. She understood what was happening to her body. She was having her baby. Another burning pain sliced through her. She arched her back and bit her lower lip, but she did not cry out.

Blake smiled at her tenderly. "Don't try to be too brave, my love." The endearment slipped off his tongue naturally. She seemed so small and frail lying on the bed splinted and bandaged, bravely trying to conceal her pain.

"Cry out if it helps."

She nodded. "You'll stay?"

"As long as you need me," Blake promised.

It was a hard promise to keep. Blake thought he had been frightened when her fetal water burst as Cason and the driver carried her into the apartment, but now he knew there was worse to fear in what had become the longest night of his life.

The waiting was interminable and the watching was so difficult. Cristina's struggle to bear his infant tore at Blake's heart. He had never felt so utterly helpless as he did when he coaxed her to breathe, lifted her so she could bear down, and wiped the sweat from her face. He did those things automatically but he couldn't do the one thing he wanted most to do--he couldn't end the pain.

If she survived, Blake promised himself he would never put her through the agony again.

After nearly twenty hours of almost ceaseless effort, Blake wondered how much more she could stand. She was utterly exhausted and still the doctor instructed her to try harder to push. Blake was ready to scream himself at the suffering she was enduring when Cristina found the strength to give one last push.

He stared in wonderment as the small head appeared. His emotions threatened to choke him as he gazed lovingly at the exhausted young woman who had given him this gift. Her eyes were closed and sunken, her cheeks bruised and scratched from glass and debris and the scrape of the sidewalk and her lips were cracked and bitten. Her beautiful hair was wet and matted to her head, but to Blake, Cristina had never looked more lovely. But she was so weak and there had been so much blood ...

"Is she all right?" Blake demanded of Leah who was busily kneading Cristina's stomach to help dislodge the afterbirth.

Leah noticed the tired rings under Blake's eyes and the unusual pallor of his bronzed face and took pity on him. Lord Lawrence had suffered almost as much as Cristina. "She'll be fine as soon as she gets some rest."

Blake expelled a sigh of relief and relaxed a bit. If Leah said Cristina would recover, she would. She had to get well because she meant so much to him. They meant so much to him. Cristina and her child. His child. Their child.

Blake turned to view his child and found Dr. Kraus feverishly working over the infant.

"What is it?" The bluish tinge of the baby's skin frightened Blake.

"I'm sorry, Herr Lord Lawrence, but he will not breathe."

Blake watched, alarmed, as the doctor opened the baby's mouth, ran his finger around the inside, then turned the tiny babe upside down and shook him gently, hoping to clear the air passages of any mucus blocking the way.

Doctor Kraus pinched the tiny nostrils closed, then breathed his own breath into the baby.

Blake waited anxiously for the baby to breathe his first breath and watched hopefully for the gentle rise and fall of his chest as the doctor worked over him, but the movement he hoped for, the cry he hoped for, never came. Their beautiful child was dead. Stillborn and silent.

Doctor Kraus raised his head and looked at Blake. A sheen of unshed tears sparkled in the doctor's compassionate eyes. "I am very, very sorry, Herr Lord Lawrence. I have done all I know to do. I cannot make him breathe."

"You must." Blake knew it was an impossible task, yet he felt compelled to order the doctor to accomplish it. "You must make him live. He's my son...."

Blake reached out a finger and softly caressed the downy, black hair and the miniature shell of a perfectly formed ear. He bent his head over the baby, kissed the tiny forehead, and whispered brokenly, "You have to live, son. I've barely gotten to know you. You have to live. There are so many things I want to share with you. How can I tell your mother? How will she bear this? We want you so much. We love you so much...."

The doctor placed his hand on Blake's shoulder, shook his tired gray head in sorrow, and taking the baby from Blake, wrapped the tiny, still form in a pale blue blanket and placed him in the cradle Leah had prepared for him.

"Herr Lord Lawrence, the little one, is in the hands of the Lord. There is nothing we can do."

Blake sank into the nearest chair and covered his face with his hands. "All that torment for nothing. All that pain for nothing. It isn't fair. Oh, God, how can you do this to her? How am I going to tell her? How can I break her heart again?" His words were lost in the hoarseness of his voice as his shoulders shook with grief. He suddenly felt very old and very weary.

"Blake?" Cristina's voice was soft and hesitant, barely audible. "Blake, what is it?"

Leah leaned over Cristina and smoothed her damp hair away from her face.

"Ssh, missy, rest. You're tired and Lord Lawrence is just as tired as you.

Rest for a while." She murmured to Cristina, buying time and allowing Blake precious moments to compose himself.

"The baby," Cristina whispered, making her wishes known. "I want to see my baby. I didn't hear him cry. I want to see him. It's a boy, isn't it?"

Cristina followed the direction of Leah's gaze. She could barely see the top of Blake's bowed head from her place on the bed. "I want to see my baby." Her voice was louder this time, anxious. "I want to see my baby. Blake?"

"I'm here, Countess." Blake slowly raised himself from the chair and crossed over to the bed.

"Blake, the baby? A boy or a girl?"

Blake struggled with the lump in his throat. "A boy, Countess. A beautiful baby boy."

"Nicholas," Cristina sighed. During the past few months she'd changed her mind about wanting a baby girl and decided she wanted a boy with dark hair and eyes like his father. "His name is Nicholas Fairfax."

"Yes, Nicholas Fairfax Lawrence," he repeated softly. Nicholas was the name they had chosen. "Cristina..."

Cristina was suddenly afraid. She could tell by the way Blake said her name that something was wrong. Terribly wrong. She fought to sit up against the pillows and failed. "My baby! Please give me my baby!"

"No, Cristina, please ...," Blake pleaded.

"What's wrong with him? What's wrong with my baby?" Her worried gaze darted from one face to the other, first Leah's then the doctor's, before finally settling on Blake. "Is he missing fingers or toes? Tell me! I have a right to know."

Blake moved closer to touch her hand. "Nicholas is dead, Cristina.

Stillborn."

"No!" The anguished scream penetrated the deadly quiet of the house and ripped at the hearts and the souls of the three people who stood watching her, unable to ease her sorrow. "Oh, God, please, no!"

Blake glanced at Leah, then the doctor, then walked over to the cradle. He gently lifted Nicholas from his resting place and carried him to his mother, then sat on the edge of the bed next to Cristina and carefully unwrapped the blanket and allowed Cristina to see him.

Cristina stared at her son. He was perfect and beautiful from the top of his little head with its cap of downy, black hair to the tips of his perfectly formed toes.

He was all she had imagined he'd be; all she had hoped for in her firstborn son. He couldn't be dead. He couldn't. She had felt him turning and kicking within her womb during the carriage ride, so eager to see the world, and now he lay so still.

"Nicholas, my sweet baby, Nicholas," Cristina crooned before turning to Blake. "Wrap him back up, Blake. He's cold."

"Cris..."

"Babies shouldn't be exposed to the cold air."

The doctor looked at Cristina, then stepped to the bed to take Nicholas from his father's arms. Blake waved him away with a quick shake of his head and continued to hold his son.

Doctor Kraus spoke to Cristina. "I am very sorry, Frau Cristina. I couldn't save your little one. He is in God's care now."

"No," Cristina said, firmly. "You're mistaken. He's just sleeping. Tell him, Blake. Tell him our baby's fine."

"I wish I could, sweetheart," Blake said, gently. "I wish with all my heart I could make Nicholas breathe for you, but I can't, Cristina. I can't."

"Don't worry about it, Blake," Cristina repeated. "Nicholas will breathe when he's ready to."

"No, my darling, he won't. Our son is never going to breathe."

"Then, make him," she insisted. "You're his father, tell him to. You've always been able to make him do what you want. You can make him breathe."

"No, sweetheart, I can't."

"Yes you can," she said. "You have to. You can make anything right. You can, Blake, I know it. Please do something. I'm begging you. Please, please make my baby breathe." Tears rolled silently down Cristina's face as she pleaded for Blake to do the impossible, to turn back the clock and give her a healthy, living child. "Please, Blake, I'll do anything. Anything. Please make him listen to you."