LITMIR.BIZ

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right, you’re on your way to becoming a nun,” the woman said in a cool voice. “I’m Dame Joanna. I belong to Thomas’s uncle Owen.”

      “He married?” Elizabeth murmured in surprise. Owen of Wakebryght was a rough, lecherous man in his fifties who’d shown no inclination to marry in all his years.

      “I’m his leman, Lady Elizabeth,” Joanna said calmly. “His whore. Would you rather I found someone else to help you?”

      Elizabeth took a closer look at her. The dress was cut too close to her body, and jewels glittered on her hands and throat. She was well kept, very beautiful, with a distant look in her fine blue eyes that Elizabeth couldn’t quite read. And couldn’t waste the time trying.

      “Take off your rings,” she said, stripping her own modest ones off her hands. “We won’t want them getting in the way of our work.” She half expected the woman to blanch, but Joanna simply stripped off the heavy rings as if they were tin and dumped them in the small bag tied to her waist.

      “Tell me what to do,” she said, some of her distance vanishing. “I have a fondness for Lady Margery, and I’d as soon save her.”

      Elizabeth looked down at the still, wretched figure. Margery had taken everything that should have been hers, but it hadn’t been her choice, it had been Thomas’s. And Elizabeth could have fought, but instead she’d simply run away, back to her father’s wrath.

      She might be too tall, too clever, too tactless, and have hair like the Devil, Elizabeth thought, but she could save lives. She’d seen five stepmothers give up their lives bringing sons into the world, and she was determined to learn what she could to save those she could. And she would save this one, and the child within her, if she had to die trying.

      It was a long night. Endless, it seemed, after the day Elizabeth had already endured. Margery emerged from her exhausted torpor to scream in unrelenting pain, and the three women at her side fought grimly.

      “You’ll have to cut the baby free,” Berta said at one point, her eyes dark with desperation. “She’ll die, anyway, if you don’t, and this way you might save the baby. Some women survive such an ordeal.”

      “Not many,” Elizabeth said. “I’m saving them both.”

      “You said it was God’s will, not yours, my lady,” Berta admonished her.

      “His will is that we fight for their lives and not give in,” Elizabeth snapped back. “If you have nothing more to offer you may leave.”

      Berta subsided in silence. Joanna looked up at Elizabeth from across Margery’s thrashing body, and her expression was faintly amused. “God explained that to you, did He?” she said.

      Elizabeth was too weary to watch her tongue. “I assume that God has the good sense to think as I do in these matters.”

      She heard Berta’s indrawn breath of shock at such blasphemy, but Joanna only smiled. “We can only pray that that is so, my lady. The God I know is capricious and cruel. He would not think twice of destroying the only happy marriage I’ve ever seen.”

      Not even a twinge, Elizabeth thought, marveling. It no longer mattered that Margery and Thomas were happy in their marriage. In truth, it made her only more determined that she shouldn’t lose this battle.

      She almost thought she’d lost. It was dawn, the early light spearing into the room, and she was so weary she could barely move. The babe was coming, face down, feet first, and there was nothing she could do to turn it. The movements were getting weaker, Lady Margery had barely life left in her, and there was no choice but to try.

      “Push, Margery,” Elizabeth ordered, but Margery simply shook her head, dazed with pain and exhaustion, not listening.

      Joanna was holding tightly to her hands, Berta was at her feet, trying to help the baby, but the last of Margery’s energy had left her, and if she didn’t push there was no chance for either.

      Elizabeth moved up to the top of the bed, bent down and whispered in Margery’s ear. “If you don’t deliver this babe and live I’ll take Thomas back and make his life a living hell. I’m a vengeful woman, and I’ll make him sorry he ever chose you.”

      Margery’s eyes fluttered open to focus on Elizabeth’s determined face. In her exhausted state she believed her, and she summoned her last ounce of strength, rising up in the bed, gripping Joanna’s hands and pushing.

      The scream that rent the air was awe-inspiring. Almost as much as the sound of a strong baby’s cry that followed. Lady Margery was delivered of a healthy baby boy.

      Elizabeth gave the babe a swift glance. He kicked his tiny legs, as strong a baby as she’d ever seen, even after such a hard, long labor. God willing, Margery would survive in as good condition. There was no way to tell if the baby had torn her inside, beyond repair, or whether she’d survive in the same miraculous manner her child had. They could only hope.

      Joanna was busy cleaning her up with a calm efficiency that belied her beauty, and Berta was cooing at her new charge as she washed the blood from him. Elizabeth turned back to look at the new mother, and saw a faint blush of color had begun to tinge her deathly pale face. There were tears flowing from her closed eyes, another good sign, and her lips were moving in silent prayer.

      Elizabeth leaned closer, to make certain she wasn’t making her last confession or offering her soul up to God or some such nonsense, and her thick braid brushed against Lady Margery’s face.

      Her eyes flew open, swimming in tears, but there was no spectre of death in their depths. “You can’t have either of them!” she whispered fiercely.

      Elizabeth laughed, too tired to hide her feelings. “Your son and Thomas are yours with my blessing. Just stay strong enough to keep them.” And then she left the room, closing the door behind her and collapsing against the thick stone wall, closing her eyes as weariness washed over her.

      They would make her get on a horse in a matter of hours. Perhaps she could find an open window and jump from it. Anything was preferable to another day riding, with no sleep, no rest to smooth her way.

      The hall was deserted. Maybe no one would know where to find her, and she could just slump to the floor and sleep. Sooner or later someone would come in search of her, but right now they were probably all too terrified to hear what they were certain would be tragic news.

      She closed her eyes, sinking back against the cold, hard stone. She could sleep standing up, like a horse, if no one came to disturb her. Just a few moments…

      The door beside her opened, and she jerked upright to face Dame Joanna’s calm, beautiful face. “Let me take you away from here,” Joanna said, surveying her. “You’ll need to wash, and a few hours’ sleep wouldn’t come amiss. I’ll tell them you’re not to be disturbed.”

      “You’ll tell Prince William? And you think he’ll listen?”

      Dame Joanna smiled. “I don’t usually have trouble making men do what I want. Within reason. If need be I’ll offer him up a few hours’ distraction while you rest. Owen won’t object—he’s already shared me with lesser worthies.”

      “No!” Elizabeth said, horrified. “You don’t have to do that.”

      “I have to do it every night, my lady. And your prince is very striking. He would be if he were just a stable boy.”

      “Not my prince!” Elizabeth corrected her, then realized how ridiculous that sounded. “And you wouldn’t want to bed him. Perhaps you haven’t heard, but he kills women for sport. During the act of love.”

      “No, he doesn’t.”

      “I beg your pardon?”

      “Your party spent the night here before they went on to Bredon, and I had a conversation with the prince. There are men who equate pleasure with pain, both in the giving and the taking, but he is not one of them.”

      “He

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