Lottie met Lucilla’s eyes; if she hadn’t already been wrung out to limpness, Lottie would have slumped.
“Best to think of tomorrow morning.” Prudence chafed Lottie’s hand. “Of waking up and seeing your new baby in its basket, of holding it in your arms.”
Around the leather strap, Lottie managed a wan smile. “If they’d told me it was this much work, I’d’ve thought twice about the business.”
A smile tugged at Lucilla’s lips. “You’d still have opted to have a bairn. For all that it’s a tortured path to get them here, it’s worth every second in the end.”
“Aye.” Weakly, Lottie nodded. Her eyes drifted closed.
Lucilla looked at Prudence. “I’m going to get some more of the tisane. If Lottie can manage to take a few sips when she rouses again, it’ll help.”
Prudence nodded. Lucilla rose. She stretched her legs, spine, neck, and shoulders, then she turned and sidled out from behind the makeshift screen.
A heavy thud fell on the outer door.
Everyone looked at the thick planks. A branch flung by the wind?
The thud came again, then the latch started to lift.
Sebastian, seated on a stool on that side of the table, rose and lunged to catch the door before the wind could slam it wide.
A snow-encrusted figure—a man—staggered and all but fell inside. A huge, hairy beast the size of a small pony pushed in beside him.
Marcus had rushed to help Sebastian; fighting against the force of the wind, they wrestled the door shut again and managed to get the iron latch back into place.
The huge beast shook itself, sending gobbets of snow and ice flying, and revealed itself to be a huge deerhound; its curious amber gaze traveled the room, then the massive beast sat, its head as high as a man’s elbow, and watched them all.
Lucilla returned her gaze to the stranger. What manner of man came out in a storm like this?
He was tall—as tall as Sebastian—but all else about him was concealed beneath a thick, fur-lined cape. The cowl was up and shaded the man’s features; the body of the cape bulged oddly, as if there were more than a man beneath it.
Judging by the movement of the cowl, the man was scanning the occupants of the cottage from right to left—Michael, Jeb. The man’s gaze reached Lucilla and halted. Arrested. But then, satisfied that the door was secure, Sebastian and Marcus moved back into the room and the man’s gaze continued to them.
After a second of assessing silence, the man raised a mittened hand and put back the cowl.
Jeb reacted instantly. “Mr. Carrick, sir!” Jeb blinked. “Whatever are you doing out on such a night?”
Thick, wavy hair of dark chestnut was speckled with snow. Eyes of richly veined amber perfectly set beneath dark slashes of brows regarded Jeb with a steady gaze. A patrician nose, sharply delineated cheekbones, angular cheeks, and a chin chiseled square completed a striking face.
Thomas Carrick’s gaze shifted to Lucilla. His eyes held hers for a fleeting instant, then he inclined his head. “Miss Cynster.”
Before she could respond—she knew who he was, but she hadn’t set eyes on him for years—Carrick’s gaze passed on to Marcus. Carrick nodded. “Cynster.”
Marcus nodded back. “Carrick.”
Carrick’s gaze passed on to Sebastian, who now stood on his left. Carrick’s brow arched in polite query.
Marcus obliged. “Thomas Carrick—Sebastian Cynster, Marquess of Earith, our cousin. And”—Marcus nodded across the table—“Michael Cynster, Sebastian’s brother.”
“And,” Lucilla said, indicating the screened area with a wave, “Prudence, another cousin, is sitting with Lottie.”
Carrick’s eyes again met hers.
Lucilla realized what his principal question must be. “We were riding along the ridge and Jeb heard us and rushed out to intercept us. He and Lottie needed help, so we came.”
Carrick half bowed. “Thank you.”
He returned his attention to Jeb; lips twisting—whether in a simple grimace or in self-deprecation Lucilla couldn’t tell—Carrick answered Jeb’s earlier question. “None of the other shepherds had seen you for the last few days, and when you and Lottie didn’t come down ahead of the storm… Well, it’s Christmas Eve, and knowing Lottie’s time was near, I thought perhaps you could do with some extra fare.”
Carrick’s shoulders fluidly shifted; the cloak parted as he lifted a jumble of oilskin-wrapped bundles onto the table. “I’ve brought food, and drink, too. I thought you might need it.”
Eyes locking on the bundles, the other men converged on the table. Curious, Lucilla approached the table, too. Carrick appeared to have carried half a larder up the ridge.
“However did you manage to carry all this up through the snow?” Jeb asked.
Turning from removing his cloak and setting it on a peg near the door, Carrick tipped his head toward the side of the cottage. “Sled. I left it out there.”
“You didn’t ride?” Sebastian asked.
Carrick shook his head. “Too dangerous to try to get a horse up that track in weather like this.”
He joined the other men in opening the neatly tied, oilskin-wrapped packages. In short order, cheeses, bread, mince pies, shortbread, a small pat of butter, lard, a ham, bacon, a pie, and various already cooked meats tumbled out onto the table’s surface.
Reaching for a bottle-shaped package, Michael glanced at Carrick. “Bit of a risk, coming out in such a storm alone.”
Carrick didn’t look up from the string he was untying. “I wasn’t alone.” When silence greeted that pronouncement, Carrick’s lips curved and he looked past Michael to the huge hound who, apparently having decided its master was safe enough, had circled to sit to the side of the hearth. “Hesta was with me. She would have pulled me out of any drift.”
They all looked at the huge hound; jaws slightly gaping, huge teeth on display, she looked back at them calmly.
“Useful.” Sebastian had unwrapped one of the three bottles. He held it up. “Whisky. That makes you doubly welcome.”
Carrick’s long lips lifted in a fleeting grin.
Michael had unwrapped a smaller bottle. He frowned. “Gin. Not a drop I favor.”
Carrick glanced at Lucilla. “The midwife told me it might be useful.”
She nodded. “It will be.” She reached for the bottle. While the men separated the various foodstuffs, she uncorked the gin and sniffed; the scent of juniper berries was strong. Going to the pot of tisane she’d earlier brewed and left to the side of the hearth, she picked up the beaker Lottie had been using and tipped a small amount of the gin into it. After corking and setting the bottle aside, she ladled tisane on top of the gin, swirled the concoction, then rose and turned back to the table.
Casting her eyes over the food now spread out on the board, as Jeb brought a collection of tin plates to the table, she instructed, “Set aside slices of that pie for Lottie, Prudence, and me, also some bread and cheese, and make sure there’s some of that ham left on the bone—Jeb and Lottie can use that in the pot, along with any other meats left over.”
Already pulling up stools to the table, the males merely nodded or grunted. Leaving all five to replenish their reserves—sincerely grateful to Thomas Carrick for having thought of Jeb and Lottie’s need and having struggled through the storm to reach them—Lucilla slipped behind the screen again.
Lottie was just regaining her breath after battling through another bout of gripping pain. Lucilla handed her the beaker, and she sipped—then her eyes widened, and she looked questioningly at Lucilla.
“I put some of the gin Mr. Carrick brought into it. It’ll help.” Assuming that Lottie and Prudence had heard everything said beyond the blankets, Lucilla looked at her cousin. “You must be hungry—why don’t you slip out and have some of that pie before it vanishes?”
Prudence thought, then shook her head. “I’m settled here, and Lottie and I know where we are at present. Better you eat, then perhaps bring something fo
r Lottie to see if she can manage it, and I’ll go out and eat then.”
Accepting that Prudence was correct in suggesting that she, Lucilla, would be needed more later rather than immediately, Lucilla nodded and rose again. “All right. I’ll get what I want and something for Lottie and come back right away.”
There was something about Thomas Carrick that…disturbed her. She saw no reason—felt no inclination—to eat at the table with the men.
Ducking back around the hung blankets, she was immediately conscious of Carrick’s gaze—as if he’d been listening and had been determined to look at her the instant she reappeared. He started to rise; suddenly ridiculously flustered, she waved him to sit again. None of the other males had thought of the courtesy.
Ruthlessly suppressing her awareness of Thomas Carrick, holding it to one side in her mind, she scanned the shelves and saw a rough wooden tray. She lifted it down. Next, she found three well-worn trenchers. She set two on the tray and one at that end of the table, then piled each with slices of pie, ham, cheese, and bread. She placed a chicken leg on Prudence’s trencher.
Satisfied she’d provided well enough for Lottie, Prudence, and herself, Lucilla was about to heft the tray, leaving Prudence’s trencher on the table, when Carrick, who was sitting alongside Marcus at the nearer end of the table opposite the fire and whose amber eyes had watched her throughout, said, “I brought mead, too, if you and your cousin, or Lottie, might prefer it.”
With one large palm, he pushed a bottle and several small beakers toward the tray.
Lucilla paused. She and Prudence needed to keep warm, and the mead would certainly help. Releasing her grip on the tray, without meeting Carrick’s gaze, she inclined her head. “Thank you.”
Before she could reach for the bottle of mead, Carrick picked it up. Unstoppering it, he poured golden liquid into first one beaker, then a second, then he paused. “Two or three?”
“Just two.” Lucilla took the first beaker and reached for the second; her fingers brushed Carrick’s as he released it. Resisting the urge to suck in a breath—to bite her lip, to react in any way—she calmly set the beakers on the tray. For some unfathomable reason, she felt forced to add, “I doubt Lottie will be able to handle it at the moment, but later the mead will be an excellent tonic, especially in this season.”
He’d put thought into what he’d brought; on top of the fact he’d brought anything at all—that he’d battled the storm to reach them—her understanding of the care he’d taken demanded at least that much acknowledgment, however oblique.
“In that case,” he murmured, his voice low and deep, deeper than even Sebastian’s, “I’m glad I brought it.” He caught her gaze. “How is Lottie faring?”
Lucilla looked into his amber eyes. No, he wasn’t asking to keep her there, nor was he merely passing the time. He truly wanted to know—and he was the only one of the males to have asked. The stiffness she’d been trying to maintain between them wilted. “She’s managing.”
She, too, had kept her voice low, their exchange submerged beneath the discussion about local hunting raging between Michael and Marcus further up the table.
Carrick didn’t release her gaze; she felt strangely trapped as he looked into her eyes…then he said, his voice even quieter, “There’s some problem, isn’t there?” One dark brow arched.
In his eyes, his expression, Lucilla read his certainty—he knew. Alerted somehow, as she had been, he, too, had known and had come.
She had been summoned, and so had he.
Slowly, she nodded. “It’s a breech birth, but Lottie’s strong and, with luck, all will be well.”
“How much longer?”
She raised a shoulder. “An hour. Perhaps more.”
Carrick inclined his head and lowered his gaze, releasing her. “Thank you.”
Lucilla looked down at his dark head for an instant, then she picked up the tray and went to help Lottie deliver her baby.
Seated beside Carrick, Marcus glanced his way—and watched Carrick watch Lucilla retreat behind the blanket again.
This close to the man, Marcus could sense…something similar to the aura he sensed around Lucilla, around his mother and Algaria, and even, at a lower level, around his father, Richard. Marcus had always assumed it was a feature of being, as the locals described it, Lady-touched. As Thomas Carrick was a local, born and bred in these lands, perhaps it wasn’t surprising that he might rank among the chosen, too, yet overall there were not that many who were Lady-touched… Marcus wondered if his twin had picked up Carrick’s standing; she hadn’t as yet been that close to him. At least the width of the table had been between them thus far.
Turning back to the conversation, which Sebastian had not-so-artfully swung from hunting in general to hunting dogs, Marcus hid a grin as Sebastian—who loved dogs, especially big ones—leaned forward to look down the table at Carrick.
“I take it your Hesta is a deerhound?”
Carrick nodded. “We—the family—breed them.”
For the next hour, they filled their ears with talk of hounds and deer, and anything else they could think of to keep their minds away from the sounds emanating from the other side of the blanket and, even more, from what those sounds implied.
Apparently deciding that the only thing he could presently do to help Jeb and Lottie was to keep Jeb sufficiently distracted from all that was going on, Carrick focused his attention on the crofter.
Sebastian had left the table to crouch by the huge hound, stroking her head; he cocked a brow at Marcus as he, together with Michael—also drawn by the big dog—joined him. Voice low, Sebastian asked, “Who, exactly, is Thomas Carrick, and the Carricks?”
Marcus had expected the question. He whispered back, “The Carricks are the lairds of the lands on this side of the manor’s northern boundary. Their holdings are roughly the same size as the manor’s, but the land’s rougher and rockier. The family isn’t wealthy, but they hang on. They run mostly sheep and so have a lot of scattered crofters and small outlying cottages, but otherwise, although they don’t have a Lady of the Vale as we do, the community works similarly to that in the Vale.”
“Lots of connections, all answerable ultimately to the principal family?” Sebastian asked.
Marcus nodded. “Exactly.” He glanced over his shoulder, but Carrick was still deep in conversation with Jeb. Turning back to Sebastian and Michael—and the dog, who was watching him with an interested expression—Marcus continued, “Thomas Carrick is the nephew of Mad Manachan Carrick, the head of the family. The Carricks as a whole are widely regarded as… Well, to call them eccentric would be kind.”
“Mad as insane,” Michael murmured.
Marcus nodded. “He’s not insane, of course, but Manachan is an unpredictable old despot who actively likes to shock the county. Thomas”—Marcus tipped his head toward the other man—“is widely regarded as the only sane Carrick around. Sadly, he’s not Manachan’s heir—his cousin Nigel is—and Nigel is truly mad as a hatter, albeit in a distinctly calculated way.”
Sebastian was silent for a moment, steadily stroking the hound’s head, then he murmured, “So the Carricks are intelligent, but don’t play by anyone else’s rules.”
Marcus blinked but then nodded. “An excellent summation.”
He rose, returning to the table just as a horrendous, ill-suppressed scream rent the air.
Jeb jerked, half rose, then fell back on his stool.
Across the table, Marcus met Carrick’s gaze, then Marcus slipped onto the stool beside Jeb and tugged the man’s sleeve. “I noticed the ewes you have in your stable-barn. Their fleece looks nice and thick—have you been grazing them on the higher pastures?”
Jeb blinked, slowly processed the question, then he answered haltingly.
Between them, Marcus and Thomas Carrick settled to the task of assisting Jeb through his last hour into fatherhood.
* * *
High in one of the manor’s towers, on a truckle bed in Melinda Sp
otwood’s small room, Claire lay on her back beneath the covers and stared, unseeing, into the darkness.
In the narrow bed on the opposite side of the room, Melinda lay on her side, facing the wall.
Claire had been staring upward since she’d slid between the sheets more than an hour ago.
Suddenly, Melinda sighed. Without turning, she asked, “Why aren’t you sleeping? I can almost hear you thinking.”
Claire glanced across through the gloom. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” After a moment, Melinda said, “Is there anything I can do to help—even if all I can do is listen?”
Claire hesitated. There was one thing. “Did you ever think of marrying—of having a family of your own rather than spending your life helping other families?”
“Oh, yes.” Unexpectedly, Melinda’s tone held the warmth of remembered pleasures. “I was engaged once to my own young man. All I thought about was marrying him and raising a family of our own.” Melinda’s voice softened. “We had a lovely two years of courting, and were all set to name the date when Napoleon escaped Elba and he—my love—marched off to war…” Melinda paused, then said, “Sadly, he didn’t come back. After that…I had other offers, but my love lived on in my heart.”
Melinda glanced over her shoulder at Claire. “But you must know how that goes.”
Claire was grateful for the darkness.
Resettling, Melinda went on, “The important thing was that, despite mourning what I didn’t get to have—a life with my love—I did have that love. I knew what it was like to love and be loved, and to have that hope that somehow shines from within and lifts you up, and to experience the delight of looking forward to a much-desired shared future. I had all that, and not even his death could strip that experience away. So the one thing I learned from that time—and that I teach my girls, every last one—is that when happiness offers, take it. Don’t just accept it. Seize it with both hands, because you never know what the future might hold, but you can decide to fill your present—your here and now—with happiness and, if the offer includes it, with love. If you do that and accept what fate sends you, then no matter what happens, you will at least have memories to warm you into your old age, as I do. But if you refuse, and fate later passes you by and you don’t get another chance at happiness and love, what will you have to cling to through the lonely days and nights?”