The Scottish Bride - Catherine Coulter [137]
He laid his wife down, only to have her clasp his hands so tightly she hurt him. “It’s all right,” he said over and over. She was lost to him for several moments. He felt the dreadful pain in her. He knew the exact moment when her body expelled the babe. Blood, so much blood, on his hands, his arms, covering her gown, weighing it down, stark red against the white towels.
She was crying, and he was holding her tightly against him, rocking her, talking nonsense, really, but he just couldn’t stop himself.
He heard Alex yell, “Fetch the doctor, Douglas, quickly! She’s bleeding too much!”
Tysen simply pulled away from her. “Hold still,” he said, his voice harsh enough to get through to her. Then he was between her legs, jerking away the bloody gown, tearing away her petticoats and chemise. So much blood, and it was nearly black now, that blood, and it was not only her blood but also the bloody waste that had been their babe.
“Mary Rose, listen to me.”
She forced herself outward at that hard voice, saw Tysen between her legs at the foot of the bed. “Stay with me,” he said, then pressed a towel wrapped around his fist as hard as he could against her. “I mean it, Mary Rose, you will stay with me, look at me. Damn you, don’t leave me. Open your eyes. That’s right.”
He knew little about childbirth, even less than that about miscarriage. He’d prayed with many women who had lost their babes, but he’d never seen it happen. He’d consoled men who’d lost their wives to childbirth. Oh, Jesus. He was the father of three children, yet he’d never been in the same room when Melinda Beatrice had given birth. He remembered her yelling. And now he shuddered.
So much blood, covering his hands. He pulled away the towel and took another one from Sophie and pressed it against her again.
“It will be all right, Mary Rose.” It was his litany, he thought. Oh, dear God, what else should he do?
It seemed a lifetime had passed and another begun before Dr. Clowder ran into the bedchamber, took in the situation at a glance, and very gently pushed Tysen away.
Tysen realized that his brothers and their wives were in the bedchamber. At least they’d kept the children outside. But he knew that they had heard her screaming, that they knew what had happened.
Tysen gathered Mary Rose against him and held her while Dr. Clowder plied his instruments. He felt her shock, her pain, her deadening sorrow. He felt it all deep inside himself.
He just held her, his bloody hands pressed against her, his face pressed against her tangled hair. She was still wearing her riding hat. He gently pulled it off and flung it to the floor. He saw Alex slowly pick it up and lay it on a table. Anything, he thought, anything anyone could do to keep all this pain at bay.
“I didn’t know,” she said, her voice hoarse from her yelling. “I didn’t even know I was pregnant.”
“I didn’t either,” he said. “It’s all right, Mary Rose. Please, my love, it will be all right.”
She stilled, utterly. And he realized then what he had said, and it filled him with quiet joy. At that exact moment, he knew that if he didn’t have her, he wouldn’t have anything at all. In those minutes, feeling her blood dry on his hands, feeling her tears wet his linen shirt, prickle against his neck, he knew to his very soul that without this woman, his life was meaningless.
No, not that, never that, but that his life would have no more importance to him. And if he was of no importance to himself, then how could he possibly serve God?
In that instant, holding this precious human being against him, realizing that he could so easily have lost her, still could lose her, he finally understood. Everything fell into place. All the confusion, all the chaos and uncertainty, it was gone as if it had never existed in the first place. He felt peace flow through him, fill him, and he knew it was all right now, all of it.
He smiled as he kissed her forehead, her nose, and finally her mouth. “We are together,” he said against her dry lips. “I love