Kissed by Shadows (39 page)

Gilles shrugged. “An extra pair of hands is useful at these times.”

As the shadows lengthened and the sun began to dip below the horizon, Lionel jumped to his feet. His head was spinning from the calvados. “I cannot sit here any longer.” He strode into the cottage.

Owen glanced at Gilles, who gave another phlegmatic shrug and raised the jar to his lips.

Lionel blinked in the dimness of the cottage. He could hear the murmur of voices behind the curtain but it seemed ominously quiet. He found he was holding his breath in absolute terror. And then Pippa yelled and his heart that seemed to have stopped began to beat again. She was swearing, a gasping stream of oaths and obscenities that would have shocked even Lionel in other circumstances.

He burst behind the curtain. Pippa was half sitting, leaning back against Pen's supporting arm. Her eyes were tightly closed, the veins standing out on her neck. The words still poured from her as Berthe and the other woman worked at the end of the bed.

Lionel grabbed Pippa's hand. It was the only way he could help her in this elemental struggle. She clung to his hand with an unbelievable strength, crushing his fingers so fiercely he thought they would break. And then suddenly she relaxed, falling back against Pen, still holding Lionel's hand but loosely now.

He looked towards the end of the bed and gazed in wonder at the slippery, blood-streaked, waxen little body that Berthe held between her hands. She hooked a finger in the baby's mouth and a thin wail pierced the stifling air of this confined space.

“Why, what a fine girl child it is,” Berthe said.

“Oh,” Pippa said. “Give her to me.” She took the child and gazed at her. “Is she not beautiful?”

Lionel thought that was something of an overstatement. The baby's skin was now red and wrinkled, her eyes scrunched up, a waxy film covering her body. But he could count ten fingers and ten toes and a rather fine head of fair curls. Her limbs seemed straight and her cry grew ever lustier. She was, he thought, every ounce her mother's daughter.

“Yes,” he said. “Quite beautiful.”

Pippa smiled at him, a radiant and utterly complacent smile. And he wanted to laugh aloud with joy. He kissed her and pushed the sweat-soaked hair from her forehead. “How clever you are.”

“Yes, aren't I?” she said, yielding the baby to Pen, who hovered, arms outstretched to cradle the newborn.

“Now, Monsieur Ashton, you must leave. We will make Pippa comfortable and see to the babe. Then you may come back.” Berthe gave him a little push and Lionel went out.

“'Tis a girl,” he said to Owen and Gilles, who had not moved from the bench.

“Then we must wet her head,” Gilles said, heaving himself somewhat unsteadily from the bench and returning to the shed for another jar of calvados.

“You have my felicitations.” Owen offered Lionel his hand.

Lionel took it, meeting the intent gaze of the man who had become his friend rather than a distant partner in the last weeks. He was moved by the gesture, for it acknowledged that Lionel had been as responsible for the infant's safe arrival in the world as any blood father.

He sat down with a thump beside Owen and shook his head, dazed and bedazzled.

After a while Pen came out to them. “Pippa wishes you to bring her out here,” she said. “Berthe says it will do no harm. She shouldn't walk for a few hours, but the fresh air will be good for her.”

Lionel said with concern, “No, it can't be good for her. Surely she must remain in bed.”

“Well, if you can persuade her, you have more influence than I.” Pen sat down on the bench with a weary but contented smile. “I don't know what's in that jar but I think I would like some.”

Lionel went into the cottage and found Pippa sitting up in the bed in a clean shift with her hair brushed. She cradled the swaddled bundle in her arms.

“You must carry us out,” she said. “Berthe says 'tis warm enough for the baby for a few minutes and 'tis so stuffy in here I can barely breathe.”

“It can't be good for either of you,” Lionel protested.

“Well, if you will not carry us, then I shall walk,” Pippa stated. “Berthe tells me it was a very easy birth, although it didn't feel like it at the time,” she added. “But I will recover sooner if I don't lie around like a windfallen apple.”

Lionel offered no more objections. He lifted Pippa, who still cradled the baby, and carried her outside. Gilles had slung a sailor's hammock between the oak tree and a neighboring birch and Lionel put his burden down carefully in the gently swinging cradle.

Berthe followed them and tucked a quilt over mother and child. “No more than a half hour,” she said. “While I do what has to be done within. Gilles, you will help me with the straw.” She gave him a significant nod and he followed her into the cottage, leaving their visitors alone.

“I had not thought of girls' names,” Pippa said, lightly touching the baby's cheek with her little finger. She looked up at Lionel, who stood beside the hammock. “Will you hold her?”

He had wanted to ask but had not wanted to intrude upon the miraculous closeness of this mother and child. After nine months of sharing the same body they were separated and yet he sensed not yet completely. Now he held out his arms and took the baby.

“Would you wish to call her Margaret?” Pippa asked softly, hesitantly. Afraid that perhaps instead of being the right thing to suggest it was the very worst.

Lionel too touched the child's cheek with his fingertip, amazed at the softness of her skin and at the extraordinary scent that rose from her. A scent unlike any he had ever known. He thought perhaps it was vanilla but that was too prosaic. It was delicate, flowerlike, and it filled him with such love, such a fierce protectiveness that he didn't think he could let her go.

“Meg,” he said, and lifted her to his lips to kiss the top of her head.

“Meg,” Pippa said, and held out her arms for her child. Lionel laid his daughter on her mother's breast.

“We came for Meg's birth,” Pen said. “But also for your wedding.” She stood beside Lionel, her eyes shining. “When you are churched, the priest will marry you.”

Pippa looked at her in confusion, wondering if her postpartum daze had affected her understanding. “I cannot be married,” she said. “I am married to Stuart Nielson.”

“There is a letter from Mama.” Pen handed her the letter she had held against her skirts.

Pippa transferred Meg to the crook of one arm and took the letter. Pen and Lionel stepped back as if to give her privacy. She read in silence, absently stroking the baby's cheek as she did so. Malcolm had reached Derbyshire and had told her mother the whole. Reading her mother's words of comfort and advice and understanding, she could hear Guinevere's voice, could almost feel her touch. Tears clogged Pippa's throat, but she read on and suddenly had no desire to weep.

Her mother wrote that although they were still confined to their estates there, they had also received a letter from Stuart Nielson. He had made full confession to the Bishop of Winchester and had enclosed a declaration of the annulment of his marriage to Lady Philippa Hadlow, signed by the bishop.

At the end, Guinevere wrote:
“You may marry as you wish, love. Lord Hugh and I give you our blessing in whatever decision you now make. We put our faith and trust in the man who has pledged himself to your care. You will not be able to return to England unless Elizabeth succeeds Mary, but as soon as we are able we will come to you and Pen. We are anxious to meet your Mr. Ashton, and also Robin's bride. We lament a world that has torn our children from us, but we will contrive. Write to us when you are able.”

Pippa looked at Lionel. “Have you read this?”

“Of course not,” he said. “But your sister gave me the gist.”

“I hope Stuart and his lover are safe and content,” Pippa said almost to herself. She wondered why she was not surprised that Stuart had finally revealed his strength. She could never forgive his betrayal, no one could. But she could wish him well.

She turned her face up to where the evening star and a crescent moon shone through the pale green leaves of the oak tree. Meg began to snuffle at her breast, and then to cry, loud, imperative hungry cries.

On the midsummer's eve Pippa stood at the altar of the little church beneath the ceiling that represented the hull of a fishing boat and for the second time made her marriage vows. She remembered how she had stood in this same place listening to Luisa and Robin pledge themselves to each other. Now as she spoke her own pledge, she felt the power of her words as she had not felt them that first time amid all the pomp and panoply of Southwark Cathedral. For better or for worse, she and this man and their child were all and everything to each other.

It was late but the sky on the longest day of the year still held light in it when the feasting was finally done.

“I will take Meg tonight,” Pen said. “You are churched and 'tis your wedding night.”

“A wedding present that couldn't be more appreciated,” Lionel said, taking Pippa firmly by the hand. “Say good night, Pippa.”

Pippa kissed Pen and handed over the baby.

“Let us go, wife.”

The attic chamber was strewn with wild flowers and lit by a precious, sweet-scented wax candle. The straw mattress was covered with a fine linen sheet with lavender and rosemary threaded into the folds.

It was a bridal chamber and they found themselves strangely hesitant, as if they were indeed a bridal couple who knew nothing of each other's bodies. But when they touched each other in the ways that they knew, then it was as it had always been.

“My wife,” Lionel whispered into her ear. “My own.”

“My own,” Pippa replied, drawing a fingernail down his spine. “My own.” She pressed her hands into his buttocks as she lifted her hips to meet his thrust. He slid his hands beneath her, holding her against him, and Pippa gasped at the wonder of it. At the astounding glory of a life that could go so awry and then right itself in such utter perfection.

Afterword

On August 3rd, 1555, after a pregnancy that had been proclaimed for twelve months, Mary finally left her apartments at Hampton Court, where she had waited for four months to be delivered of a child that had never been conceived, and resumed her customary routine. On August 29th, Philip, knowing he would never now have an heir to rule England, left for Flanders, never to return either to his wife or to England. On November 17th, 1558, Mary died and was succeeded by her half sister Elizabeth.

About the Author

J
ANE
F
EATHER
is the
New York Times
bestselling, award-winning author of
To Kiss a Spy, The Widow's Kiss, The Least Likely Bride, The Accidental Bride, The Hostage Bride, A Valentine Wedding, The Emerald Swan,
and many other historical romances. She was born in Cairo, Egypt, and grew up in the New Forest, in the south of England. She began her writing career after she and her family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1981. She now has over six million copies of her books in print.

Also by Jane Feather

V
ICE

V
ANITY

V
IOLET

V
ALENTINE

V
ELVET

V
IXEN

V
IRTUE

T
HE
D
IAMOND
S
LIPPER

T
HE
S
ILVER
R
OSE

T
HE
E
MERALD
S
WAN

T
HE
H
OSTAGE
B
RIDE

A V
ALENTINE
W
EDDING

T
HE
A
CCIDENTAL
B
RIDE

T
HE
L
EAST
L
IKELY
B
RIDE

T
HE
W
IDOW
'
S
K
ISS

A
LMOST
I
NNOCENT

T
O
K
ISS A
S
PY

Enter a world of vibrant passion and intrigue as chronicled by one of the most beloved and bestselling authors of historical romance writing today, the incomparable Jane Feather.

In this pair of linked novels, two unforgettable sisters joined by family and destiny are each caught up in deceit, desire, and an adventure where they find love beyond their wildest dreams . . . with the men of their dreams.

Sensible Pen . . .
No one believed her—
but for once in her life she would follow her heart
to discover the truth about the past.

Flirtatious Pippa . . .
She'd always led a charmed life—
until she became unknowingly caught in a
treacherous web.

This is her story. . . .

KISSED BY SHADOWS

A Bantam Book/February 2003

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2003 by Jane Feather

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eISBN: 978-0-553-89732-6

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