Lady Guinevere and the Rogue with a Brogue - Julie Johnstone Page 0,118

held. Blue veins pulsed along the base of her neck, giving her skin a thin, papery appearance. The sour stench of death filled the heavy air.

Only seconds had passed, yet it seemed like much longer. The physician swung toward Alexander. He appeared aged since coming through the door hours before; deep lines marked his forehead, the sides of his eyes, and around his mouth. Normally an impeccably kept man, his hair dangled over his right eye, and his shirt, stained dark red, hung out from his trousers. Shoving his hair out of his eye, the physician asked, “Who do you want me to try to save, Your Grace?”

Alexander curled his hands into fists by his sides, hissing at the throbbing pain the movement caused his cut palm. His mother’s last words echoed in his head: Great sins require great penance.

The duke glanced at his wife’s face, then slowly slid his gaze to her swollen belly. “Both of them,” he responded. Fresh sweat broke out across his forehead as the doctor shook his head.

“The babe is twisted the wrong way. Even if I can get it out, Her Grace will be ripped beyond repair. She’ll likely bleed out.”

Anger coursed through Alexander’s veins. “Both of them,” he repeated, his voice shaking.

“If she lives, I’m certain she’ll be barren. You are sure?”

“Positive,” he snapped, seized by a wave of nausea and a certainty that he had failed to give up enough to save them both. Rushing to Camilla’s side, he kneeled and gripped her hand as her back formed a perfect arch and another cry broke past her lips—the loudest scream yet.

Alexander closed his eyes and fervently vowed to God never to touch his wife again if only she and his babe would be allowed to live. He would do this and would keep his sacrifice between God and himself for as long as he drew breath and never tell a living soul of his penance. This time he would heed his mother’s warnings. Her threadbare voice filled his head as he murmured her words. “True atonement is between the sinner and God or else it is not true, and the day of reckoning will come more terrible and shattering than imaginable.”

Alexander repeated the oath, coldness gripping him and burrowing into his bones.

Moments later, his throat burned, and he could not stop the tears of happiness and relief that rolled down his face as he cradled his healthy son in his arms.

Then in a faint but happy voice Camilla called out to him. “Alex, come to me,” Camilla murmured, gazing at him with shining eyes and raising a willowy arm to beckon him. He froze where he stood and curled his fingers tighter around his swaddled son, desperate to hold on to the joy of seconds ago, and yet the elation slipped away when realizing the promise he had made to God.

That vow had saved his wife and child. As much as he wanted to tell Camilla of it now, as her forehead wrinkled and uncertainty filled her eyes, fear stilled his tongue. What if he told her, and then she died? Or the babe died?

“You’ve done well, Camilla,” he said in a cool tone. The words felt ripped from his gut. Inside, he throbbed, raw and broken.

He handed the babe to Jane and then turned on his heel and quit the room. At the stairs, he gripped the banister for support as he summoned the butler and gave the orders to remove his belongings from the bedchamber he had shared with Camilla since the day they had married.

As he feared, as soon as Camilla was able to, she came to him, desperate and pleading for explanations. Her words seared his heart and branded him with misery. He trembled every time he sent her away from him, and her broken-hearted sobs rang through the halls. The pain that stole her smile and the gleam that had once filled her eyes made him fear for her and for them, but the dreams that dogged him of her death or their son’s death should the vow be broken frightened him more. Sleeplessness plagued him, and he took to creeping into his son’s nursery, where he would send the nanny away and rock his boy until the wee hours of the morning, pouring all his love into his child.

Days slid into months that turned to the first year and then the second. As his bond with Camilla weakened, his tie to his heir strengthened. Laughter filled