The Devastation (Unexpected Circumstances #7)(20)

The door toward the end of the dark corridor was partially open, and I could see flickering light coming from inside. I had to brace my heels into the dirt floor in order to stop as I turned from the hallway to the entrance to the cell. I shoved the door open, and my gaze fell on the two figures at the far side of the room.

One was Alexandra. She lay on the floor near the back wall on a bed of squalid, old straw with her legs curled up and her knees at her chest. Even as I entered, she cried out again, her body shaking with what appeared to be the sheer exertion of the scream.

The other figure was a guard with his back to me. He knelt on the ground in front of her, and his hands reached out to grab at her as she cried out. With my hand still grasping my sword, I approached him from behind with every intention of ending his life without hesitation.

However, the way he held himself seemed familiar, and I recognized his frustrated groan, which stayed my hand. It had been many years, but this was a man I knew well. He turned at the sound of our entry, and I saw the deep scar across the face and the scruffy beard of the trusted cousin of my birth mother.

“Greysen!”

“My king!” he replied though his eyes showed no relief. He turned quickly back to Alexandra. “My king…I think…I believe the child is coming.”

As if on cue, Alexandra cried out. The sound was long and low, and Alexandra’s arms wrapped around her bulging stomach as she screamed. I almost pushed Greysen to the ground as I first knelt beside my wife and then lay myself next to her on the straw so I could reach her better. I held either side of her tear-stained face and made her look at me.

“Alexandra,” I whispered. I watched her eyes go wide before she burst into fresh tears.

“Branford! Branford!” she cried out. “Are you really here? Truly? Am I not dreaming?”

“I am here, my wife,” I said softly.

Alexandra seemed about to say something when she let out another long wail. I turned to Parnell.

“What do we need to do?” I asked him.

Parnell took a step backwards and placed his hand over his breastplate.

“Do?” he asked, sounding stunned. “What do you mean do?”

“The child is coming! Shouldn’t we do something?”

“I have no idea!” Parnell replied.

“But you fathered a child with my sister!”

“Then ask me how Emma was fathered, not how she was born!” he yelled back. “I was not present when she came into the world!”

“How can you not know—”

“Edith,” Greysen said, interrupting. I looked at him for an explanation. Greysen nodded emphatically. “She had been a handmaid to Princess Whitney but now works in the kitchen here in Sterling. Edith has had her own children, and she has been at the births of others. She will know what to do.”

I had no idea who this Edith was, but as Alexandra cried out again, I was not about to reject any form of help. I wondered if she was one of the handmaids Alexandra would remember from her days as Whitney’s servant.

“Where is she?”

“I will find her,” he replied and quickly hurried out of the cell, relief showing itself in his expression as he crossed under the arch of the doorway. I yelled after him to be quick before turning back to my pained wife.

Alexandra panted, and trails of sweat ran down from her hairline and mixed with her tears. She reached out, grabbing onto my forearms and squeezing tightly.

“I cannot feel you!” she yelled at me.

“I am right here!” I yelled back at her.

“I need to feel you!”

Hoping I understood her correctly, I pulled back and yanked the chain shirt from my body and tossed it to the side. I then shoved up the sleeves of the shirt underneath, so when she gripped me again, she could feel my skin. It seemed to work, and as she closed her eyes, she dug her fingers into my flesh.

I almost cried out myself.

Alexandra stopped yelling though her face was still red from exertion, and her breaths were short and quick. Distracted by a noise behind me, I looked over my shoulder to find Greysen returning. At the same time, Parnell seemed to be escaping from the scene altogether. I yelled out for him, but he disappeared out the door and did not return.

Coward.

I turned my attention back to Greysen and the woman who walked in with him. She was older and careworn—around the same age as my mother would have been had she lived so long. The woman—Edith, I assumed—pushed Greysen aside in a very no-nonsense way and headed immediately for Alexandra. I tensed as I realized I did not know this woman, nor did I have any reason to trust her. She had been in the service of the Hadebrand family for many years. What if she were loyal to Edgar’s kingdom? What if she had heard of the fall of Hadebrand and considered taking it out on Alexandra or our child?

“Well, look at you,” Edith said softly as Alexandra’s moans died down for a moment. I watched my wife’s eyes open wide as she stared at the woman who approached us.

“Edith!” she exclaimed. She reached out, and I forced myself to let this woman, a stranger to me, wrap my wife’s fingers in her own. At least it was obvious Alexandra knew her.

“I have heard so much of what became of you,” Edith told her. “I was not sure what to believe, but we will have to talk of that later. First, we need to see how soon this baby is going to be here.”