Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 95326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
How did she make sense of what she was thinking? Could it even be possible? And if it was, why had her parents done such a thing? Question after question swirled in her head and it wasn’t until she felt a raindrop hit her that she looked to see it was raining and had been for a while, the ground beyond the spreading spruce branches quite wet. She had been sitting there longer than she intended and she hurried to her feet and to rush into the keep and to the Great Hall to find her husband.
“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?”
Elsie jumped, startled at her husband’s bellowing voice when she entered the Great Hall.
He was in front of her before she could speak. His hand latched onto her arm, and he rushed her straight to his solar.
He swung her around to face him after he slammed the door shut. “Do not EVER—EVER—disappear like that again. I was mad with worry about you, especially after speaking with May.
“I am not sure yet that I am with child,” she assured him.
“What?” he asked, his eyes spreading wide in shock.
She bit her tongue, though she should have bitten it before the words slipped out. And she should have known May would not have said anything since it was for Elsie to tell her husband when the time came.
“Are you with child?” he asked, shaking his head. “May said you had an uneasy stomach and was concerned that I might have one too since we both ate the quail—” He shook his head again and repeated the question. “Are you with child?”
“May suggested I might be, but my stomach is not uneasy. She asked if I was upset or feeling ill when she saw me, and it was easier to admit feeling ill than to tell her why I was upset.”
Cavell moved his hand off her arm to rest it at her waist. “You will tell me why you are upset, but first—”
“I do not know yet if I am with child and I won’t know for at least a few weeks. You can rest assured that you will know before anyone else does, husband.”
He lowered his brow to rest against hers. “It would be most welcoming news, wife, but I warn you, nay, I beg you NEVER again put me through the heart-wrenching fear I suffered when I could not find you after speaking with May. I imagined a litany of horrible scenarios of what might have happened to you, and I was ready to battle the devil himself to find you.”
“I am so sorry to have caused you such torment,” she said, for she would have felt the same if she had been unable to find him. “I got lost in my thoughts and when I do I go to a spot I have gone to since I was young to think.” Seeing his eyes turn more attentive, she told him what she knew he wanted to know. “I go and sit under the large spruce behind the keep.”
She felt his whole body lose its rigidness as he stepped closer to her and eased her to rest against him.
“Thank you for sharing your secret thinking spot with me. I will know to look there but I will not disturb you.”
“I do not mind if you disturb me. I had gone there before coming to talk with you about something I learned that upset me and it might be nothing and yet I think it is something.”
“You will sit, and we will talk,” he said, hearing how upset she had gotten.
Elsie grabbed his arm, fright filling her eyes. “I don’t know if I am who I think I am.”
CHAPTER 20
After walking with his wife to a chair and seeing her seated comfortably, Cavell filled a goblet with wine and handed it to her. “Drink.”
Elsie took a few sips, her mind churning, and placed the goblet on the table beside the chair, then reached out and took hold of her husband’s hand, glad he had moved a bench in front of her to sit and repeated what Clara had told her about her parents.
She sighed heavily and shook her head not believing what she was about to say. “I think the secret my da promised to keep might be that my sisters and I are not my da and mum’s true daughters. It makes me think that my mum traveled to who knows where to take newborn bairns who were not wanted or whose birth could cause someone a problem. Hence, the reason my sisters and I could be in danger after all these years or at least one of us.”
While he did not want to believe it, his wife’s assumption of what the elderly woman had told her made sense. It also made for a far worse situation. If someone of any power or influence discovered the birth of a child that could put his power in jeopardy, or she could be used to his benefit, the person would stop at nothing to find her.