Tor stared at her as if didn’t understand what she was telling him. But as the words sank in, his pallor became ashen. The pale green eyes flickered.
He swallowed hard.
“She is dead?” he asked. “Janie is dead?”
“She is,” Lady de Lohr said sadly, squeezing his hand. “I wish I could say something that would bring you comfort, but you must find that in your own time, with God’s help. I can tell you that she was very brave. She told me to tell you that she loved you dearly and asked that you take care of her sisters. The younger girls are all alone now, with their parents and oldest sister gone. Will you do this? Will you take care of Barbara and Lenore? It was what Jane wanted.”
Tor had to sit down. There was a stone bench behind him and he sank onto it, with Lady de Lohr still holding his hand. He simply sat there, dumbfounded, hardly able to process what he’d been told.
“Jane,” he murmured, dazed. Then he started to blink rapidly, as if blinking away tears. “Of course she was brave. Jane was nothing else, ever since the day I met her.”
“She was very brave, dear Tor. Take comfort in that, if you will.”
He simply sat there, staring off into space, thinking of the wife he’d lost.
And the child.
In an instant, his entire family was gone.
“The child?” he managed to ask hoarsely. “Was it male?”
Lady de Lohr cleared her throat softly. “I do not know,” she said. “She died with the child still inside of her and we made the decision not to cut her open to retrieve the babe.”
He looked at her, then. “But the child could have still been alive. Jane would have wanted you to save our son.”
But Lady de Lohr shook her head. “The physic determined that the child was dead when Jane’s labor began,” she said gently. “The child was early, you know. The labor was God’s way of expelling the dead baby, but Jane did not have the strength to push him out.”
“You are certain of this?”
“As certain as I can be, Tor. Please know I would have done everything possible if there had been the slightest chance to save her or the child.”
He knew that. Lady de Lohr was a caring, compassionate woman, but he had to ask. The hollowness, the grief, that was building inside of him was demanding answers and it was difficult not to give in to the pain.
But Tor had never been the animated kind.
He was, in short, a gentle giant. He was calm and well-liked, which was part of the reason this situation was such a tragedy. Tor deserved to be happy and to have the family he very much wanted. He deserved all of the good things that life had to offer and a situation like this was a heartbreak for all involved.
Having watched him grow up, it was particularly difficult for Lady de Lohr.
Tor knew that. In theory, he knew that she would have moved heaven and earth to save Jane, but there had been no hope. It must have been dire, indeed, which began to tear at him. He’d told her not to send word to him about her pregnancy or the birth.
Now, he was coming to regret that directive, very much.
“I am sure you would have done everything possible,” he finally said. “I did not mean to question you. ’Tis simply that… we are speaking of my Janie. She is too young and beautiful to die.”
Lady de Lohr was near tears. “She will be forever young and beautiful to us all, Tor,” she said softly. “We will remember her with great love and affection. Even if you had been here, there was nothing you could have done. You could not have saved her. Mayhap it is best if you remember her as she was the very last day you left her – happy, sweet, and loving. Hold that memory close, Tor.”
His eyes were starting to well. Something in Lady de Lohr’s statement conveyed the horror of Jane’s final days. After a moment, he looked up at her.
“She died in agony, didn’t she?” he asked.
Lady de Lohr was taken aback by the question. “She… she was weary, of course. She tried to bring forth the child for several days.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“Tor…”
“Tell me!” he boomed.
Lady de Lohr jumped, startled by his exceptionally loud voice. She had known Tor since he’d been a boy, having grown into a man of considerable size and strength, and his shout frightened her. It was the first time she’d ever heard the man raise his voice or show a temper, ever. Given the circumstances, it was understandable.
But she held her ground.
“I told you the truth,” she said evenly. “She died exhausted but brave. Of course there was pain; having a child is not a painless experience. What would you have me tell you? That her body contorted with great contractions to bring forth a child that was far too large for her to carry? That, at times, it was so painful that she screamed? Is that what you wish to hear?”
Tor’s eyes widened and Lady de Lohr realized what she had said. She’d spoken honestly before she could stop herself.
She grasped him with both hands this time.
“I did not mean to say that,” she said. “Forgive me, Tor. The child was large, that is true, but it was not your fault. You must not blame yourself. I did not mean to imply otherwise.”
He blinked at her, still startled by her words. “Then it is true,” he said. “The child was too large. My child was too large.”
Lady de Lohr hoped she hadn’t done damage with her truthful outburst. “He was very big, but women are made for bearing big children,” she said. “I have given birth to my share of them and I am quite well. But Janie… as I said, sometimes these things happen and we do not know why. Only God knows.”
Tor was sinking further into despair and trying hard not to. “For a man to die in battle, I understand why God permits such a thing,” he said. “A man goes into battle with the intention of taking a life. If his own life is taken, it is a fitting retribution. But a woman faces childbirth with the intention of giving life. It is a cruel God who allows women to die in childbirth.”
“Hush,” Lady de Lohr said softly. “You must not blaspheme.”
Tor wouldn’t look at her. “I can say what I wish now that there is no longer any reason to pray to God,” he said. “He should have taken me instead of Jane. I had gone to Goodrich with the intention of killing men. But Janie… all she wanted was to hold our son in her arms. Speak not to me of God, Lady de Lohr, for that is not something I wish to hear.”
Lady de Lohr wasn’t going to push him. She knew that he was doing the best he could under the circumstances, lashing out as much as Tor de Wolfe was capable of lashing out. She’d never seen such a controlled man, but she had heard from her husband that once the control was broken, there was no stopping Tor in anything he wished to do – kill a man, destroy a home, burn a town. He was capable of such things.
But he kept that monster tightly under restraint.
Therefore, she simply squeezed his hand and released him. “If there is anything I can do for you, Tor, you only need ask,” she said. “I am here to help you in any way. If you wish for me to send a missive to your father, I shall. I have refrained from doing anything, waiting until you returned so that you can decide what needs to be done. But you must understand that we had to bury Jane. With the weather warm, we had no choice. I hope you do understand that.”