The others worked to reassure Adelar and Michel while Brian returned to staring up at the ceiling. He had spent the last few months, from the moment winter eased enough to allow travel, making sure that the house he and Arianna would share was readied for their family and the land Claud had left his sons prepared for planting. He had done the same with the property Arianna had brought to their marriage.
He had also done a great deal of strutting about as if he had accomplished some rare and wondrous deed by putting a bairn into his wife’s belly. The larger she had grown, the more he had coddled her, and the more he had strutted. He did not feel much like strutting now. Somehow he had blissfully forgotten all the danger and pain of childbed right up until Arianna had been taken to hers.
Once Arianna no longer feared miscarrying their child, her happiness had helped to blind him to those dangers. Even when ill every morning or suffering an aching back as her belly grew rounder, she had been happy. It was not until a fortnight ago when Jolene had arrived to help with the birth—followed quickly by Arianna’s cousins, Fiona’s sister-in-law Gillyanne, and Liam’s wife, Keira—that a hint of fear occasionally shadowed her eyes. Brian knew it was not caused by the possible dangers to herself that came with childbirth or the pain, however. Arianna worried about the health of the child she carried. Nothing he had said had fully banished the fear that, even though she had carried their child to full term, she might still lose it.
All Brian could do was pray that Arianna would soon hold a living child in her arms. He would grieve if they lost the child, but his deepest fears concerned what such a loss would do to Arianna. The prayers he constantly whispered in his mind were mostly for the life of the child. He prayed for Arianna, too, but he was doing his best not to allow his thoughts to linger too long on all the dangers a woman faced when bearing a child. That way led to bone-chilling terror.
“Brian?”
He blinked and looked to find Fiona standing by his chair. “Is Arianna weel?”
“Arianna is just fine. The bairns are fine, too. Ye can go up and see her now.”
Brian was just stepping through the door when what Fiona had said finally settled into his mind. He slowly turned around to see her sitting on Ewan’s lap and grinning at him. Everyone else watched him, too, every last one of them grinning at him.
“Did ye say bairns? As in more than one?” he asked.
“Aye, I did,” she replied. “Ye have two bairns, Brian. One lass. One lad.”
His legs were suddenly too weak to hold him upright and Brian braced himself against the door. He refused to swoon like some terrified maiden in front of all these grinning fools. Two bairns. Arianna had given him twins.
“Both bairns are weel?” he asked, pleased to hear how calm he sounded.
“Aye. A goodly size, hearty cries, have all the right parts. Go and see for yourself.”
Steadying himself, Brian started to do just that. As he strode through the door, he heard Odo say, “Wheesht! She was carrying two bairns in that belly? They must have been fair crowded in there.”
That boy was going to be trouble, Brian thought as, once out of sight of the great hall, he started running. He did not slow down until he reached the door to their bedchamber. Brian paused to take a few deep breaths to calm himself down and then entered the room. Mab rose from her seat by the bed and walked over to him. He briefly hugged her when she stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
“She is just fine, lad,” Mab said. “The lass can toss aside all her fears. She was made for this, for giving ye lots of plump, healthy bairns.”
“I heard her scream,” he whispered, his fears for Arianna not easily assuaged. “Twice.”
“Ye would scream too if ye were pushing that out of your body. Twice.”
He frowned at Mab. “Have ye been talking to Odo?”
Mab just laughed as she left, quietly shutting the door behind her. Brian moved to where his children were settled in the huge cradle his father had made. Swaddled and asleep, it was impossible to tell which was which. One had a surprisingly thick head of black hair and the other had bright red spikes of hair.
“The one with the black hair is the lass. The one with the red is the laddie.”
Brian hurried over to the bed to find Arianna smiling at him. She had obviously been thoroughly cleaned up after the birth and only looked very tired. He sat down on the edge of the bed and gently kissed her.
“Thank ye, my love,” he whispered. “Ye are weel?”
“Verra weel. And thank ye, Sir Brian. Ye have given me such a wondrous gift. Two of them.”
He cleared his throat in a vain attempt to hide the emotion choking him, and said, “Weel, I had planned on only giving ye the one.”
“We shouldnae be surprised that there are two.” She winked at him. “Ye are a true MacFingal, after all. Verra potent.”
He laughed as he settled himself on the bed beside her, one arm around her shoulders to hold her close to him. “Did ye finally decide on a name? Ye need two now.”
“She will be called Reine and he will be called Crispin, if that pleases ye.”