“My baby died,” she said, her voice flat as the old, familiar lifelessness seeped through her.
The nurse was taking Anna’s blood pressure, but at this she looked up. “She’s absolutely fine! The doctor’s just checking her over now,” she said firmly. “I don’t know why you wanted to give birth in a taxicab, but it seems you made a very neat job of it.”
She leaned forward and pulled back one of Anna’s eyelids, shone light from a tiny flashlight into her eye.
“In a taxicab?” Anna repeated. “But—”
Confused memories seemed to pulsate in her head, just out of reach.
“You’re a very lucky girl!” said the cheerful nurse, moving down to press her abdomen with searching fingers. She paused, frowning, and pressed again.
Anna was silent, her eyes squeezed tight, trying to think through the pain and confusion in her head. Meanwhile the nurse poked and prodded, frowned a little, made notes, poked again. “Lift up, please?” she murmured, and with competent hands carried on the examination.
When it was over, she stood looking down at Anna, sliding her pen into the pocket of her uniform trousers. A little frown had gathered between her eyebrows.
“Do you remember giving birth, Anna?”
Pain rushed in at her. The room suddenly filling with people, all huddled around her precious newborn baby, while she cried, “Let me see him, why can’t I hold him?” and then…Anna, I’m sorry, I’m so very sorry. We couldn’t save your baby.
“Yes,” she said lifelessly, gazing at the nurse with dry, stretched eyes, her heart a lump of stone. “I remember.”
A male head came around the cubicle’s curtain. “Staff, can you come, please?”
The Staff Nurse gathered up her instruments. “Maternity Sister will be down as soon as she can get away, but it may be a while, Anna. They’ve got staff shortages there, too, tonight, and a Caes—”
A light tap against the partition wall preceded the entrance of a young nurse, looking desperately tired but smiling as she rolled a wheeled bassinet into the room.
“Oh, nurse, there you are! How’s the bairn?” said the Staff Nurse, sounding not altogether pleased.
The bairn was crying with frustrated fury, and neither of the nurses heard the gasp that choked Anna. A storm of emotion seemed to seize her as she lifted herself on her elbows and, ignoring the punishment this provoked from the person in her head who was beating her nerve endings, struggled to sit up.
“Baby?” Anna cried. “Is that my baby?”
Meanwhile, the young nurse wheeled the baby up beside the trolley, assuring Anna, “Yes, she is. A lovely little girl.” Anna looked into the bassinet, closed her eyes, looked again.
The baby stopped crying suddenly. She was well wrapped up in hospital linen, huge eyes open, silent now but frowning questioningly at the world.
“Oh, dear God!” Anna exclaimed, choking on the emotion that surged up inside. “Oh, my baby! Was it just a nightmare, then? Oh, my darling!”
“It’s not unusual for things to get mixed up after a bang on the head like yours, but everything will sort itself out,” said the Staff Nurse. “We’ll keep you in for observation for a day or two, but there’s nothing to worry about.”
Anna hardly heard. “I want to hold her!” she whispered, convulsively reaching towards the bassinet. The young nurse obligingly picked the baby up and bent over Anna. Her hungry arms wrapping the infant, Anna sank back against the pillows.
Her heart trembled with a joy so fierce it hurt, obliterating for a few moments even the pain in her head. She drew the little bundle tight against her breast, and gazed hungrily into the flower face.
She was beautiful. Huge questioning eyes, dark hair that lay on her forehead in feathery curls, wide, full mouth which was suddenly, adorably, stretched by a yawn.
All around one eye there was a mocha-hued shadow that added an inexplicably piquant charm to her face. She gazed at Anna, serenely curious.
“She looks like a bud that’s just opened,” Anna marvelled. “She’s so fresh, so new!”
“She’s lovely,” agreed the junior nurse, while the Staff Nurse hooked the clipboard of Anna’s medical notes onto the foot of the bed.
“Good, then,” she said, nodding. “Now you’ll be all right here till Maternity Sister comes. Nurse, I’ll see you for a moment, please.”
The sense of unreality returned when she was left alone with the baby. Anna gazed down into the sweet face from behind a cloud of pain and confusion. She couldn’t seem to think.
The baby fell asleep, just like that. Anna bent to examine her. The birthmark on her eye was very clear now that the baby’s eyes were closed. Delicate, dark, a soft smudging all around the eye. Anna was moved by it. She supposed such a mark could be considered a blemish, but somehow it managed to be just the opposite.
“You’ll set the fashion, my darling,” Anna whispered with a smile, cuddling the baby closer. “All the girls will be painting their eyes with makeup like that in the hopes of making themselves as beautiful as you.”
It made the little face even more vulnerable, drew her, touched her heart. She couldn’t remember ever having seen such a mark before. Was this kind of thing inherited? No one in her family had anything like it.
Was it a dream, that memory of another child? Tiny, perfect, a beautiful, beautiful son…but so white. They had allowed her to hold him, just for a few moments, to say goodbye. Her heart had died then. She had felt it go cold, turn to ice and then stone. They had encouraged her to weep, but she did not weep. Grief required a heart.
Was that a dream?
She was terribly tired. She bent to lay the sleeping infant back in the bassinet. Then she leaned down over the tiny, fragile body, searching her face for clues.
“Who is your father?” she whispered. “Where am I? What’s happening to me?”
Her head ached violently. She lay back against the pillows and wished the lights weren’t so bright.
“My daughter, you must prepare yourself for some excellent news.”
She smiled trustingly at her mother. “Is it the embassy from the prince?” she asked, for the exciting information had of course seeped into the harem.
“The prince’s emissaries and I have discussed the matter of your marriage with the prince. Now I have spoken with your father, whose care is all for you. Such a union will please him very much, my daughter, for he desires peace with the prince and his people.”
She bowed. “I am happy to be the means of pleasing my father…. And the prince? What manner of man do they say he is?”
“Ah, my daughter, he is a young man to please any woman. Handsome, strong, capable in all the manly arts. He has distinguished himself in battle, too, and stories are told of his bravery.”
She sighed her happiness. “Oh, mother, I feel I love him already!” she said.
Anna awoke, not knowing what had disturbed her. A tall, dark man was standing at the foot of her trolley, reading her chart. There was something about him… She frowned, trying to concentrate. But sleep dragged her eyes shut.
“They’re both fine,” she heard when she opened them next, not sure whether it was seconds or minutes later. The man was talking to a young woman who looked familiar. After a second Anna’s jumbled brain recognized the junior nurse.
The man drew her eyes. He was strongly charismatic. Handsome as a pirate captain, exotically dark and obviously foreign. Masculine, strong, handsome—and