Splintered Heart (The Bentons and Northcutts 2) ✅

Prologue

February 10th, 1667

The weather had been dreadful in the past few days. Hazy mist that had turned to snowfall. From the window there was nothing but misty white as far as the eye could see. If ever there was a worse time for childbirth to occur, it was certainly this day.

Rafe Northcutt paced the sitting room with his arms folded over his chest, his stomach churning and his throat tight. The cries and wails from upstairs were so frequent now that he did not flinch at the cries, but the dread and despair inside of him continued to build.

Something was wrong. He just knew it.

His brother-in-law, Jonathan Benton, sat on the edge of the couch nearest to the roaring fire. He stared ahead of him, his eyes glazed over. He slowly shook his head back and forth. "Something is wrong," he said in a quiet tone. "The baby should have come by now."

"Everything will be all right," Jonathan's father reassured him, though his tone was curt. "There is no sense moping, son. Men do not fall apart from their emotions, women do. Act like a man."

Jonathan stood up swiftly and gave his father a hard glare. "I am allowed to be concerned for my wife and child, Father. And Rebekah has been in labor for a full day!"

"This is not an unusual circumstance," Francis Northcutt, Rafe's father, added from his chair next to the fireplace. "My own wife was in labor for this amount of time with Rebekah. She—"

Another scream from upstairs silenced Francis, and both Rafe and Jonathan simultaneously looked towards the ceiling. "Something is wrong," Jonathan said, his eyes wide. He raced towards the sitting room door and flung it open.

"Jonathan, get back here!" His father shouted, hurrying after him. "Men have no place in the same room childbirth occurs!"

"My wife needs help!" Jonathan shot back, his voice rising with his elevated emotions. He reached the stairs, but his father reached his side and grabbed his arm. "What could you possibly do that the physician cannot do?! Do not go up there!"

"I agree with Jonathan, " Rafe said, reaching their side. Speaking was difficult due to his tight throat. "Something is not right."

"Your mother is upstairs and will take care of Rebekah," Francis said. "The both of you are—"

A new wail reverberated the walls of the home, and Rafe suddenly saw his mother emerge from the corridor and race down the stairs. Agnes Northcutt was sobbing as she flung herself into Francis's arms, clinging to her husband for dear life. "It cannot be! It cannot be!" she wailed.

"Agnes, what's wrong?!" Francis demanded, but Rafe's vision blurred and his heart dropped into his stomach. For his mother to react this way, it could only mean one thing.

"There is nothing that can be done."

Rafe's head snapped up. The physician calmly walked down the stairs, wiping his bloodied hands with a cloth. He was an elder man nearing his sixties, and Rafe knew that he was renowned for his medical skills. "What are you doing?!" Jonathan shouted, pointing towards the stairs. "Get back up there and deliver my baby!"

"Lady Rebekah's condition is deteriorating," the physician said in a grim, somber tone. "She bleeds, but no amount of pushing on her end will allow the baby to come out. Her body appears to be at war with itself; it seems to want to birth the babe, but will not expel the babe. She has fallen to fever and I have used too many leeches. She—"

"Don't you say it!" Jonathan launched forward and grabbed the man by his collar. "Don't you dare say that they are going to die!" He shook the man furiously.