Chapter Seventeen
Some months later…
“I have become larger than your horse.” Joy waddled around the library, glumly rubbing her back as she scanned the many shelves of books.
“You are beautiful, my angel.” She had become astonishingly large, especially in the belly, but he wasn’t fool enough to admit that to her.
He wondered if there was but one in there.
Perhaps they should have added a second cradle to the plans just to be sure.
Regardless, she was still the most breathtaking woman he had ever beheld.
“Come sit with me. You seem more restless than usual.”
“I cannot sit, stand, or walk with any comfort. Existing is an achingly troublesome effort.” She snorted much like his horse and ambled around yet another circuit. “Perhaps I should go to the garden. It is warmer today, and the sun is actually shining. Am I bothering you?”
He went to her and offered his arm. “You never bother me. Come…we shall stroll through the garden together. This early, though, I fear only the snowdrops and daffodils will be blooming.”
“I don’t care what’s blooming.” She took his arm, then paused, bending forward slightly.
“Joy?”
“I am certain it is belly gas. If we send for the accoucheur one more time just because I have a case of the winds, he is likely to refuse us when it really counts.”
“If he does, I shall see the man ruined.” Jansen eyed her, concerned about the high color to her cheeks and the puffiness around her eyes. “We are sending for him. You look decidedly unwell.”
“What a horrible thing to say!”
“Do not be hurt by what I say.” He touched her forehead. “You are blazing hot, even perspiring, and it is not at all warm in here. Something is not right.”
“Perhaps we should send for him, then.” She leaned against him. “I do not feel well at all, but I did not wish to cause you concern.”
“I am carrying you to the bed.” He swept her up into his arms, kicked open the library door, and shouted, “Send for the accoucheur. Lady Joy is not well.”
“Do not cause panic,” she said, sounding so breathless it concerned him.
“Are you having trouble drawing breath?”
“It is because I am so huge. Once the baby comes, I am quite sure I will be fine.”
“Get that accoucheur here now!” he bellowed.
“Jansen.” She patted his chest, wanly smiling up at him. “I am fine. Maybe the baby has finally decided to join us.”
“I hope so.” He prayed that was all it was. She did not seem fine at all.
“You must not worry,” she whispered, staring up at him with those deep-blue eyes that pulled him in and made him hear the ocean. “Wager and I will be fine.”
“Of course, my love. But I want the accoucheur here…now. The monthly nurse should be back from her errands at any moment. I cannot believe she left you in this state.”
“I insisted that she do so, my dearest, most impatient knight.”
“Damn well right I am impatient. When it comes to those I love, I have no patience for anyone else.”
By the time he reached her bedroom, the room she insisted be used as the birthing room, she had curled against him in pain. He took that as a positive sign that the baby was coming. As soon as he laid her on the bed, she rolled off to her feet and resumed her pacing.
“I cannot lie,” she said. “I simply cannot.” She caught hold of the bedpost and clutched her enormous belly while trying to draw breath. “Oh my goodness, this is not at all like Blessing and Fortuity described. Do you think something is wrong?”
He did, but was not about to tell her. “I am sure every birth is different. Even your sisters said so, did they not?”
That seemed to ease her. “Yes…yes, they did say that.”
Where the bloody hell was that accoucheur? Jansen stayed close to her side, supporting her whenever she needed to lean against him. “Richard Wager if we have a boy, and Charlotte Wager if we have a girl, yes? Is that what we decided?”
“Yes,” Joy said with a breathlessness that concerned him.
He caught her as she stumbled. “You must get into the bed, my love. Now. Please.”
“All right,” she gasped. “But only for a little while.”
“Yes, just for a little while to please your worried husband.” Terror struck Jansen hard and deep. She must be feeling weak for her to agree so readily.
The bedroom door burst open. The accoucheur entered, followed by two attendants, the monthly nurse, and the wet nurse. The man glanced at Joy, then caught Jansen by the arm and yanked him to one side. “You may be required to make a choice, Sir Jansen. What shall it be?”
“What?”
“Save the child or the mother?”
“You will save the child,” Joy sang out loud and strong. “Don’t you dare try to harm my baby to save me. I will never allow it!”
The accoucheur never twitched, keeping his glare locked with Jansen’s. “Sir Jansen?”
“Do what my wife says. It is not my choice but hers.” Gads alive, it killed him to say that when everything within him begged that his Joy be saved.
He didn’t know this baby, this child…at least, not yet.
He knew and loved his wife with a fury greater than all creation.
But he would not go against her on this.
It was not his choice to make. No matter what the accoucheur said.
The man acquiesced with a single nod, then nodded again at the door. “I recommend you leave.”
“I am not leaving her.”
“Fetch Essie and Tutie,” Joy said before gasping for another breath. “Please fetch them for me. I need them.”
Jansen went to her. “I do not want to leave you, my love. I am afraid.”
“Get Essie and Tutie. Please?” She touched his cheek so tenderly, so bravely, that he almost sobbed. “I shall be fine,” she promised, sounding as though even she doubted that lie. “I promise.”
“Swear it.”
She smiled. “I swear it on every eel I ever placed in Chance’s bed.”
“I hope you placed a lot of them there.”
“I did, my love. Now, please…fetch my sisters.”
He bolted from the room, bellowing, “My carriage! Now!”
Servants scattered like marbles tossed across the floor. Severns chased him down the hallway. “Your hat, sir. Your gloves.”
“I don’t give a bloody damn about any of that. Where is Copper and my carriage? My wife needs her sisters. Now!”
Noise out front assured him that the carriage had finally arrived. He charged out of the house, leapt into it, and shouted, “Lady Knightwood’s first. Then Lady Ravenglass’s, and for heaven’s sake, make haste!”
Surprisingly, or perhaps not, both sisters were expecting him.
It was almost as if the wind had carried the news of Joy’s travails.
Thankfully, Lady Blessing had just been churched after being safely delivered of a son in January, but Jansen had no doubt that nothing would keep her from her sister’s side.
Once they were all in the carriage, he shared his greatest fears. “She is not well. Swollen. Pale. Cannot catch her breath. Feverish, even.” When the sisters shared a shocked glance, his terror stabbed deeper. “She cannot die. She cannot leave me.”
Blessing reached across the carriage and thumped him on the knee. “Pray. Hard and meaningful. Pray as you have never prayed before.”
Instead, he dropped his head into his hands and wept.
*
“Lord Denby to see you, sir,” Severns said from the hallway adjacent to the private sitting room.
Jansen kept his gaze locked on the door to the attached bedroom, the entrance to Joy’s bedroom. Even though her earlier cries had struck fear into his heart, the silence behind that door now horrified him. It had been too quiet for far too long. He would not look away from it.
“I came to offer my support,” the earl said as he fell in step beside Jansen while he paced. “My beloved Henrietta has been through this three times. It never gets any easier for us, old man. Or them.”
Jansen snorted. “We think them delicate flowers. They are steel, Denby. Steel forged by the hottest fires imaginable.”
“I agree.” Denby clapped a hand on Jansen’s shoulder. “Take heart. The Abarough sisters are even stronger than most. My wife says so, and she would know. Women talk among themselves about these things. They are far wiser than we are about life’s beginnings.”
“It isn’t the beginning that worries me. It is the ending.”
“Best not to think like that. Remember our theory? What you believe becomes so. Believe she and the babe will be well.”
Before Jansen could comment, the bedroom door opened and Fortuity stepped into the sitting room, carrying the tiniest bundle—an entirely too-still bundle, in Jansen’s opinion.
And she had been crying. Red eyes. Red nose, but now Fortuity bore the expression of an almost forced calm.
He had not heard any cries. Had his and Joy’s child died?
“You have a son, Sir Jansen,” she said, her voice quivering. “He is very small and very weak, but he lives…for now.”
Jansen hurried to her and stared down at the precious infant. As he carefully pulled back the blanket, he noticed a purplish-red mark near the child’s jawline. “His neck. That mark?”
“The cord, dearest brother. It nearly strangled him. Thankfully, the accoucheur was able to save him in time. He revived him when the rest of us feared all was lost.”
“And my beloved Joy?” Jansen cupped the baby’s warm, velvety-soft head in the palm of his hand. When Fortuity didn’t answer, he let it drop. “Tell me she is not gone. Do not tell me otherwise, sister.”
“She lives…for now.” Fortuity cuddled the infant closer, sniffing and blinking against another onslaught of tears. “She has gone to sleep, dear sir, and we cannot seem to awaken her.”
“Give me my son.” Ever so carefully, Jansen cradled the softly squeaking mite to his chest. “Come along, Richard Lionheart Wager Winterstone. Let us speak to Mama. We must tell her it is very rude to frighten us this way.”