Epilogue
Sweat beaded his forehead and clung to both palms as Henry paced in the upstairs corridor of Marsden Hall, his Cumbria estate. Irina had been in labor for nearly a day and a half. In the last few hours, the only people entering or leaving the inner room of the lying-in chamber were Dr. Hargrove and the birthing attendants exchanging dirty linens for clean ones. Dr. Hargrove’s expression had gone from calm to grim in the space of the last half day, suggesting that all was not proceeding as expected. Terror had gripped Henry then, fear for both his wife and his unborn child.
“The birth is imminent,” Henry had been told a quarter of an hour earlier, and as such, he’d taken to treading a hole in the thick carpet in the hallway, wanting to damage everything in his path. His deranged mood was so obvious that the servants scurrying about had started avoiding this particular hallway, taking the long way around instead.
“My lord,” a gentle voice said as a hand reached out to take hold of his sleeve. “You will make yourself ill if you continue like this.”
Henry turned to see his sister-in-law standing there with a compassionate look on her face. Lana carried linens and a fresh change of clothing in her arms. “How is she?” he asked, anguished desperation clogging his throat.
“She is doing as well as can be expected,” Lana said gently. “She is a fighter, as you know.”
His heart stuttered in his chest. “Why does she have to fight?”
Lana drew a deep breath, worry puckering her brow for a moment. She hesitated as if trying to choose her words carefully. “Some births are more challenging than others. It won’t be long now.” She hurried past him. “I know it’s difficult, but try to remain calm. It’s the best thing you can do for the both of you.”
Although Dr. Hargrove, Lady Northridge, and his own mother had insisted that such ordeals were normal, it did not help that Henry had scoured the texts in his library and had learned the staggering, nausea-inducing statistic that one in five women died in childbirth. Even Princess Charlotte had died five years before, a few hours after she’d given birth to a stillborn. She’d been in labor for over two days. That news had rocked England.
And fear of the same outcome crippled him now.
Though he knew that Irina had the best care, and that Dr. Hargrove had delivered many healthy babies, including Irina’s own sister’s, the knowledge had put a coil of fear in his chest that would not loosen. Nor was it alleviated by Irina’s more frequent cries of pain followed by the subsequent rushing of footsteps from the outer room to the inner room and back.
But Lana was right—Irina was a fighter.
Even in in the beginning throes of labor, she’d been a warrior. Hours before, pale and beautiful, she had clasped his hand tightly and told him to be ready to welcome his child. Their child.
Henry allowed himself a tiny smile. Irina had been convinced based on her women’s intuition that their baby had been conceived in Escalles. Henry wasn’t as sure, given how many times he’d kept his young wife abed after their wedding, but it wasn’t surprising that Irina had found herself with child in short order.
“We have a duty to fulfill,” she’d reminded him, when she had boldly initiated their lovemaking one morning shortly after their arrival at Marsden Hall.
He had laughed. “You are quite determined.”
“I never shy away from a challenge.”
Nor had she.
Expectant motherhood had made her even more beautiful, filling out her features and making her alight from within. Henry couldn’t keep his hands off her. And though he’d heard passion diminished for some during pregnancy, it had not for them. Henry never seemed to be able to get enough of her, and she’d been as insatiable as he, even up to recent weeks. When her belly became too rounded for certain positions, he pleasured her gently from behind, which she seemed to enjoy as much as he did.
Like him, Irina had delighted in the changes of her body, and he’d often found her walking the gardens of Marsden Hall, talking to the child growing within.
“What do you say to the baby?” he asked her once. “When you walk.”
Irina’s smile had been radiant. “I tell him or her about their wonderful father, and how much their parents will love them, and how happy we will be to meet them. I tell them that I hope they inherit their father’s eyes and his strength.”
“And what shall they inherit from you?” he’d asked, smiling back.
“My mule-headedness, I suppose.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” He had kissed her indignant laughter away then. “I happen to love that about you. You never give up in any circumstance.”
Yes, his Irina was a fighter. And she was far too stubborn not to best the current challenge at hand. Henry drew a deep, calming breath and returned to the outer room where he sat and tried not to drive himself mad with irrational thoughts. He wanted to be there the minute there was any news, and regardless of the outcome, he had to be strong for Irina.
It seemed like an eternity had passed before Dr. Hargrove himself appeared.
The smile on his face immediately put Henry’s tormented heart at ease, though not entirely. He wanted to see his wife for himself.
“My lord,” the doctor said. “Would you like to come in and meet your family?”
Henry blinked at the odd choice of words, but supposed that Irina wanted to tell him herself the gender of their child. As he entered the room, his gaze immediately went to the love of his life, even as it swept over the birthing attendants holding an infant and cooing at the far side of the bed.
Henry was happy to be a father, but he was even happier to see his wife healthy and well. A few dark shadows hung beneath her eyes, and her brow still seemed somewhat pale, though her cheeks were flushed from the effort of the birth and her violet eyes were like jewels, gleaming in her face. Every part of him leaned in magnetic impulse toward her.
“Hello, my love,” he said to her, bending to kiss her forehead. “You have never looked more beautiful.”
Irina chuckled softly and turned her lips up for a proper kiss, despite the lack of privacy. He obliged with a muffled laugh. “You flatter me, my lord. I must look a fright.”
“You are beautiful,” he insisted.
She ran a hand over the stubble coating his jaw, her thumb tenderly stroking across his cheek. “Would you like to meet your sons?”
Dumbfounded, he stared at her. “Sons?”
“Twins.” Irina grinned at his expression as the birthing attendants brought two swaddled shapes toward them. “An heir and a spare.”
They were perfect, Henry decided as he stared down from his wife to the two tiny human beings they had created. Both boys were rosy-cheeked with peach fuzz covering their heads. One of them, a ribbon pinned to the swaddling that marked him as the firstborn, opened his mouth to emit a lusty wail, and his brother soon followed. Their cries made a fiercely protective feeling erupt in his heart. They were both already like her, Henry also decided, fighters. Warriors. And not shy about announcing their presence to the world.
Something indescribable filled him then as Henry studied his family. His family. It wasn’t only love. It was awe and pride and incandescent happiness. He’d never thought himself capable of feeling anything so profound…to be so incredibly humbled by the gifts he’d been given. Nor had he ever thought he would be deserving of anything so precious. But he had been. Because of her.
Henry stared at Irina with all the love he felt in his heart. “You never do anything in half measures, do you?”
“No,” she said, reaching for his hand and grasping it in hers, “and it seems, since this was a joint effort, neither do you, my lord.” Her brilliant smile made his heart ache. “We don’t tend to do things by the book, do we?”
“No,” Henry agreed, his chest feeling like it would burst. “And I don’t think we ever will.”
As Lady Langlevit and Lady Northridge came in to welcome the arrival of the Radcliffe twins, Henry could not help feeling a surge of intense gratitude. Seeing the teary happiness on his mother’s face as she welcomed her grandsons made his throat choke up. He watched his sister-in-law coo over how handsome her nephews were and hug her sister while weeping copious, happy tears. Even Dr. Hargrove seemed to be in jovial spirits, proclaiming he’d never delivered such robust twin boys.
But most of all, Henry watched his wife—his fearless, indomitable, lionhearted countess—feeling his body respond to every smile, to every word, to every laugh.
Irina was the sun in his world, the anchor in his storm, the joy in his life.
She was his heart.
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