BLACKTHORNE WAS BESIDE himself. His wife was being torn in two, and there was nothing he could do to save her. In fact, he was the one who’d subjected her to such punishment. If only he could take her pain on himself!
“Owwww,” he muttered. Josie was squeezing his hand so hard, he thought she might break his fingers. He’d had no idea she was so strong. But then, it took a great deal of strength to push a babe out of one’s belly, and she was working very hard at it.
They’d come to the glass summer house for a picnic and sent the carriage away so they could be alone. He’d felt perfectly safe doing so, because the carriage would only be gone for two hours, and it was a full two weeks before the baby was due to arrive.
He’d spread out a soft blanket inside the glass house because clouds were threatening rain, and began setting out the picnic lunch he’d had Cook prepare for them.
Josie had wandered down to the pond to listen to the frogs and watch the turtles plop into the water from their warm stones. She returned just as he finished arranging everything. She leaned a shoulder against the doorway, rested a hand on her belly, and said, “I think it’s time.”
“Yes, lunch is ready. Come sit down.”
“I mean time for the baby.”
He’d felt a small spurt of panic and tamped it down. “That’s ridiculous. It’s another two weeks before—”
She closed her eyes and breathed slowly for several moments.
He was on his feet beside her by the time her eyes reopened. “What’s wrong?”
She smiled wanly. “My water broke when I was down at the pond. I was having a few twinges when I woke up this morning, and a few more throughout the day, but they seemed too inconsequential to be labor.” She soughed out a long breath, her eyes bleak. “I guess I was wrong.”
He stared at her with disbelief. “But the carriage isn’t coming back for two hours!”
“I know.”
“You can’t have a baby out here in the middle of nowhere with only me for a midwife.”
“Maybe it won’t come to that,” she said, laying a comforting hand on his arm. “Maybe the carriage will be back in time for us to return to the house and summon the doctor.”
“Maybe it won’t.”
“Everything will be fine, Marcus. Women deliver babies every day.”
“And die doing it!” He immediately regretted suggesting that such a disaster might befall his wife. But his memories of Fanny’s difficult delivery and subsequent death had never been far from his mind during Josie’s pregnancy.
“Let me help you clear off the blanket,” she suggested. “I’m going to need a place to lie down.”
“I’ll take care of that. You…” He couldn’t think of a thing to suggest that she do.
“I’ll remove my undergarments.” She must have seen the shock on his face, because she explained, “Because they’re wet. Not because I believe I’ll be delivering a child anytime soon.”
He did his best to create a comfortable bed for her, taking off his coat and waistcoat and balling them up to make a pillow for her head, but she seemed unwilling to settle in one place.
“I’m feeling fine,” she assured him. “I’d rather walk than lie down.”
So they walked—and talked—for the next two hours, and drank lemonade, and talked some more, while he searched the darkening clouds on the horizon for any sign of the carriage. He checked his grandfather’s gold watch often, watching the minutes tick by with a sick feeling in his stomach.
The Pinkerton who’d bought his gold watch from the Sioux had delivered it to Miranda, and she’d returned it to him when they’d traveled to Texas. His whalebone-handled knife was gone forever, but he would have willingly given it up a thousand more times to rescue the woman who’d become his wife.
He was checking his watch again, noting that three hours and ten minutes had passed since Josie’s water had broken, when she announced, “I think I’ll lie down now.”
Another hour passed while he sat on the blanket by her side, watching her face to see how much pain she was enduring, as the contractions came and went. She bit her lip until it bled, trying not to cry out. He’d never admired her more.
“Where in bloody hell is that carriage?” he muttered when another thirty-four minutes had passed. She was more restless now, unable to find a comfortable position, moaning pitifully when the pains came and grasping his hand like a lifeline.
“This is all your fault,” she muttered.
“Yes, my dear.”
“You’re the Dastardly Duke. I never should have married you.”
His brows rose at the appellation, but he merely replied, “You’re right, my dear.”
“I’ll never forgive you for doing this to me.”
“No, my dear.”
“You’re a beast.”
“Yes, my dear.”
“It hurts, Marcus,” she cried, her eyes pleading for some surcease from the pain.
“I know, my dear,” he rasped.
“Make it stop! Please, make it stop!”
“Soon, my dear.” He dampened one of the numerous table napkins Cook must have thought they would need and dabbed the silky cloth against her forehead.
She shoved his hand away and said, “That’s not where it hurts!”
“Whatever you say, my dear.”
Blackthorne was fighting his terror in the only way he knew, by acting calm and rational and unflappable. He felt anything but. He’d made it through the nine months of Josie’s pregnancy without collapsing with fear, because she’d always been so cheerful…and so healthy. Now her face looked wan, and beads of sweat—no dewy perspiration for his Josie—had formed in the space above the lips he loved to kiss, and on her worried, furrowed brow.
She suddenly began to grunt and growl, like an animal fighting to escape an inescapable trap.
“Josie? What’s happening?”
“I need to push!”
This was all his fault. Who took a nine-months-pregnant woman for a carriage ride to a glass summer house in the middle of nowhere, with a fierce thunderstorm threatening to erupt at any moment, and then sent the carriage away, so they could have the illusion of being entirely alone?
He’d felt so sure there was no possibility of danger to his wife. He’d been told it usually took a whole day for a woman’s first baby to be born. Besides, it was two full weeks before their child was due to arrive.
Except it had decided to be born today.
Something terrible must have happened to delay the coachman this long. Four hours and fifty-two minutes had come and gone, and now his wife was going to bear their first child on a blanket on the floor of the summer house, with the Duke of Blackthorne playing midwife.
“If you have to push, then push, my dear.”
“Will you stop calling me that?”
“But you are, Josie. The dearest thing to my heart. I love you, and I won’t be able to bear it if you leave me. So you’re going to bear down with all your might, and push our child out into the world. That’s an order! Do you hear me?”
His wife laughed. It was a huffing sound, but it was definitely laughter.
“Did you just laugh at me? After all I’ve been through today?”
She laughed again. And then groaned and made an awful grinding sound in her throat. And then, to his astonishment, she began to swear like a drunken sailor. He listened in awe to the foul words coming out of his precious wife’s mouth. Where had she learned such coarse language?
Suddenly, she yelled, “It’s coming!”
Blackthorne looked at the items he’d collected in preparation for this moment. He’d laid out a table napkin in which to wrap the newborn, and he had the sharp knife Cook had sent along to slice the ham sandwiches, with which to cut the cord. Finally, he’d brought the London Times to read, imagining himself with his head lazing on Josie’s thigh down by the pond. He planned to use that to wrap up the afterbirth.
He’d never been more grateful than now for the fact that the hostler at Blackthorne Abbey had allowed a young boy of ten to watch the birth of a foal, explaining each step of the way what was happening. At least he had some clue how to help his wife. But he’d never imagined the terrible pain she would have to endure.
And he had no idea what he was going to do if there was some complication.
“I can see the head!”
His wife said nothing, merely grunted and growled like some dangerous, helpless beast.
“And now the shoulders,” he said.
A moment later his tiny, perfectly formed daughter slid into his hands. She lay there for a moment without a sound, and then opened her eyes and looked at him.
“Is the baby all right?” Josie asked anxiously. “I don’t hear anything.”
“She’s perfect. She’s just staring at me with very wide blue eyes.”
Josie pushed herself up on her elbows. “I want to see her. Hand her to me, Marcus.”
Before he could do as she asked, her eyes widened and she said, “Oh. There’s more.”
“I know, my dear,” he said quite calmly, because he knew the worst was over, and that this was merely her body pushing out the birth sac, which was no longer needed. He quickly swaddled the baby in the waiting table napkin and laid her at Josie’s side, then grabbed the newspaper he knew he would need.
Except, what came out next wasn’t the afterbirth.
“Oh, my God!”
“What’s wrong, Marcus? Am I dying? I must be. The pain is back!” She began panting and grunting and groaning again, and pushing and straining and…
“It’s another baby! It’s twins!”
Between huffing and puffing, Josie said, “We shouldn’t be…surprised. Twins run…in both our…families.”
A moment later, another perfect little girl slid into Blackthorne’s hands, but this one was yelling her head off—which set the other one to crying. He quickly wrapped his daughter in a second table napkin he’d hastily shaken free of crumbs and laid her on the blanket on Josie’s other side. Then he retrieved the newspaper for the second time, as both afterbirths made their appearance. He set the newspaper aside, then washed his hands with leftover lemonade, which made them cleaner but left them sticky.
Blackthorne swiped his hands on his trousers, which were already a lot the worse for wear, before clasping them together, so his wife wouldn’t see how badly he was still shaking. Unfortunately, she was looking right at him, and he realized he wasn’t fooling her.
“It’s all over, darling,” she said, smiling and reaching out her hand to him. “Come here. We’re all fine. Both of our daughters seem to have very strong lungs.”
Blackthorne felt like crying. With relief. And with joy. Then the heavens did it for him, releasing torrents of rain that pounded on the glass roof. The rhythmic sound seemed to fascinate the two babies, who suddenly stopped crying.
Blackthorne lowered himself to the floor beside his wife and stared down at their twin daughters. “They’re as beautiful as their mother.”
“They look like you.”
“Heaven help them.” He stared at the water streaming down the walls of the glass house. “It feels like we’re encased in some strange, watery world.”
“I’ve always loved this glass house,” Josie said. “Now it will be an even more special place.”
“Which you’re never coming within a mile of the next time you’re pregnant.” He kissed her brow, and then each cheek, and finally, her mouth.
She laughed. “Oh, Marcus. Sometimes you’re so funny.”
“I’m a duke. Dukes are never funny. They’re toplofty and arrogant.”
She laughed at him again, a trilling sound that made his heart sing. Her laughter was interrupted by the sound of the carriage finally returning.
“You’re safe at last,” his wife said. “The cavalry has arrived.”
He made a disgusted sound in his throat. “Far too late to be of any real assistance.”
She raised a brow. “You were planning to carry the three of us back to the Abbey?”
“There is that,” he conceded.
“Uncle Marcus! Guess who’s come for a visit!” Clay yelled from the carriage window. Without waiting for Blackthorne to guess, he added, “It’s Aunt Lark and Uncle David.”
“And Grandmama and Aunt Lindsey,” Spencer shouted from beside him. “They’re all waiting at the Abbey for us to bring you home.”
“Good lord,” Blackthorne muttered. “No wonder the carriage was late returning. They must have needed a ride from the train station. They weren’t supposed to arrive for another two weeks. I suppose Grandmama wanted to be sure she was here for the arrival of the heir.”
“She’s going to have a bit of a wait,” Josie said ruefully, pulling her twin daughters close.
The moment the coachman opened the door and let down the steps, the two boys came tumbling out and scampered through the rain into the summer house.
“We have cousins!” Spencer said upon spying the babies lying on either side of Josie.
“Slow down and be careful,” Blackthorne admonished.
“Can I hold one?” Clay asked.
The word “no” was on the tip of Blackthorne’s tongue, when Josie said, “Of course, but sit down beside me first.”
Blackthorne’s heart was in his throat. What if Clay dropped the newborn? Or let her head fall back too far?
The simple-minded boy dropped down with crossed legs and seemed to hold his breath, as Josie lifted the twin on her left into his waiting arms. He held the newborn as though she were made of breakable glass and looked up with a smile that made Blackthorne’s heart swell with love.
“You’re doing a good job, Clay,” he said.
“I want to hold one, too,” Spencer said, plopping down on Josie’s other side.
She shifted the second girl into Spencer’s careful hands, and he looked up at Blackthorne and beamed with pride. “I think she likes me, Uncle Marcus.”
“Let’s see if you still feel the same way about her in a few years, when she’s tagging along after you everywhere you go.”
“Aw, it’ll be great,” Spencer said with the naïveté of the ignorant.
“How come you had your babies out here, Aunt Josie?” Clay asked.
“For some reason, our carriage was late returning to pick us up,” Blackthorne said sardonically.
“Oh. ’Cause we had to pick up everyone at the train station,” Spencer said. “Wow, Uncle Marcus! I never knew you could deliver babies.”
“Neither did I,” Blackthorne said. “Mostly, your aunt did all the work.”
“Thanks,” Josie said with a laugh.
They sat quietly together for a long time, sharing this very special moment.
“The rain has stopped,” Josie said at last. “I suppose we should load everyone into the carriage and get back to the house. After all, we have a very anxious grandmother waiting to see the new additions to the family.”
Blackthorne took the baby from Clay so he could stand, and then very carefully placed her back in his arms.
“What’s her name?” Clay asked.
“We only decided on one name, because we weren’t expecting two babies,” Josie said.
“I suppose the first-born girl should be Elizabeth,” Blackthorne said.
Josie focused her gaze on Spencer and asked, “What name should we give the baby you’re holding?”
“I like Emma,” Spencer said.
“I like Emma, too,” Clay said.
“Then Emma it shall be,” Blackthorne said.
“Hello, Emma,” Spencer said, trying out the name.
“And this is Beth,” Clay said, using a shortened form of Elizabeth.
“Sounds perfect,” Josie said.
Once both boys were standing, each holding a baby, Blackthorne carefully wrapped his wife in the blanket and scooped her into his arms. “Gentlemen, it’s time to take our ladies home.”
While he waited for the footman to help the boys get settled with the newborns in the carriage, Blackthorne felt Josie’s fingers caress his neck and leaned down to kiss her tenderly on the lips.
“Thank you for our daughters,” she whispered.
He grinned and said, “The pleasure, I assure you, was all mine. Anytime you would like a repeat performance, I—”
She cut him off by pressing a hand over his mouth. “Whoa, there, Your Grace. Let’s take a little time to enjoy these two, before we start on two more.”
“I love the way your mind works, my dear.”
Josie laughed.