Page 92 of The Lady's Last Mistake
It was next to impossible to keep their hands off each other for any length of time, so she was accustomed to her husband coming up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, and nuzzling her neck. However, soon after holding Hugh and Audrey’s second child, James, named after Audrey’s late brother, Grant had taken Cassie by surprise. He’d come up behind her, his lips brushing the shell of her ear, and he’d whispered, “I want to see you holding our child. I’m ready if you are.”
Not very long after that, she’d conceived. After some initial panic, Grant had calmed. For a while, he’d been the picture of composure. However, the last few weeks, he’d become less tranquil and more agitated. They’d argued about her refusal to confine herself in the final month. He wanted her in bed, resting, feet up, all the time, but she wouldn’t have it. She wasn’t a conventional woman or wife, as he already knew. They happily kept on the periphery of the beau monde and accepted that their eccentric choice to care for those less fortunate excluded them from most of society. Michael and Genie, Hugh and Audrey, and Tobias had all accepted them, of course, but Cassie no longer saw much of Jane Riverton, and only rarely had tea with Marianne, whenever Lady Dutton was not invited. However, Cassie found she did not miss them overly much, and that she was more herself with Elyse, who had become one of her closest friends. Next to Grant, of course. He was her best friend. Her lover. Her partner and confidant. And yet as she’d come closer to her own lying in, he had become a tyrant about rest.
Exhaustion felt bone deep most days, but she was also brimming with impatience and anticipation, and couldn’t think of resting in bed. The only time she relented was when he climbed into bed with her. He’d hold her close and rub her swollen belly, a pleat of worry between his brows even though he insisted he was not worried at all.
Cassie, however, was more than ready. She longed to meet their baby. Every time she imagined it, she felt her eyes get hot with tears. Not a single day passed when she did not think of her daughter, imagining her life in Sweden, how old she would be, and what she might look like. She would never stop thinking about her, not for the rest of her days. But itwas time to move on. It was time for her to know what it was to mother a child that she could watch grow.
The clinic was nearly empty when she arrived, and she found Grant and Hannah discussing something over a file. Hannah, to Cassie’s relief, had not been upset at all when her brother-in-law proposed to Cassie, and ever since, she had become like a sister. Hannah and Elyse had also grown close, their shared interest in building up Hope Clinic developing into a deeper friendship. One, Cassie had come to understand, centered around the same devotion she and Grant had for each other. Madame Archambeau and Miss Stone had taken them under their wings, in a way, giving Elyse and Hannah a place in the demimonde where they were accepted. It was yet one more reason Grant and Cassie were happily distancing themselves from the ton these days.
Grant had his back to her when she entered the spacious room, filled with several beds, each enclosed with privacy curtains. Only one patient remained from the four that had been staying at the clinic with a mild fever. The young man coughed from behind his curtain.
Her husband seemed to always know when she was there, and right then, he spun on his heel and speared her with a vexed look.
“Cassie, I’ve told you to stay out of here.” He left the file with Hannah and walked swiftly toward her. “If you were to catch a fever now, it could be dangerous.”
She pressed her finger to his mouth to hush him and then chased it with her lips. He groaned in frustration, but as usual, could not resist, not even with her large belly pressing up against him. He took her face into his palms and kissed her in return, nibbling her bottom lip before releasing her.
“I’m ready to leave,” she said. “If you are as well?”
“Everything is in hand here,” Hannah called, grinning with mischief. “Take your wife home and make her put up her feet.”
“Oh, not you too, Hannah,” she sighed.
“Yes, me too. Nurse’s orders.”
Cassie laughed and tossed up her hands. “Very well then.”
Grant scowled. “Oh, so you’ll obey her, but not me?”
She tugged on the lapels of his doctor’s coat. “I will never obey you, Grant Thornton. I thought you would have known that by now.”
“Trust me,” he muttered. “I do. And I’ve got my first gray hairs to prove it,” he said, pointing to his head of thick black hair that had not even a single strand of gray.
He helped her into her pelisse, and as they left the clinic’s entrance and entered the courtyard, he kept his arm hooked around hers. He was loath to even allow her to walk or take stairs on her own, and she couldn’t entirely blame him. Her balance had become rather a thing of the past, and a slip and fall the previous month had nearly driven him to the brink. His stethoscope had been pressed up against her abdomen several times a day after that, as he listened for the baby’s heart rhythm.
“I’m fine,” Cassie had assured him. Grant had removed the trumpet-shaped device after hearing the strong woosh of their baby’s heart and had planted his lips right onto the top her bare stomach. She’d nearly wept from his tenderness. He was trying, so valiantly, to be brave. Every time she began to get impatient with him, she remembered what he’d endured…and found a new reserve of patience.
Now, he helped her up into the carriage, Merryton at the reins. Patrick still drove for them too, however, he was in Essex right then to visit Tris and Isabel. The two had married before Isabel had given birth to her first child, a boy, and she had recently born a second son. Everything that had happened with Mr. Youngdale seemed so long ago now. He’d been sentenced to transportation, banished from England’s soil for good. Isabel had once told her, even with all the pain he’d caused, something good had come out of it. She had Tris and their growing family, and Cassie could not have been happier for them.
Grant had just taken the seat next to her in the carriage when a ripping pain encircled Cassie’s stomach and back.
“Oh!” she gasped, her hands going to her middle and her eyes squeezing shut as the contraction persisted. Stronger—much stronger—than the last.
“Cassie?” Grant gripped her arms as the contraction ebbed. She gulped in air, the relief blissful. But it would not last. She knew what was happening. Had felt it all before, and now, it rushed back to her, along with a tremor of dismay. But she was not afraid. Not really. She’d given birth once, and all had gone well. It would be so again. Before the day was done, she would be holding her child. A child she would never have to give up.
She opened her eyes and saw her husband’s green stare blazing with alarm.
“I think you should go back into the clinic and find Elyse,” she said, still trying to even her breaths. “We should bring her with us to Thornton House.”
Grant’s eyes drifted to her stretched abdomen, and hishands cradled her belly gently. “It is time?” He heaved for air, as if he’d just quit sprinting in a foot race.
Cassie lifted his hand from her stomach and kissed his palm. “It’s time.”
“What isthe point of holding that glass of whisky if you do not drink it?” Hugh asked from where he leaned against the wall of the upstairs landing.
Grant hadn’t touched a drop of the liberal pour his friend had handed him as he paced between the landing of the stairs and the closed door to Cassie’s bedchamber. They had adjoining rooms, but he never used his own. He couldn’t imagine spending a single night away from her, and even now, felt the restless urge to be with his wife, inside that room. He couldn’t eat. Couldn’t drink. Not when his whole world felt as if it were imploding.
“Breathe, Thornton,” Fournier said as Grant deposited the glass onto a credenza and continued to pace. The duke and duchess had arrived shortly after his brother James. Grant suspected Hannah had dashed off notes to them all after he’d gone running back into the clinic, bellowing for Elyse.
