Page 65 of Everything But the Earl
She’d lucked into marrying a handsome, kind, considerate man, one who made her feel things she’d never felt before, and that had changed everything. She didn’t want her independence anymore. She wanted her husband. And she knew she should write him and tell him to come home with all possible haste.
In fact, she even wrote such a letter. She wrote out all of it—the baby, hernom de sculpture—in a missive, telling Owen to come home at once because he was about to be a father. She weighed whether or not to mail it, nervous suddenly that such a plea would be unwelcome. She reasoned she still had a few more weeks to decide.
However, the choice to do so was swiftly taken out of her hands.
Catrin had explained the basics of childbirth, but Grace was still not prepared. When she felt the first pang, she dismissed it, assuming it was like a flutter or a kick, the sorts of things she’d been feeling for months now. But then came another. And another. And soon, Grace was anxiously pacing up and down the hall outside her bedroom, trying to decide if it was time to summon a doctor. Then her maid, Mary, found her with a puddle at her feet, and said, “Aye, my lady, you should be in bed.”
The doctor arrived within the hour.
Grace felt like she was in good hands, between the doctor, the midwife who arrived with him, and Mary—who had a brood of her own children she worked to support. But as the pain increased, so did her panic. She’d thought about what it would be like to give birth constantly for the last six weeks, but now that she had to push this baby out of her body, it seemed like an impossible task.
She wouldn’t remember much after the fact. The pain became so intense, she felt herself floating out of her body. It would have been easy to let go, but she was determined to do this, and to be a good mother, so she fought to stay present and follow the doctor’s instructions.
It was a struggle. The doctor speculated that the baby was big and healthy, which was a good thing, of course, but made labor more of a challenge. Catrin had told Grace that birthing a baby would hurt, so she assumed this pain was part of that, but she couldn’t help wailing, “It hurts too much. I don’t think I can do this.”
“You can, my lady. Stay with me. Hold Mary’s hand if you need to.”
She wanted Owen. He would hold her and encourage her. Instead, because of her own blasted decisions, she was quite alone.
But just when the pain became more than she could bear, the doctor yelled, “Push, my lady. Push.”
She screamed as she pushed. She couldn’t shake the mental image—something that had appeared her nightmares for weeks—of this baby tearing her body apart. The pain was acute, more than anything she’d ever borne before.
Then she heard it. It started softly, but then it became a full-on wail. The baby was here—and he was crying.
“It’s a boy!” the midwife said. “Ten fingers and ten toes!”
The doctor did some things Grace couldn’t see, and the baby continued to wail. Grace strained to see the child, but the edges of her vision started to go blurry and dark.
“Doctor…” she murmured. “Something is…”
But before she could say anything more, everything went black.
Chapter Seventeen
Grace’s letters usuallyarrived on Wednesdays like clockwork, and one being a day or two late didn’t necessarilymeananything. His majesty’s post was not always reliable. Weather in Wales could have slowed it down.
So he tried to shove the delay aside as he walked into the club Friday night.
But the truth was that he hated that he hadn’t received a letter. He was worried, in point of fact. Had something happened? Was it just the post or was there something wrong? Had a roof caved in? Was Grace ill? Had she been injured?
He did his best to convince himself it was just a post delay and found his friends near their usual spot ear the fireplace. It was an unusually cold night, so the fire was roaring. Fletcher sat in one of the big chairs, staring into his whiskey.
Owen plopped into a chair. “Is everything all right?”
“Oh, I’m overreacting.”
“Join the club. To what are you overreacting?”
“Lady Louisa called on me this afternoon to announce that—”
Fletcher closed his mouth abruptly as Lark and Hugh arrived and took the other two chairs near the fireplace.
“Did we interrupt something?” asked Hugh.
“It’s nothing,” said Fletcher.
“It’s something,” said Owen, knowing his friend. Fletcher wasclearly upset about something related to Lady Louisa. Fletcher would swear he loved Louisa like a sister, but Owen was near certain he had romantic feelings for her. So Owen decided to egg him on. “Fletcher was just saying that Lady Louisa called on him this afternoon to announce something.”
