A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)(70)

He released her before she could pull away.

“I can’t care for you,” she whispered. “Grief, bitterness … those are wounds I don’t know how to cure.”

“Hetta, wait. I didn’t mean—”

“I have work to do.” Crossing her arms, she retreated up the staircase. “Go back to your brandy and be at ease. No one is going to die here today.”

* * *

“I’m going to murder him.”

Bel exchanged a worried glance with Sophia. Her sister-in-law stood at the other side of the bed, fanning Lucy industriously. For her part, Bel placed a fresh damp cloth against Lucy’s brow.

Their efforts did nothing to cool the laboring woman’s temper.

“I’m going to murder Jeremy for doing this to me,” Lucy said, panting for breath between contractions. “Does he know how much this hurts?”

“You’ve been making enough noise to give him a fair idea.” Miss Osborne swept back into the room, bearing an armload of towels in one hand and dabbing at her eyes with the other.

“Good,” Lucy growled, curling in on herself. Her face contorted in pain as another spasm gripped her.

Bel noted Sophia’s bleached countenance. She’d probably never witnessed a woman in the worst pains of labor. Bel herself was no midwife, but she’d been present at a handful of births

—most notably, and most tragically, that of her nephew, Jacob.

She knew enough to realize something was wrong.

Skirting the edge of the bed, she approached Hetta at the washstand.

“Did you tell Lord Kendall?” Bel murmured, making a show of folding and refolding the towels as Hetta scrubbed her hands with the cake of soap.

“No. What purpose would it serve? He’s already worried sick.”

“Do you intend to tell Lucy?”

“No. There’s no benefit in distressing her.” Hetta flicked a glance over her shoulder at Sophia.

“And your sister-in-law looks ready to faint as it is.”

“She’s just anxious for her friend, and for herself. It will be her turn, come the winter. Right now, she is imagining herself enduring the same ordeal. Perhaps you could explain to her, afterward … why it is likely to go easier for her.”

“But it might not.” Hetta rinsed her hands, and Bel offered her a towel. “One never knows. I can’t make your sister any promises. A physician never makes promises.”

“But you have attended births like this before? Where the babe is turned backward?”

“Yes, several. Most of them with perfectly healthy outcomes for both mother and infant.”

“Most.” Bel’s stomach knotted. “But not all.”

“No, not all.” Hetta turned to her and looked her square in the eye. “Lucy and her child will be fine. I’ve made a promise, and I mean to keep it. No one is going to die here today.”

“I thought you just said a physician doesn’t make promises.”

“I know.” Wilting against the washstand, Hetta put a wrist to her brow. “A physician doesn’t. That promise was made by a stupid, fanciful girl.” Shrugging back into her mantle of brisk professionalism, she added, “But the physician means to keep it.”

Hetta returned to her position at the foot of the bed, lifting the bedsheets to examine Lucy’s progress. Bel returned to Lucy’s side, replacing the warmed cloth on her forehead with yet another, freshly doused. There was little she could do, except make Lucy as comfortable as possible. And pray.

Silently, she resumed the litany she’d been reciting all afternoon. Now she expanded her petitions, applying not just to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but to the Virgin Mary, too. Normally, Bel avoided anything that smacked of papist beliefs. She avoided following her mother’s example in general—be the passions holy or profane. But sometimes it comforted her, to put faith in a divine mother. One who embodied all the serenity and grace her own had lacked.

God knew, the women in this room could stand to borrow some grace and serenity. Another scream forced its way through Lucy’s gritted teeth.

Sophia looked as though she would be ill. Typically Bel envied her sister-in-law’s elegant selfpossession. At times, she’d even resented her for it and longed to see Sophia—just once—the tiniest bit ill at ease. But watching her come unraveled like this… it brought none of the satisfaction Bel had imagined. And finding herself the voice of composure between them, well

—that rather flipped her world on its ear.

When the contraction subsided, Hetta pushed the bedsheets to Lucy’s waist. “Lucy, listen to me. The hard work is about to start.”

“To start?” Lucy shouted. “What the devil do you mean, to start? I know you did not just tell me, after I’ve been laboring in this bed for six hours, that we are just about to start.”

“You are going to start to push. It’s time to deliver your child. With the next pains, I want you to grasp your knees and bear down.”

Following Hetta’s instructions, Bel and Sophia helped raise Lucy to a half-sitting position. They all stood frozen, waiting, until Lucy’s low growl began again.

“All right now,” Hetta directed. “Push.”

Lucy pushed. And she pushed Bel’s ear drums together, with the splitting scream that accompanied her effort.