Of Noble Family (48 page)

Vincent's arms around her had been a constant comfort during this ordeal, for which Jane was grateful. “I think every man should be required to sit with his wife during labour.”

“If that were the case, there would be a significant number of only children.” He kissed her cheek. “No man who loves his wife could possibly want to make her endure this.”

She patted his hand. “Next time will be easier. Or so I have been told.”

Nkiruka nodded. “Dat's true. My last baby dropped out after only two hours. I almost didn't have time to know I was labouring.”

“Speaking of…” Jane closed her eyes and braced again as the next pain came.

*   *   *

There then passed a
period of time in which Jane said many unutterable things.

*   *   *

The afternoon sunlight had
flooded the room. Dr. Jones looked up from her stool and gave them a smile. “Ten toes and healthy colour.”

“What?” Vincent leaned forward as if he could see past Jane's bulk to her nethers.

“The feet are out.” She looked down and moved her hand. “And when I touch them the toes curl, so everything is going well.”

Jane began weeping with relief. She was too tired to be annoyed by her tears. With the sweat covering her, she doubted anyone would notice the addition.

“But this means that I need you to push in earnest now.” Dr. Jones had sweat upon her forehead as well. “When the next pain comes, you must bear down. I will guide the baby.”

Guide
was a gentle word. What followed was not. Jane strained to push with her entire body. She clenched her fists, and her face, and everything, trying to push this child out of her. She gasped for air, pushing, and pushing, and pushing.

By her ear, Vincent murmured, “There, there…”

“Do
not
‘there, there' me!” She fairly snarled. “And do not even think of kissing me to make it better.”

He pulled back a little. Jane could not see his face, but it must have had some alarm on it, because Nkiruka chuckled. “She doing good. Na bite you yet.”

“Yet.” Jane drew in another breath with which to push. “Give me time.”

Dr. Jones said, “You are doing well … just keep pushing.”

“I
am
pushing.”

“Good…” She seemed completely inured to the violence of Jane's responses. “Good. And—yes. You are having a boy.”

All the frustrated anger of the labour dissipated with those words. Jane found Vincent's hand and clutched it. Turning her head, she leaned back and kissed his bruised cheek. He appeared completely inarticulate, mouth open and eyes wet.

“In the usual course, when I say that, the child has been delivered, but the hard part is next. Shoulders.”

The hard part? Nothing about this had been easy. Setting her jaw, Jane returned to work.

“Wait—wait. Do not push for a moment while I draw the arms down.”

Jane sagged back in the chair, closing her eyes as she tried not to strain against Dr. Jones's efforts. This was the surest confirmation of original sin that she could think of, but surely after so many generations there was no need to continue revisiting the punishment. Her whole being was fixed upon a core of agony. As things below shifted, Jane clenched Vincent's arms. Sound tore from her throat, completely outside her volition. Vincent held her steady.

“There … Nkiruka, will you support his body while I turn the head?”

The rustle of cloth told of Nkiruka taking her position, but Jane could only sit and pant with her head propped against her husband's chest. Why in the name of heaven did any woman consent to have more than one child? This was beyond stupid. At a new sensation below, she tightened her grip on Vincent.

Some part of her was aware that her fingernails were digging into the skin of his forearms, but she could not relax her grip.

“All right. Now, you may resume pushing.”

The bearing pains of the last quarter hour of Jane's labour made her fully abandon any attempt to not cry out. She screamed without regret. Even the gaps between the pains hurt as her body felt stretched and burnt and torn all out of proportion.

But at last, on the eighth of August, with one final push, Charles Byron Leopold Vincent fully entered the world.

The sudden relief, the hollowness, almost made Jane faint. She swallowed, still breathing heavily, and used Vincent's strength to stay upright in the chair. Leaning forward as best she could, Jane looked down.

Her son lay in Dr. Jones's arms, with his eyes screwed shut. He was wet, and bloody, and beautiful. Squirming, he drew breath, and let out a cry of glorious outrage. Dr. Jones handed him to Nkiruka, who had a clean linen ready to receive him. With practised movements, Dr. Jones quickly dealt with the cord that still bound him to Jane, while Nkiruka wiped the blood from his small, perfect body.

And then she was laying their son in Jane's arms.

So little. He was an exquisite miniature, red and squalling and angry. The nails on his fingers were wonderfully formed. She touched one delicate finger, and he wrapped his hand around her finger with an implacable grip. A fine tuft of dark hair lay plastered against his skull. His brows were drawn together in a scowl of protest, already recognisable as inherited from Vincent.

She turned to her husband. “Charles, meet your papa.”

Vincent's eyes were red and he was weeping without shame, staring in wonder at their son. He opened his mouth, but no sound came. Clearing his throat, Vincent made another attempt, but his voice was still rough. “How do you do.” Tentatively, he brought one hand up and, with a blunt finger, traced the curve of their son's cheek. “Charles.”

There were a few more indignities for Jane to suffer through, but the pains seemed insignificant in comparison.

When her labour was at last fully completed, Nkiruka carried Charles back over and returned him to Jane's arms. She had tied a red ribbon around his left wrist, and now she tapped it, smiling as she did.

“What is that?” Jane was so tired that even Charles's slight weight seemed almost beyond her abilities.

“Keeps the evil spirits away.” She touched the baby's nose, wrinkling her own at him. “But with good parents like aryou, I don't know that he need much help.”

“Mm…” Jane very much wanted to go to sleep. “May I lie down?”

“Not just yet.” Dr. Jones still crouched in front of her, frowning.

The fatigues of the past day seemed to crash over Jane all at once. It was all she could do to keep her head up. “Vincent, will you hold Charles?”

“Of course.” As he took her son, she thanked heaven that he had been so involved with their nephew and already knew how to hold a newborn. Even with the bruises on Vincent's cheek, his smile was so open and full of joy that it made her light-headed.

She rubbed her hands together. “May I have a blanket? I am a little chilled.”

“Nkiruka, take the baby from Mr. Hamilton.” Dr. Jones straightened, her face tight. “Sir, I need you to transfer your wife to the bed.”

Answering the urgency in her voice, Nkiruka lifted the baby away, as Vincent said, “What is happening?”

Jane knew before Dr. Jones answered him. Now that she thought of it, the fatigue, her chills, and her own knowledge of friends who had not survived their lying-in all spoke to one answer. It was not acceptable. She had a very clear vision of growing old with Vincent. Of teaching with him. Of watching her father feed their children strawberries. Of spending time—

“She is bleeding, and I cannot find where.”

Jane felt Vincent lift her into his familiar strong arms. She tried very hard to tell him that she loved him. He would need to remember that, but grey swam at the edges of her vision, then crowded together and became a field of black.

 

Thirty-three

Eyes of the Sleepers

Vincent felt his muse go limp in his arms. Her face was pale and bloodless. The sweat from her labours had not yet dried, but all the tension had gone out of her body. His throat began to close. Vincent held his breath until he was not choking on his own fear. “Jane?”

“Mr. Hamilton.” Dr. Jones's voice snapped him back to himself.

He strode across the room and set Jane down as carefully as he could on the bed. Her head lolled to the side as though her neck had no bone in it at all. He stepped back, tucking his hands behind himself to hide the shaking.

Dr. Jones snapped Jane's shift up with frightening competence. Frightening because, as competent as she was, she still looked grave. The blood that stained Jane's chemise began to pool onto the blankets of the bed. Vincent covered his mouth and turned away. Nkiruka stood next to the brazier, rocking Charles in her arms. All the wrinkles in her face were drawn together in despair.

Vincent turned back to the bed, running his hands through his hair as he tried desperately to restore order to his thoughts. Jane was bleeding. If the doctor could not find and stanch the bleeding—

Vincent snatched the thread of panic, tying it off. He did not have time for that. Jane did not have time for that.

“What can I do?”

“Take your son into the other room.” Dr. Jones had put her hand
inside
Jane.

He sucked in a breath and caught the next string of panic, tying it to the first. He shoved both away from him. Dr. Jones must know by this point that Vincent would not get in the way, which meant she did not want him to witness something. She did not want him to watch Jane die.

The folds and threads wrapped around him in a tapestry of fear, nearly driving the breath from his body. He held still until he could push them away enough to draw breath, and while he did, he watched Dr. Jones try to save his Muse.

Dr. Jones had her eyes half closed, brows drawn together in a frown as she concentrated on what she was feeling. Vincent had no understanding of the interior of a woman's body. His education had not included medicine, as that was a trade, and a nobleman's son did not go into a trade. All he was good for were a thousand fashionably useless things, and glamour. Glamour could do nothing except create illusions. What Dr. Jones needed was a way to find out what was bleeding.

And there, Vincent caught a single, slender thread of hope. “If you could see inside her, would that help?”

“Take your son outside.”

“Would it help?”

“I do not have the time to explain the curves of the human form that make that impossible.”

“I am not—” Vincent broke off with a growl and just wove a
lointaine vision
instead. A
boucle torsad
é
e
could also show something at a remote distance, but it needed to run in a straight line. That would not suit. The
lointaine vision
could be bent and twisted around obstacles. It required constant maintenance, but he could snake it through a keyhole if need be.

Holding the threads, Vincent twisted them past Dr. Jones's hand. This shortness of breath was welcome. This was not one more symptom of his inability to govern his sensibilities. Jaw tight, Vincent made a particular kink in the near end of the thread and stretched it into a thin, flat disc that showed whatever the far end of the thread pointed at. The threads themselves were not visible, save in this one spot. For all the world, it looked as if he held a dish of blood shrouded in shadow. Concentrating, he twisted a skein of the full spectrum around the running thread of the
lointaine vision
and made the image brighter. The tips of Dr. Jones's fingers appeared at the edges of the disc.

Dr. Jones let out her breath in a rush. “Yes. Yes, that helps.” She shook the visible wonder away and her brow furrowed back into concentration as she watched the
lointaine vision
. “Can you move it where I am pointing?”

“Yes.”

The space to traverse was small, and it took delicate nudges of the threads to follow Dr. Jones's fingers without touching her arm or Jane's body. The
lointaine vision
did not care what his intentions were—it would show whatever was at its end, and if a solid body crossed its path, then
that
became the end in view.

Vincent could thread a
lointaine vision
through the smallest opening when he was calm, but he was far from calm.

Still, while Dr. Jones was searching, he was able to concentrate on her hand. He could concentrate on managing the threads of glamour and drive out the purpose from his thoughts. The fact that his Muse was bleeding to death billowed at the edge of his mind, but he could not let himself turn to look at it.

“There. Stop.”

Dr. Jones pointed to a tear in the deep red wall of Jane's body. The ragged patch was no longer than the knuckle of Dr. Jones's thumb, but bright red blood poured down from it.

“God.”

“Hold steady, Mr. Hamilton.” Dr. Jones pinched the opening shut between her thumb and forefinger. “I should advise you to look away.”

But he could not avert his gaze and still maintain the glamour as it needed to be. He had to stare at the space between his hands and at the blood that still leaked out of Jane.

“Nkiruka, there is a needle and thread on the table. Will you thread it for me? Doubled, no more than six inches.”

He tried to take comfort in the confidence in Dr. Jones's voice, but there was so much blood. When Jane had miscarried, he had thought that was a frightening amount of blood. This.… The tremors began again.

He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs until his ribs ached, and blew it out. Again. He had to hold the threads steady for Jane. Breathe. Reach for a thread of calm from anywhere. Anything that would steady his hands. He was the Prince Regent's glamourist. He had survived Napoleon, by God. He would
not
be unmanned by blood.