A stunned expression spread across his face. When they started walking again, after a few moments, he was silent, still looking dazed. Laura was afraid he was shocked by her impulsive action—bold, not to say improper!—yet she dared hope his silence had a quality more akin to wonder than disgust.
As they came to the Great Hall, he turned to her and said softly, “Thank you.”
If only he were her baby's father!
Chapter 13
The guests were all gone. Maria departed with her parents, euphoric but for a brief, tearful appeal to Laura to make sure Gareth did not allow Mr. Renfrew to beat her poor little boys. Lance and Perry and Rupert went off to visit friends. After all the hustle and bustle, Llys Manor seemed excessively quiet, especially as Gareth was often out and about supervising the harvest.
Laura grew sluggish. Increasingly clumsy and awkward, she began to feel as if she had been pregnant forever. The children were so used to her condition that when they came down to tea they no longer asked how long they had to wait before their new cousin's arrival.
They scarcely missed their mama. In fact, Laura missed Maria more. Aunt Antonia was all sympathy with her discomfort but she could not really understand.
As for Gareth, he enquired with maddening frequency whether she was sure of her dates. When Dr. McAllister, called in unnecessarily for the second time, told him nine months was merely an inaccurate average length for pregnancy, he was horrified.
“You mean the baby could arrive any day now?”
“Aye, m'laird, but dinna fash yersel'. Wi' a first birth, there's ay plenty o' warning.”
“Always?”
“Near enow, though there's the odd wumman draps e'en her first quick and easy as a ewe draps a lamb.”
“You mean a first birth is generally difficult?”
“Nay, mon, I mean nowt o' the sort, and I'll thank ye not to be putting such notions into her leddyship's head.”
“I don't care how difficult it is,” Laura said wearily, “so long as it comes soon.”
“As to that, ma leddy, it could be a week or it could be a month,” said McAllister with a cheerfulness as maddening as Gareth's oversolicitude. “Now, as to the back cramps, that wee abigail o' yourn ha' the right o' it. A good rub wi' any kind o' liniment'll do more to help than aught I can prescribe. Good day to ye, ma'am,” he said to Aunt Antonia, and departed.
“A month!” Laura groaned.
“A week!” Gareth groaned. “Or any day now! I must send for Dr. Croft, and the midwife, and the lying-in nurse, and the wet-nurse—”
“Not Dr. Croft!” Laura and Aunt Antonia exclaimed at once.
“He is the most eminent physician-accoucheur in London. I want the best.”
“Laura did not care for him,” said Aunt Antonia astringently. “At this of all times, you cannot wish to surround her with those she dislikes.”
“But he is vastly popular with the ladies of the Ton,” Gareth protested. “They flock to him.”
“There is no accounting for tastes,” his aunt observed. “I myself did not take to the man.”
With a grateful glance at the old lady, Laura soothingly pointed out, “If Dr. Croft is so busy, Gareth, he is unlikely to be willing to travel so far for an indefinite period for a single patient. Indeed, I have every confidence in Dr. McAllister and the midwife he recommended.”
“And you really disliked Croft? Not just because I called him in without consulting you?”
“He somehow succeeded in being obsequious and condescending at the same time. What is more, I believe he has only one prescription for all his patients, regardless of the individual constitution. If I had followed his regimen of regular cupping and a lowering diet, I should not be half so healthy as I am, besides being thoroughly miserable.”
Gareth stared at her in dismay. “He recommended regular bleeding? When you've a baby growing inside you?”
“Really, Gareth,” snapped Aunt Antonia, “you are becoming positively indelicate in your speech. Dr. Croft is unacceptable. Leave it at that.”
“Yes, Aunt. I'm sorry, Cousin. I meant it for the best.”
“I know,” said Laura, touching his hand. “If it makes you feel better, perhaps Dr. McAllister would agree to stay at the manor and go on his rounds from here.”
“I'll catch him and ask him.” Gareth jumped up and ran from the room with a lack of dignity most indecorous in Lord Wyckham of Llys.
Offered a sum which would enable him to treat several dozen poor patients for free, Dr. McAllister took up residence at the manor. Likewise Mistress Owen, the midwife from Llysbury, agreed to move in, with the use of his lordship's gig to convey her to any confinements she was called to.
Gareth also summoned a surgeon from Worcester, recommended by a neighbour; two monthly nurses, one for day and one for night duty; the wet-nurse, a village woman who had given birth a few weeks ago; and a nurse and nursery-maid for the baby.
“Really, Gareth, these hordes of people are quite unnecessary,” Laura told him crossly the day the surgeon arrived.
He sat down beside her on the bench on the terrace. He had taken to dashing home at midday from even the farthest fields and orchards. “Don't be vexed,” he pleaded. “I have to do everything I can. I could not bear the burden of guilt my father carried the last years of his life.”
“Guilt? I thought it was grief made him a recluse.”
“Grief and guilt. Laura, I've never told anyone, not even Cornelius, but afterwards, after the funeral, I heard Papa talking to the vicar in the library. I recall every word as if it was yesterday. 'It was my fault,' he said. 'I killed her.'“
Oh God,
he had cried,
why could I not leave her alone?
But that Gareth could not bring himself to repeat to Laura. He was not—thank God—responsible for her pregnancy.
Yet if anything went wrong because he had failed to take every possible precaution, he knew he would blame himself forever.
“Poor man,” said Laura soberly. “I suppose he felt he had failed to take proper care of her. I'm sure he must have, though, loving her as he did.”
“You see why I must leave no stone unturned.”
She smiled at him. “Yes, I do, though I hope your use of that particular phrase does not indicate that you mean to administer earwigs and centipedes and leeches.”
“No leeches, I promise. Dr. Croft was a mistake. No reducing diet, either. Come on in, it's time for luncheon and I am sharpset.”
Laura said no more on the subject. Silently blessing her for her understanding, Gareth told the hordes to stay out of her way. Still, he felt more and more foolish as the days passed and no baby appeared.
Rupert, Lance, and Perry came home. In deference to Laura's condition, none of them brought friends with them, a decision arrived at between the three of them before they left. Gareth was proud of them for their thoughtfulness. He would also have been proud of the way they made a point of sitting with her, entertaining her with tales of their doings, had they not all so obviously enjoyed her company.
“You see,” Perry explained seriously, “Cousin Laura isn't a bit like Cousin Maria. She's actually interested in us. And you can tell her anything. She doesn't disapprove of half the fun, like Aunt Antonia.”
The good-natured Perry spent much of his time playing with George and Henry and Arabella, taking them fishing for minnows and building tree houses. None of them either drowned or broke a leg. Rupert was well occupied with riding and shooting. Lance, with little scope for his dandyism in the country, unexpectedly took to Dr. McAllister, the least dandified of men. He even accompanied him on his rounds. Nonetheless, Gareth was startled when Lance announced that he wanted to leave Oxford and train as a physician.
“I've decided to tell him he may,” Gareth said to Laura, again joining her on the terrace, this time to watch the sunset, “if he's still of the same mind when he finishes at Oxford. He only has one year to go. It's an unusual choice of profession for the son of a noble house, but at present I'm hardly in a position to disparage it.”
“The more doctors, the merrier?” she teased.
“If we had one in the family, you could not object to his presence,” he retorted.
A shadow crossed her face, and he silently cursed himself. She was never likely to find herself pregnant again and in need of a doctor.
Unless she remarried, in which case her welfare would be her new husband's concern, not Gareth's. The notion gave him a peculiarly unpleasant sensation somewhere beneath his waistcoat. Of course, it would mean her leaving Llys, and she had become so much a part of the family her departure would leave a gaping hole.
He gave himself a mental shake. For the present, she was well and truly fixed at the manor. Even going to Church on Sunday was such an effort that Cornelius had persuaded Aunt Antonia to excuse Laura from attendance the past few Sundays.
Somehow her great, unwieldy belly in no way detracted from her prettiness. Without being aware of the change, he had come to find her looks much more attractive than Maria's undeniable beauty. Perhaps it was because her dark hair was a pleasant contrast amidst his blond family. Or perhaps because Maria's delicate features were so often marred by petulant discontent.
Except that even when she frowned Laura was...
“Laura? What is it?”
She was frowning, not crossly but with an air of extreme concentration, her hands pressed to her back on either side.
“I think...” She hesitated. “Yes, I do believe I am going into labour.”
“Here?” Gareth said idiotically, starting up.
“Here.” She smiled up at him. “I've been having pains for several days—”
“Pain? Why the devil did you not tell me?” he howled.
“Because it is what Dr. McAllister calls false labour. He and Mistress Owen and Myfanwy all say it is quite commonplace. But now the pains seem to be coming regularly and getting stronger, so—Oh!” She turned bright scarlet and clutched at her knees. “Gareth, I...I'm afraid the waters have broken.”
“I knew everything would go wrong! I'll carry you up to your chamber.”
“No! It's perfectly normal, only rather...rather embarrassing. Please, just send Myfanwy to me.”
“But—”
“Go away, Gareth!”
He raced into the house, across the Long Gallery, into the Great Hall, bellowing for Myfanwy, for McAllister, for Aunt Antonia, for midwife and surgeon and nurses. Footmen ran. Lloyd appeared, with a decanter and a glass on a tray.
“The doctor is out, my lord. I have sent to the stables to dispatch a groom after him. He left instructions to have brandy ready to hand in case—”
“Then take it to her, hurry!” Gareth recalled her peremptory command to him to go away. “No, wait, her maid—”
“For you, my lord,” said the butler, setting down the tray and filling the glass.
Hardly aware of what he was doing, Gareth tossed back the brandy, just as his aunt hurried into the hall.
“Really, Gareth, drinking at such a time!”
“Doctor's orders, madam,” Lloyd murmured.
“At least,” Aunt Antonia continued, “I assume all this commotion means Laura's time has come?”
“The waters have broken,” Gareth blurted out.
She looked dismayed. “Oh dear, you were with her?”
“Is it serious? She assured me it's quite normal. Was she just trying to set my mind at rest? What can I do?”
“Nothing, dear boy, except keep away. It is perfectly normal but, oh dear, not something one would wish a gentleman to witness.”
“She's on the terrace. Go to her, Aunt,” he pleaded.
Aunt Antonia ambled towards the Long Gallery with an appalling lack of urgency. Everyone was conspiring to try to persuade him nothing was wrong, his own fault for making a fuss when there was nothing to fuss about, he acknowledged wryly. But now something was happening. Laura was in pain and McAllister was absent. How could he trust Mistress Owen and the surgeon to know what to do?
Drawn by an invisible but inexorable force, he followed his aunt.
Through the windows, he saw Myfanwy and one of the nurses already with Laura. At that moment, Aunt Antonia realized he was just behind her.
Turning, she said severely, “You are quite in the way, Gareth.”
“I'll wait here.”
She studied his face, and softened. “Very well. But not a step closer, and turn your back.”
Swinging round, he glared at the First Baron Wyckham, hanging on the wall opposite the windows in all the glory of a full-bottomed wig. “What are they doing to her?”
“Making her comfortable and decent so that she can go up to her chamber.” Aunt Antonia's tart voice faded as she moved away, out onto the terrace.
“I shall carry her!” he shouted, to no response.
His ears strained to catch the murmur from outside, he stood there for several minutes unmindful of his illustrious ancestor. Then he heard footsteps behind him and Myfanwy said, “Mind the step, my lady.”
Not waiting to find out if the prohibition was still in force, Gareth turned, rushed to Laura's side and scooped her up in his arms.
“I'm carrying you,” he said firmly.
“So I see. It is not at all necessary, but I shall not object.”
Laura smiled at him as he strode out to the Great Hall. He saw she appeared just as healthy as before whatever mysterious emergency had just occurred. The only change he noticed was that she now wore a loose robe over her gown.
He wished he had pressed McAllister for details of the normal course of labour, so that he would understand what was happening.
“Put your arms around my neck,” he ordered, reaching the bottom of the stairs.
She obeyed, and laid her head on his shoulder, relaxed in his arms, trusting in him to take care of her. But half way up the stairs she stiffened, her clasp tightening. He did not dare look down at her for fear of stumbling.
“What is it?” he demanded, feeling the blood drain from his face.
“Just another pain,” she gasped.
“Dammit, where is that doctor?”
“Gareth, pray mind your tongue,” snapped Aunt Antonia, hard on his heels. “Vulgar language is of no more assistance than drinking.”
“Laura's in pain,” he protested.
“It's more of a sort of twinging spasm,” Laura assured him, “not real pain, not yet.”