“The point,” Andrew said gently, “is that your wife would be safer and more comfortable if you would let us see to her hygiene. Astrid, open the window, please, would you?”
Astrid hopped to comply, and then stood by the window, her arms crossed over her chest, glaring at Gareth like a particularly determined female terrier might regard a tomcat.
Heedless of his brother’s scowl, Andrew came around to the far side of Felicity’s bed and propped a hip on the mattress. Her lovely face was drawn in exhaustion and pain; her hair was matted to her temples. Her complexion was worse than pale.
“Felicity, do I have your permission to try to help here?” Andrew said, taking her free hand. “You should not lie in these damp sheets, breathing this nasty air, and allowing the situation to overwhelm your determination. But I will defer to your wishes.”
Andrew kissed her hand, but saw her glance over at Gareth, who was scowling down at her from the other side of the bed.
“I am not asking Heathgate,” Andrew said gently. “His fatigue and his love for you have put him beyond reason.” His grief, too, which Andrew did not dare mention.
“And he can still hear you perfectly well,” Gareth said, turning his back on his wife to sit on the bed near her hip. “Help Felicity if she will allow it, but I will not leave her.”
Felicity reached out a hand to touch her husband’s back. “Gareth…”
He turned to face her. “I won’t leave you. I cannot. Not this time.”
“You can,” Felicity said, holding his gaze. “I need to talk to Andrew and Astrid for a moment in private, Gareth, just for a moment.”
The look he sent Andrew promised slow, painful death to any who troubled his wife, but he kissed her hand and left the room.
Felicity closed her eyes and sighed, whether in relief or despair, Andrew could not tell. “Talk to me, Andrew,” she said, her voice holding a spark of determination. “Tell me what you’re contemplating.”
“Astrid is expecting, and thus I’ve made it my business to read every medical treatise I could find in French, English, Italian, Latin, or German on the subject of childbirth. I’ve talked at length to Fairly on the same subject, and even discussed this scenario exactly.” An awkward, fraught, frankly frightening discussion, though Fairly managed it with brisk applications of Latin and a few peculiar sketches.
“The first thing I’d like to do is investigate the positioning of the babies. If they are not lying properly, then the solution might be easy, if a bit uncomfortable to effect. Prior to that, we need to get you cleaned up.”
He gave directions to Astrid regarding the latter necessity, and left the sisters in privacy to see to it. When he exited the room, he was surprised to see Gareth slumped against the wall, sitting on the floor, fast asleep.
Thank ye gods. Andrew fetched a blanket from a spare bedroom to drape over his somnolent brother, and went in search of the housekeeper. When he returned, he brought clean sheets, clean towels, and two empty buckets.
“Gareth has been gone for some time,” Felicity said, her gaze on the cracked window. A sliver of cool, fresh air eddied around the room, and the fire danced higher in the hearth as a result.
“Your husband, God bless him, has fallen asleep at your threshold,” Andrew said, setting down his burdens. “I propose we leave him there for now.”
“My husband will not thank you—”
“Felicity,” Astrid interrupted. “Gareth would not let me open the window, for pity’s sake. He isn’t thinking clearly, and he needs rest.”
And Gareth shouldn’t be in the damned birthing room in any case, while Andrew felt… as if this were the one place he should be.
“You need to know, Andrew,” Felicity said, “my body has given up. I haven’t had a strong contraction for more than an hour, and my lower back is one unending ache. I have made my peace with the probable outcome here.”
Had he ever been that brave? No, he had not. Not yet.
Andrew did his best impersonation of the Marquess of Heathgate in a royal taking. “Then shame on you, because what you call making your peace, I call giving up, and I won’t allow it. You may be quite sanguine about the notion of seeing your babies in heaven, but you would leave me on earth to contend with my grieving brother, and that is a task I will not take on willingly.”
He left her to ponder that, while he explained to Astrid what needed to be done.
“We are going to turn a baby? You and I, who have little in the way of medical training or experience?” She leaned against him then, and he savored the trust of it. “I cannot do this, but I shall do it, regardless.”