“Now you grow tediously maudlin. Good night, little brother.”
But as they turned to go to their separate rooms, Gareth grabbed him in one more hug. “And thank you too.”
They walloped each other on the back, once, hard, and went to face their separate challenges.
***
The marquess’s household remained unsettled, the marchioness’s health precarious at best, and the addition of two newborns upsetting established routines. Worse, neither the lord nor the lady of the house was available to reestablish order, because Heathgate spent almost all of his days with his wife.
Felicity slept. She slept for much of three days, rising to a stuporous wakefulness only to nurse her children, use the chamber pot, and drink either beef tea or sugared hot tea. While she suffered no fevers, she did continue to bleed heavily.
So Andrew did not leave, given that the servants were turning to him and to Astrid for guidance. Moreover, his original purpose in joining the household, to talk to his dear wife, remained a priority.
“Come, your lordship,” Andrew said irritably to an equally annoyed brother, “your eldest has not seen you yet today, and your wife is sleeping. Leave this room for at least the next five minutes, or I will haul you away bodily.”
“You can bring James down here,” Gareth argued.
“Gareth?” Felicity’s voice from the depth of the huge bed silenced both men, and Gareth was beside his wife in an instant.
“Right here, beloved.”
“Go with Andrew. If you keep arguing, you’ll wake the babies.” In addition to me, she left unsaid.
Gareth scowled but kissed her cheek. “I will be back shortly.”
Andrew walked with him up to the nursery, mostly to make sure he went. Andrew himself had spent considerable time with James and little William, and had carried them down to see the new arrivals while Felicity and the babies napped, oblivious to the visitors. James had yet to visit with his mama, however, because she was still terribly weak and rarely awake.
And when they arrived to the nursery, they found James’s nanny had bundled him up for a brief outing in the snowy back garden.
“She’ll lose him in this damned snow,” Gareth groused.
“If she does,” Andrew replied, “he will howl loudly enough to summon the watch clear from Town.”
“And wake his mother, brother, and sister,” Gareth agreed, his expression lightening marginally. “I have been an utter ass, haven’t I?” he said, settling on James’s low bed.
“Yes—but you have also been enduring heartbreaking circumstances better than I would.” Andrew rummaged through a carved toy chest and found a ball he and Astrid had used to amuse James a lifetime ago. He tossed it to his brother, who caught it deftly in one hand.
Gareth tossed the ball back to Andrew, who perched on the toy chest.
“I tell myself if there’s no infection,” Gareth began, “then Felicity should rally and eventually recover. But then I look at her, slumbering in that bed, hour after hour. She forces herself to stay awake long enough to nurse the babies, but drifts off before she herself has anything to eat. She is not rallying, and she is still bleeding.”
Andrew tossed the ball to Gareth again.
“Fairly said it might take several weeks for the bleeding to subside entirely, and certainly a week of heavy bleeding is normal.”
“And what would he know of such things?” Gareth said, lobbing the ball back to Andrew.
“He has been trained as a physician,” Andrew said as he continued their game of catch. “Astrid told me Fairly lost a spouse who had borne him a child.”
“Fairly? The mercantile shark, the self-contained, brothel-owning, dapper, articulate, odd-eyed, insufferable, pain-in-the-arse brother of our respective wives was a physician?”
“I don’t know that he practiced, but when I asked it of him, he filled my head with more detail about women’s, er, plumbing, than any man should know. He endorses breast-feeding, by the way, and says it might help the womb heal and return to its original contours, so stop arguing with Felicity about it.”
“And does he endorse having a mother starve to death so she can nurse her babies?” Gareth shot back. “And he’s a widower who has buried a child?”
Andrew held the ball for a moment, looking Gareth straight in the eye. “Yes,” he said, firing the ball. “He has lost both a wife and a child.”
Gareth absently threw the ball back. “Shite.”
“Probably as accurate a summation as any.”
“Are you making headway with your wife yet?” Gareth had turned his attention to something besides his marchioness for the first time in days, and yet it was a subject Andrew wished he’d not brought up.