“What are you doing here?” she said with far more stoic calm than he’d have imagined possible considering the pain he’d heard in her earlier screams.
Then her face contorted, and she sucked in a long, slow breath, letting it out slowly.
Jasper strode over to her bedside. He pointed a finger at her. “I forbid you to die, Katherine. Do you hear me? I absolutely forbid it. You promised to never leave me.”
She bit her lower lip as another shudder of agony wracked her frame. With a slow, steady breath, she regained her composure. “I’m not going to leave you, Jasper. I’m too stubborn to die.”
He thought of her flailing, fighting figure as he’d pulled her out of the Thames River over a year ago. No, there was no stronger woman than his Katherine.
Jasper sank down to his knees beside her bed and captured her hand. “Promise me, Katherine. I…I need you to promise me.”
She touched her free hand to his head. “I will not die,” she said with such conviction, he dared to believe her. Katherine closed her eyes, and her fingers tightened hard about his hand.
Jasper winced from the strength of her grip.
“Jasper?”
“Yes, Katherine?”
“Will you please send for my mother and Aldora? I believe the babe is coming.”
His gut clenched, and he surged to his feet so quickly he nearly toppled backwards. He steadied himself, and raced to the door, knocking into a rose-inlaid side table.
Jasper wrenched the door open.
The doctor rushed inside, having clearly, and accurately, anticipated he would be needed.
“It should not be much longer, Your Grace,” the doctor assured him, even as Katherine’s mother and Aldora secured their spots alongside the bed. “If you’ll wait—”
“No,” Jasper bit out. “I’m not going anywhere.”
And he didn’t. He remained for the next thirty minutes as Katherine labored to bring their child into the world. He remained when her voice turned hoarse from the strength of her cries.
And he remained when his son came squalling and angry into the world, as fat as a cherub with a shock of brown curls atop his head.
And later, when no one remained but Katherine, Jasper, and their babe, Jasper lay curled up at his wife’s side, and studied the glassy-eyed boy with big-cheeks, who clutched at his finger.
Katherine leaned into Jasper, and angled her head up, looking at him through tired but contented eyes.
“Are you happy?” she whispered.
Jasper smiled. For the first time, in forever… “I am.”
The End