“You must wait a little while yet, Luc,” she told him. “She is still in a bit of discomfort and then will need to be cleaned up and made comfortable. Have patience for a little while longer.” She smiled sympathetically at him. “I know this is all hard on the father.”
“It is one of the quickest births I have ever encountered, my lord,” the midwife said. “You and her ladyship must count yourselves fortunate. Here is your daughter.”
And Lucas found himself holding a warm, soft bundle, which appeared to weigh less than nothing. The swaddling blanket seemed to be soothing his daughter. She had fallen quiet, though she was not asleep. She gazed at her new world through slitted eyelids. Her hair looked blond.
“Hello, little one,” he said softly. “Welcome to the world.”
“Take her to your grandparents,” Aunt Kitty suggested, and Lucas looked up and met her eyes.
For the first time it struck him. Their child wasa girl.Yet he was fiercely glad. His firstborn was not after all a boy, an heir. He loved her anyway with his whole being. There could be no question now of his rejoicing just because he had done his duty or becausehis wife had done hers. Their child had put their love to the test. She was a girl.
They were parents, he and Philippa. They had a daughter.
She is still in a bit of discomfort...
Was that normal?
“I will,” he said. “Though just for a few minutes. I need to be near Philippa. It seems to me the most monstrous custom that a man is not allowed to be with his wife at such a time.”
“She would not want you there to see her at her worst,” Aunt Kitty said softly.
Her worst.Women had peculiar ideas about what constituted the best and the worst as far as a husband and lover was concerned.
He took his daughter to meet her great-grandparents.
“Stand your ground, little one,” he told her as he made his way to their private rooms. “You do not have to answer for your gender. It is the absolute right and perfect one.”
The butler, trying to look impersonal, trying not to show that he was taking a peep at the blanketed bundle, nevertheless looked like everyone’s favorite uncle as he tapped on the door of the duchess’s sitting room and opened it. Lucas stepped inside.
Jenny was with her grandparents. Her Grace was on her feet, holding up for Jenny’s inspection a small crocheted blue and white blanket. Grandpapa was dozing in his chair, but he opened his eyes at the sound of the door shutting behind his grandson.
“What?” the duchess said, clasping the blanket to her bosom as she gazed at Lucas and his bundle. “Already?”
“Meet your great-granddaughter, Grandmama and Grandpapa,” Lucas said. “Meet your niece, Jenny. She was very eager to be born. I believe she is going to be a force to be reckoned with.”
“A girl,” Grandmama said, sounding entranced. “Oh, Luc. A girl. Could anything be more perfect?”
He advanced farther into the room so that she and Jenny could see the child, who appeared to have lost interest in her new world for the moment. She was sleeping.
“I will not hand her to you,” he said. “Philippa has not held her yet. The doctor is still with her. She is still in some discomfort.”
“Oh, Luc,” Jenny said. “She isbeautiful.”
Grandmama was dabbing a handkerchief to her eyes.
Lucas turned to his grandfather, whose eyes beneath his shaggy brows were fixed upon the bundle that was his great-granddaughter. He looked into her face when she was close.
“Well, little rascal,” he said. “You have just doomed me to another year of staying alive, have you? You are going to be a strong and stubborn one, I suppose. Just like your great-grandmother. And your mother. Take her to your wife, Luc. And if they will not let you in to see her, go in anyway. Sometimes we men have to assert ourselves.”
Lucas smiled and turned to the door. But His Grace spoke again before he could leave the room.
“Luc,” he said. “Well done. Both you and my granddaughter-in-law. That little rascal is perfect.”
Euphoria over the warm, living child he held in his arms warred with anxiety for his wife as Lucas made his way back to her rooms. The butler went before him.
“No, not there,” Lucas said when the man stopped outside the dressing room door. “The bedchamber.”
The butler tapped on the door, and Lucas gave him the signal to open it without waiting for an answer. He stepped firmly inside. Even without his grandfather’s urging he would not be kept away any longer.
