Eleven years ago—eleven years next month, in fact—that reality had come home to roost, belying the half-truths he’d been telling himself about his feelings for his wife.
~ ~ ~
London
10 October 1813
Inside Whitehall, Nick had sat, pen to paper, writing a brief, the banal reverse of espionage that little boys playing at cloaks and daggers never dreamed of.
He’d just gotten into the meat of the report when the low-level agent he’d assigned to keep an eye on the house burst into the office. “Sir, they’re coming,” the man exclaimed.
A low buzz expanded inside Nick’s head, providing a buffer between him and the outside world. No one needed to explain whotheywere, or why it mattered that they were coming.
They’re coming.
On the move, he snatched his overcoat off its knob, his feet gobbling up great swathes of yardage with each stride. Several city blocks and two parks stood between him and Mariana. He would reach Half Moon Street in twelve minutes at a steady sprint, having prepared for this day with a run-through last week. Twice.
“Sir!” he heard behind him, his heels already a swift click-clack across a blessedly dry sidewalk. “Your carriage!”
The plea fell ignored on his back. The carriage wouldn’t cut the time—it would likely take longer—and he couldn’t sit passive inside while the minutes ticked by.
He hooked a quick right at the Horse Guards, his figure a phantom along the meagerly populated paths of St. James’s and Green Parks. By the time he reached the reservoir in Green Park, he was a winded, sweaty mess, but a focused one, too. He was only a few blocks from home now.
They’re coming.
Mariana wasn’t overly concerned about giving birth to twins. “After all,” she’d repeated more than once, “my mother came through just fine, and, like her, I’m not a small woman.”
The logic had done little to allay his fears. This wasMarianawho was about to give birth to twins. What had he been thinking by getting her with child? Withchildren? A twin herself, he’d known the danger.
He flew through the front door of their townhouse, taking the stairs three at a time, a bevy of servants at his back, all calling out, “Sir, Sir.” It wasn’t until he reached Mariana’s closed bedroom door, the bedroom kept up for appearances as she spent every night in his bed, that he stopped, gathered breath in his lungs, and attempted to collect himself.
They’re coming.
“Nick,” sounded Olivia’s low, calming voice at his side, “she’s doing great.”
“I’ll be present for the birth,” he said, pugnacious, ready to fight his way inside if need be.
“It’s most irregular,” she said, a half-smile in the words.
A long, keening wail sounded through hollow birch, and instinct took over. Nick pushed open the door, past the retinue of doctors and nurses he’d hired for this day, and past the frowning midwife who first scolded, then mumbled over and again, that his presence wasquite unnecessary.
White knuckles gripping the blankets at her sides, sweat streaking in thin rivulets down her face, Mariana’s eyes met his across the room. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
His feet froze in place. He hadn’t considered the possibility that she might not want him present. “I could leave.”
“Don’t you dare,” she said, equal parts levity and steel.
His feet closed the distance in two strides, and he took her hand. “Squeeze as hard as you can. Transfer your pain into me. I can take it,” he said, wondering at the words emerging from his mouth. They were words born of fear, of powerlessness.
“Nick,” she said, “everything will come out all right.”
“Now,” the midwife called out from her place at the foot of the bed, “when I say push, you push until you feel like the top of your head is about to pop off. Understood?”
Mariana nodded, and Nick sensed her go deep inside herself, leaving him behind at her side, helpless, unable to protect her from here on out. This was between Mariana, her maker, and the midwife.
Mariana’s grasp on his hand tightened, and the midwife said, “All right, milady, the contraction is coming”—Another persistent wail emerged from Mariana, gaining volume on a rise—“Get ready . . . to . . .push,” the midwife commanded.
Mariana’s torso crunched forward, her heels dug into the bed, and she crushed Nick’s hand. How he wanted her to squeeze harder, even take his hand off, if it would ease her suffering a jot.
