Page 37 of The Earl She Once Saved

A tear slid into Mary’s hair.

“But I will tell you exactly what I am doing. I will not leave you. And when I tell you to stop pushing, you stop. When I tell you to push, you give me everything you have.”

“I have nothing,” Mary sobbed.

“You have more,” Verity assured her.

“How do you know?”

Because she had watched people find more when there should have been nothing left and because she had done it herself. And because before she had heard men cry for their mothers on the battlefield, she helped other mothers deliver future soldiers in a vicious cycle of life and death.

Verity brushed the wet hair from Mary’s forehead. “Because you are still here.”

The girl stared at her, then nodded. So, Verity began. The hours became smaller than hours. There was a basin, a cloth, the flare of the lamp when the wick required trimming, Mary’s fingers around her wrist and Mrs. Weller murmuring prayers when she thought Verity could not hear.

Outside, wind pushed occasionally at the cottage walls. Inside, nothing existed except the next breath, the next pain, the next instruction.

“Not yet,” Verity spoke.

Mary sobbed. “I need to.”

“I know, Mary. Not yet.”

“I cannot—”

“You can.”

“Please.”

“Mary. Look at me.”

The girl’s eyes opened.

“That is it.”

Verity kept her voice level. She could not permit fear to enter it. Fear was contagious. She had learned that beside her father. A surgeon might have blood to his elbows and a man dying beneath his hands, but his voice must remain the safest thing in the room.

Her father had taught her that before she was old enough to understand why.

Never let them hear that you are frightened, Vee.

She had not heard the name in years. Her throat tightened.

She worked. When the child shifted beneath her hands, relief struck so sharply that she almost became dizzy.

“Good.”

Mrs. Weller leaned closer. “Is it—?”

“Yes.”

Verity looked at Mary. “Now.”

Mary screamed.

“Again.”

“I cannot!”