The rustle of cloth told of Nkiruka taking her position, but Jane could only sit and pant with her head propped against her husband’s chest. Why in the name of heaven did any woman consent to have more than one child? This was beyond stupid. At a new sensation below, she tightened her grip on Vincent.
Some part of her was aware that her fingernails were digging into the skin of his forearms, but she could not relax her grip.
“All right. Now, you may resume pushing.”
The bearing pains of the last quarter hour of Jane’s labour made her fully abandon any attempt to not cry out. She screamed without regret. Even the gaps between the pains hurt as her body felt stretched and burnt and torn all out of proportion.
But at last, on the eighth of August, with one final push, Charles Byron Leopold Vincent fully entered the world.
The sudden relief, the hollowness, almost made Jane faint. She swallowed, still breathing heavily, and used Vincent’s strength to stay upright in the chair. Leaning forward as best she could, Jane looked down.
Her son lay in Dr. Jones’s arms, with his eyes screwed shut. He was wet, and bloody, and beautiful. Squirming, he drew breath, and let out a cry of glorious outrage. Dr. Jones handed him to Nkiruka, who had a clean linen ready to receive him. With practised movements, Dr. Jones quickly dealt with the cord that still bound him to Jane, while Nkiruka wiped the blood from his small, perfect body.
And then she was laying their son in Jane’s arms.
So little. He was an exquisite miniature, red and squalling and angry. The nails on his fingers were wonderfully formed. She touched one delicate finger, and he wrapped his hand around her finger with an implacable grip. A fine tuft of dark hair lay plastered against his skull. His brows were drawn together in a scowl of protest, already recognisable as inherited from Vincent.
She turned to her husband. “Charles, meet your papa.”
Vincent’s eyes were red and he was weeping without shame, staring in wonder at their son. He opened his mouth, but no sound came. Clearing his throat, Vincent made another attempt, but his voice was still rough. “How do you do.” Tentatively, he brought one hand up and, with a blunt finger, traced the curve of their son’s cheek. “Charles.”
There were a few more indignities for Jane to suffer through, but the pains seemed insignificant in comparison.
When her labour was at last fully completed, Nkiruka carried Charles back over and returned him to Jane’s arms. She had tied a red ribbon around his left wrist, and now she tapped it, smiling as she did.
“What is that?” Jane was so tired that even Charles’s slight weight seemed almost beyond her abilities.
“Keeps the evil spirits away.” She touched the baby’s nose, wrinkling her own at him. “But with good parents like aryou, I don’t know that he need much help.”
“Mm…” Jane very much wanted to go to sleep. “May I lie down?”
“Not just yet.” Dr. Jones still crouched in front of her, frowning.
The fatigues of the past day seemed to crash over Jane all at once. It was all she could do to keep her head up. “Vincent, will you hold Charles?”
“Of course.” As he took her son, she thanked heaven that he had been so involved with their nephew and already knew how to hold a newborn. Even with the bruises on Vincent’s cheek, his smile was so open and full of joy that it made her light-headed.
She rubbed her hands together. “May I have a blanket? I am a little chilled.”
“Nkiruka, take the baby from Mr. Hamilton.” Dr. Jones straightened, her face tight. “Sir, I need you to transfer your wife to the bed.”
Answering the urgency in her voice, Nkiruka lifted the baby away, as Vincent said, “What is happening?”
Jane knew before Dr. Jones answered him. Now that she thought of it, the fatigue, her chills, and her own knowledge of friends who had not survived their lying-in all spoke to one answer. It was not acceptable. She had a very clear vision of growing old with Vincent. Of teaching with him. Of watching her father feed their children strawberries. Of spending time—
“She is bleeding, and I cannot find where.”
Jane felt Vincent lift her into his familiar strong arms. She tried very hard to tell him that she loved him. He would need to remember that, but grey swam at the edges of her vision, then crowded together and became a field of black.
Thirty-three
Eyes of the Sleepers
Vincent felt his muse go limp in his arms. Her face was pale and bloodless. The sweat from her labours had not yet dried, but all the tension had gone out of her body. His throat began to close. Vincent held his breath until he was not choking on his own fear. “Jane?”
“Mr. Hamilton.” Dr. Jones’s voice snapped him back to himself.
He strode across the room and set Jane down as carefully as he could on the bed. Her head lolled to the side as though her neck had no bone in it at all. He stepped back, tucking his hands behind himself to hide the shaking.
Dr. Jones snapped Jane’s shift up with frightening competence. Frightening because, as competent as she was, she still looked grave. The blood that stained Jane’s chemise began to pool onto the blankets of the bed. Vincent covered his mouth and turned away. Nkiruka stood next to the brazier, rocking Charles in her arms. All the wrinkles in her face were drawn together in despair.
Vincent turned back to the bed, running his hands through his hair as he tried desperately to restore order to his thoughts. Jane was bleeding. If the doctor could not find and stanch the bleeding—
Vincent snatched the thread of panic, tying it off. He did not have time for that. Jane did not have time for that.
“What can I do?”
“Take your son into the other room.” Dr. Jones had put her hand inside Jane.
He sucked in a breath and caught the next string of panic, tying it to the first. He shoved both away from him. Dr. Jones must know by this point that Vincent would not get in the way, which meant she did not want him to witness something. She did not want him to watch Jane die.
The folds and threads wrapped around him in a tapestry of fear, nearly driving the breath from his body. He held still until he could push them away enough to draw breath, and while he did, he watched Dr. Jones try to save his Muse.
Dr. Jones had her eyes half closed, brows drawn together in a frown as she concentrated on what she was feeling. Vincent had no understanding of the interior of a woman’s body. His education had not included medicine, as that was a trade, and a nobleman’s son did not go into a trade. All he was good for were a thousand fashionably useless things, and glamour. Glamour could do nothing except create illusions. What Dr. Jones needed was a way to find out what was bleeding.
And there, Vincent caught a single, slender thread of hope. “If you could see inside her, would that help?”
“Take your son outside.”
“Would it help?”
“I do not have the time to explain the curves of the human form that make that impossible.”
“I am not—” Vincent broke off with a growl and just wove a lointaine vision instead. A boucle torsadée could also show something at a remote distance, but it needed to run in a straight line. That would not suit. The lointaine vision could be bent and twisted around obstacles. It required constant maintenance, but he could snake it through a keyhole if need be.
Holding the threads, Vincent twisted them past Dr. Jones’s hand. This shortness of breath was welcome. This was not one more symptom of his inability to govern his sensibilities. Jaw tight, Vincent made a particular kink in the near end of the thread and stretched it into a thin, flat disc that showed whatever the far end of the thread pointed at. The threads themselves were not visible, save in this one spot. For all the world, it looked as if he held a dish of blood shrouded in shadow. Concentrating, he twisted a skein of the full spectrum around the running thread of the lointaine vision and made the image brighter. The tips of Dr. Jones’s fingers appeared at the edges of the disc.
Dr. Jones let out her breath in a rush. “Yes. Yes, that helps.” She shook the visible wonder away and her brow furrowed back into concentration as she watched the lointaine vision. “Can you move it where I am pointing?”
“Yes.”
The space to traverse was small, and it took delicate nudges of the threads to follow Dr. Jones’s fingers without touching her arm or Jane’s body. The lointaine vision did not care what his intentions were—it would show whatever was at its end, and if a solid body crossed its path, then that became the end in view.
Vincent could thread a lointaine vision through the smallest opening when he was calm, but he was far from calm.
Still, while Dr. Jones was searching, he was able to concentrate on her hand. He could concentrate on managing the threads of glamour and drive out the purpose from his thoughts. The fact that his Muse was bleeding to death billowed at the edge of his mind, but he could not let himself turn to look at it.
“There. Stop.”
Dr. Jones pointed to a tear in the deep red wall of Jane’s body. The ragged patch was no longer than the knuckle of Dr. Jones’s thumb, but bright red blood poured down from it.
“God.”
“Hold steady, Mr. Hamilton.” Dr. Jones pinched the opening shut between her thumb and forefinger. “I should advise you to look away.”
But he could not avert his gaze and still maintain the glamour as it needed to be. He had to stare at the space between his hands and at the blood that still leaked out of Jane.
“Nkiruka, there is a needle and thread on the table. Will you thread it for me? Doubled, no more than six inches.”
He tried to take comfort in the confidence in Dr. Jones’s voice, but there was so much blood. When Jane had miscarried, he had thought that was a frightening amount of blood. This.… The tremors began again.
He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs until his ribs ached, and blew it out. Again. He had to hold the threads steady for Jane. Breathe. Reach for a thread of calm from anywhere. Anything that would steady his hands. He was the Prince Regent’s glamourist. He had survived Napoleon, by God. He would not be unmanned by blood.
But it was Jane.
And he would break without her.
God help him, Vincent knew the path he had been on before Jane. He could not lose her. The world could not lose her. Their son—
“I need the image steady.” Dr. Jones squinted at the lointaine vision, which shook between his hands. Pieces of the disc shifted to a view of her arm and then back to Jane’s workings.
“I am trying.” He ducked his head and concentrated on the glamour. He must think of it as a technical challenge, not as though his Muse’s life depended upon it. The glamour was well within his abilities. He need only steady his hands.
He needed to steady his hands.
He must steady his hands.
It was vital that he steady his hands.
Vincent had spent his whole life trying not to be overset by his emotion. His father had always said it was a sign of weakness. When pure will failed, he had learned to hide it and to tie a glamour around himself that looked like control. But the illusion would do no good here. His hands must be steady in earnest.
Nkiruka gave Dr. Jones the threaded needle. He had not even seen her set Charles down on the counterpane by Jane’s head. She stared at his hands, her vision soft and vague, as if she were looking into the ether. “Let me.”
He wet his lips. This was not a standard technique, and he had altered it even further to brighten the image. “You see what I am doing?”
“Clear enough.”
“Then yes. Please, God, yes.”
She slipped under his arm to stand in front of him where Jane usually stood when they worked in tandem. With a delicate precision, the older glamourist touched the lines. Her touch was so gentle, he almost could not feel it, but the tremors in the image steadied a little. She nodded, brows drawn together in concentration. “Got it.”
Vincent let go, and stepped back.
The image steadied the moment his hands were no longer on the thread. Nkiruka, an elderly woman who must be in her seventh decade, could do what he could not. Out of sheer habit, Vincent swung his arms behind his back and clenched his hands together at the base of his spine.
Without some activity to distract him, even an activity he was failing at, the billowing fabric of fear kept pulling his gaze. It was always worse after the fact. He could brush past when in motion, but standing still and useless, it was too easy to get tangled in the folds. Jane could die. He had been worried that she might miscarry again because it had distressed her so the last time, but bearing his child might kill her.
When she recovered, he was never touching her again without a French envelope between them. He would not get her with child again. Watching her suffer the delivery had been bad enough, but to risk losing her again was unthinkable.
His breath was fast and shallow. Vincent held it. Then he exhaled slowly and attempted to hold to a regular pattern, as unnatural as it felt. As he watched Nkiruka and Dr. Jones work to save Jane—and they had to save Jane—it was impossible to miss the tension of both women.
God. He could not breathe again.
Vincent took Dr. Jones’s advice and looked away. He walked to the far side of the room, trying by some action to trick his body out of its betraying weakness. He reached the wall, turned, and walked the circuit of the room, until his path brought him to the bed.
Jane’s head was turned to the side, and her soft mouth hung a little open. Her skin was grey and translucent, making the delicate blue vein at her temple all the clearer. By her head, wrapped tightly in white cloth, Charles lay in ruddy contrast. His son’s perfect health, even coming nearly a month too soon, seemed obvious in the roses in his cheeks.
Good. It would kill Jane to lose another child.
Vincent wrapped his hands in his hair. She would be well. Dr. Jones knew her business. His wife, his Muse, his life, would be well. She had the best possible medical care.
Just like the Princess Charlotte.
Vincent’s stomach turned. He closed his eyes. Absolutely not. Not now. He would not begin to panic and mourn when there was no need. Dr. Jones would bring Jane through this. His chest ached with every inhalation. Jane would tell him that he needed some activity, and she would be right. He needed to do something before he lost all semblance of control.
Lowering his hands, Vincent opened his eyes and stepped forward to pick up Charles. Jane would not want him to be unattended.
He had been frightened to hold Tom the first time Melody had handed the baby to him. One hand cradled Charles’s head, shifting him to the crook of his arm. Then Vincent put a hand under Charles’s back to hold him steady. He weighed so little, no more than five pounds. Their nephew, Tom, had seemed impossibly small, but he must have weighed nearly twice that.
Vincent bounced from the knees, twisting a little from side to side in the pattern Tom had seemed to like. It made his rib ache a little, but that was a useful pain. Charles squirmed, frowning at the motion, and then relaxed. His little rosebud mouth opened in an imitation of Jane’s. Vincent touched Charles’s lips, and the tip of his finger obscured his son’s mouth.
His hands had stopped shaking.
Risking a glance at Dr. Jones and Nkiruka, Vincent had to look away immediately to keep the panic from fluttering back. Blood soaked the blankets and covered Dr. Jones’s arm.
He bent his head to Charles. His son’s eyes were open, winking and staring about without comprehension. The frown came back, bringing with it the little furrow that Jane got when she concentrated. Not yet an hour old and already trying to understand the world.
A heavy sigh from Dr. Jones almost dropped Vincent to his knees. He stared fixedly at the wall and tried to interpret the sound. “Mr. Hamilton, I have stopped the bleeding.”
Vincent took firm hold of the fraying threads of control and clung to them. He could no more move than a glamourist could walk with an int
ricate illusion. Some response was required, though. He formed the thought in his head, made certain that he could speak without his voice breaking, and said, “I am glad to hear it.”
“I do not want to cause you further distress, but neither do I want to give you any illusions. Your wife has lost a great deal of blood. More, I judge, than when Sir Ronald attended her.”
“Thank you. I recall your cautions from when she was bled. May I assume that our efforts will be the same here?”
“Keep her calm. Keep her warm. Get as much liquid into her as we can. Yes.”
“But she will recover.” His voice sounded too coldly formal. He was doing that thing his father despised, being unable to make eye contact. Vincent turned to Dr. Jones and tried not to look away.
“She will be in danger for some time yet.”
“But you think she will recover.”
“That is my hope.”
He clenched his jaw and bore down on the threads of his emotions. The effort made tremors of tension run through his frame, but those he knew how to hide. So long as he was holding Charles, they could not see his betraying hands. “I understand. You will tell me if there is anything that I can do to aid in her recovery.”
“Naturally.”
Nkiruka leaned against the bed, breathing rapidly from her work with the glamour. She wiped her hand across her forehead and nodded to him. “Got some glamour you could do to help.”
Dr. Jones rolled her eyes. “It will do no harm, but do not exaggerate it.”
“Knew we shouldn’ta sent you to France. You have all these foolish European ideas.”
“Those foolish European ideas have saved a number of lives here. And you know that, or you would not have raised the funds to send me to study.”
It was insignificant, a safe topic to give him time to regain a little governance. “You studied medicine in France?”
“Paris. With Dr. Laennec.” Dr. Jones wiped the blood from her hands on an already bloodstained towel. “My early training was here, as a midwife. I have since realised that a number of practices I learned here were superstitions, but harmless.”
Of Noble Family Page 37