Ten Months Later
Jason would later swear her scream shook the house. After all these interminable hours, he couldn’t imagine she’d have the breath, much less the strength to yell, but she did. He thought the bones in his hand would break she squeezed so tightly.
“She’s getting there,” Dr. Blood shouted over that scream. “Not long now. A bit over nine hours, not too long at all.”
Hallie slitted her eyes up at Theodore Blood, who was racing mad and liked nothing more than to be invited to Lyon’s Gate to watch Dodger and Eclipse train, and panted, “Nine hours isn’t long, you buffoon? Why don’t we trade places?”
He paled—Jason would swear that Theo paled. He didn’t blame him. He himself was exhausted, out of his mind with worry, but compared to the pain she was enduring, it was nothing. He leaned close, kissed her. “Theo would apologize for that stupid remark, but he’s too close to babbling with fear. Now, sweetheart, that was a really meaty yell. Do it again, that’s it. It won’t be long now.”
She screamed, gone from him for a long moment.
Jason cursed, wiped her sweaty forehead with a cool, wet cloth. “I’m so sorry, curse me some more, that will make it better. Your father said Genny encouraged you to learn new ones just last month.”
“I didn’t believe her,” Hallie said. “I’m as stupid as Theo. I didn’t believe her.” Her grip on his hand tightened. “Oh damn you, Jason. I hope you rot in the deepest pit in Hell, you and all men, you miserable, horse-breathed toad—” She broke off, panting, then she was gone again, whimpering. Then she screamed again, her back arching off the bed. Jason felt the contraction rip through her. Theo out-yelled her. “You’ve done it, Hallie! Nearly there. Push, Hallie. Push! Now, that’s it.”
“Damn you to the blackest pit with the rest of the idiot men—oh God, oh God—”
“Push!”
She gritted her teeth and pushed.
Jason said, “That’s it, sweetheart. That’s it, my beautiful brave girl.”
Hallie yelled at him between pants, “You pickle-eyed Satan, that’s what you said to Piccola when she was birthing her foal!” and she yelled again through her gritted teeth.
At a nod from Theo, Jason said, “Again, Hallie, again!”
“I am pushing, curse your black soul and your sinful smiles that landed me in this mess in the first place.”
“Ah, I’ve got him! Ah, yes, it’s a boy and he’s perfect. Oh my, you should listen to those lungs, loud as his mother’s—but wait, what’s this, oh my, another one—it’s another baby, oh goodness me, this is a surprise, but it shouldn’t be now, should it? Oh dear, I didn’t think, didn’t guess, and I should have. Yes, Hallie, push, but not much. I don’t have enough hands! Jason, come here now!”
Jason caught his daughter in his outstretched hands. She opened a tiny mouth and yelled as loud as her brother. He stared down at the tiny being in his hands, at the fingers that were no larger than the splinters Jason had pulled out of Henry’s thumb yesterday. Theo and the midwife, Mrs. Hanks, who were both laughing at this unexpected surprise, quickly got themselves together. Mrs. Hanks took the babe from Jason, saying over and over, “Isn’t this just grand? Two of them at once, another set of twins in the family. Oh, isn’t she beautiful? Just like her daddy.”
“And her brother.”
Jason looked over at Theo Blood, who held his son, singing to him even as he cleaned him up. Neither of them stopped yelling. He quickly washed and dried his hands, then leaned over Hallie, and wiped the sweat off her face. “They’re perfect,” he said, and kissed her. “They’re incredible, Hallie, you’re incredible. You’ve given me two babes, a boy and a girl. Oh God, this is too much for a man to take in.”
“If you faint, Jason,” Theo called out, “I will announce it in the London Gazette. Keep yourself together.”
Jason laughed. “I won’t let you down now, sweetheart, though I do feel a bit light-headed. How do you feel?”
Hallie was beyond words. The endless pain was gone, truly gone. It was over. She was alive, and she, like Jason, was staring over toward the fireplace, watching Theo and Mrs. Hanks bathe and wrap the babes in soft white wool.
Her babes. She’d birthed two babes. She wanted to hold them, to feel their small bodies, have them yell right in her face.
“They’re both perfect, Hallie,” Theo called out. “Small, but perfect. Give me another moment and I’ll make sure you’re perfect as well. Ah, what a remarkable exhibition of lung power. Did either of you hear what I said over the yells?”
Jason nodded. He couldn’t take it in. He leaped to his feet, ran out of the bedchamber, raced down the corridor to grab the banister at the top of the stairs to keep himself from hurtling down. “We’ve got twins! Corrie, James, help, we need your hands. Everyone else, don’t move! Everything is all right.”
Corrie and James came running. Theo handed the little boy to Corrie and Mrs. Hanks handed James the little girl. James had meant to tell her what to do with that tiny screaming creature, but could do nothing but stare. He whispered, “Douglas and Everett were this small, weren’t they? It’s amazing. Oh God, Jase, we’re both fathers.”
While Theo tended Hallie, Jason, to distract her, continued to wipe her face with cool, damp cloths and kiss her—her mouth, her nose, her ear. “You’ve done it, given me two perfect babes, a boy and a girl this time.” Jason laughed and wanted to weep. “I’ll bring them to you in a moment. James and Corrie are seeing to them. Don’t worry, I’ll make certain they don’t try to steal them, not after all the work you did. They’re so small, James could ease them in his jacket pockets. Now, what do you want me to do to this pathetic doctor of yours whom I believed so smart? This brainless fellow didn’t think it was two babes. He claimed you were just big. You were quite wrong, weren’t you, Theo?”
“I’m a dolt.”
“More loudly please,” Jason said.
“I’M A DOLT.”
“Good. Now, my sweet, sweaty girl, you need to rest. We’ll decide later what we should do with this gourd-brained doctor.”
Hallie was so very tired she wanted to sleep for at least a year. She felt battered and beaten-down and quite wonderful given that she had been cursing Jason only five minutes before. Her body felt surprisingly light. She moved her hand to her belly. “You said that to Piccola as well.”
He grinned down at her.
“My belly’s gone down again.”
“Yes.” He grabbed her hand, kissed her palm.
“Did I say anything to Theo I’ll have to apologize for?”
“You don’t have to apologize to the dolt.”
“True,” Theo said. “Besides, I’ve heard much worse.”
Mrs. Hanks said, “Amen to that.”
“One can but try,” Hallie said.
“You showed good range, Hallie, excellent feeling, and the volume was more than adequate.”
Hallie smiled at Theo Blood, their physician with the unfortunate name, who’d become an excellent friend to both her and Jason during the past six months. He took her hand, felt her pulse. After a moment, he nodded. “You’re going to be fine. I see no problems, the bleeding isn’t bad. I am a superb physician.”
Jason leaned close to his wife and shut out the world. He ran the tip of his finger over her eyebrows. “I love you, Hallie. I love you. I mean it now. I’ll mean it in fifty years. Sleep now.”
“That sounds so very nice. You truly expect me to docilely fall asleep when I want to sing, Jason? Not dance though, I—” In the next moment, she was asleep.
Jason kissed her chapped lips, smoothed her sweaty hair back from her forehead, and rose. “My babes?”
“Beautiful,” Corrie said. “And healthy, Jason, even though they’re so small. They’re all ready to meet their mother. Imagine, another set of twins. Goodness, she’s the first little girl in the family. Jason, you must go downstairs and tell everyone before they come storming into the bedchamber.”
Theo said as he t
ucked a soft blanket under Hallie’s chin, “I hope you have another name hanging about, Jason.”
“Hmm, other than Alec? Yes, I’m thinking—no, I must discuss it first with Hallie. If she ever wakes up.”
Theo looked at his watch. “She fell asleep before she saw her babes. She’ll be awake in not more than a minute from now.”
“No, impossible. She’s worked so hard, Theo, nine hours, she’s exhausted, you’re wrong about this just as you were about twins—”
“Jason, I want to see our babes.”
Jason shouted with laughter. He looked over at his own twin. James was holding one of the babies in his big hands, Corrie holding the other one. He didn’t deserve to be this happy or this lucky, but God had made it so. He prayed the twins would be all right, that they would grow up to have their own twins. He was blessed. Both he and James were blessed.
He cleared his throat. “Give me my babes. I want to show them to their mother.”
When Jason cradled both babes in his arms, he felt his brother’s hand on his shoulder. As had happened so many times in their lives, they shared the same thought: Life was sweet. They were the luckiest men in the world.
Theo said, rubbing his hands together, “I have done remarkably well. Everyone is healthy. So what if I was off by one babe?”
Douglas Sherbrooke’s hand was raised to rap on the bedchamber door when he heard his sons’ laughter.
He lowered his hand. His sons. He heard a tiny yell, and smiled. He prayed that life would continue doling out more laughter than tears. Then he heard a chorus of yells.
The yells continued, two distinct yells. Bedamned, another set of twins. The door opened. Jason whooped when he saw his father, and grabbed him close. “Hallie gave me a girl and a boy. I am surely the luckiest man alive.”
“I rather thought I was,” Douglas said, looking over to see James grinning at him. He nodded at his elder son and called out over his shoulder, “Alexandra, come listen to this lovely duet of yells from your new grandbabies.”
EPILOGUE
Three Months Later
No rain today, thank God, Jason thought, unlike the previous three days that had the twins yelling their heads off because they liked to lie on a nice thick blanket in the middle of the green lawn at Lyon’s Gate, kicking their legs, flailing their arms and breathing the freshly scythed grass.
It was a beautiful day. Jason watched his wife, a babe under each arm, walk to the blankets he’d spread on the side lawn at Northcliffe Hall. The noon sun was bright overhead, and James’s brindle racing cat was tearing across the lawn to run around Hallie three times before dashing back to James, who gave him a fresh slice of sea bass, told him what an elegant fast boy he was, and scratched the spot right in front of his tail. Alfred the Great purred like there was no tomorrow.
Douglas and Everett, now four years old, something Jason couldn’t quite get his brain around, were sitting as quietly as they ever sat, watching their father train the year-old golden-eyed Alfred the Great.
Jason watched Hallie arrange the twins amid piles of pillows, then lean back on her elbows and raise her face to the blue sky. He felt his throat close as he watched her, such love swamped him. He was a lucky bastard, as his twin had told him just that morning, and he agreed. He was thirty years old, he had Hallie as his wife, and he was a father of two healthy children. Amazing. Even more amazing, or perhaps not, both babies looked like him, which meant they also looked like their cousins and their uncle James, which led back to Aunt Melissande, who’d smiled her incredibly beautiful smile when she’d seen them, while her husband, Uncle Tony, was heard to say, “Yet another generation of nauseatingly beautiful children in my wife’s image. It fair to makes my teeth ache. Thank the good Lord that our three boys look like me. It adds balance to the world.”
“Thank God you still have all your teeth,” Aunt Melissande had said, and poked her husband in the ribs. He then kissed her hard on her mouth and the younger generation turned red to their eyebrows.
Jason heard a horse whinny, fancied it was his father’s huge bay thoroughbred stallion, Caliper, who was going to be bred with Miss Matilda out of Charles Grandison’s stud in two days. Lyon’s Gate flourished. They’d won races, their reputation as a stud was growing. As for Lord Grimsby, he’d asked Jason to take Lamplighter, to train him, run him, and breed him, and all the winnings would be his. Lamplighter had won the Beckshire race a month before.
Jason closed his eyes, content for the moment to breathe in the scent of fresh grass along with his twins and his wife when he looked up to see his father and mother, Uncle Ryder and Aunt Sophie come out of the Hall. Soon the grounds would be overrun with Sherbrookes, even Aunt Sinjun and Uncle Colin from Scotland and Meggie and Thomas from Ireland, Meggie bringing three racing cats for the big cat race next week at the McCaulty racetrack, and their three boys, who helped train the cats.
Hallie said, “Jason, I need you as a father. Alec is hungry, again,” she added quite unnecessarily.
Jason set up an umbrella to give his wife privacy, then picked up his daughter, grinned like a fool when she blew bubbles up at him, and watched Hallie feed Alec. She looked totally absorbed, crooning to the babe as he suckled frantically. Nesta rooted around Jason’s chest to find a breast, and he laughed. “You’ll have to wait, sweetheart, your mama’s busy with your brother now.”
Nesta wailed.
“Uncle Jason!”
“Uncle Jason!”
Douglas and Everett raced across the lawn toward him, dirty, rumpled, grins splitting their beloved little faces. No waltzing for them anymore; they were too old for that. Since Uncle Jason was holding Nesta, they didn’t leap on him, but he could tell they wanted to, badly.
“We went fishing in the pond,” Everett said.
“What did you catch?”
“Just a toad and a load of dirt,” Douglas said. “Don’t tell Mama, she’ll tan us.”
“She told us to stay clean for at least an hour. What time is it, Uncle Jason?”
“Nearly time for luncheon.”
“It’s nearly an hour, Everett. We’re safe. Mama won’t yell at us.”
“How about your papa?”
“He’ll throw us in the air and call us filthy grubs,” Everett said. “Do you want to play with us now, Uncle Jason? Douglas has a new cannon that we need to fire.”
“Be patient,” Jason said. “Your cousins need their luncheon first. Ah, I see your grandmother coming over. She’ll beg me to let her play with Nesta. Then we’ll go fire that cannon, maybe then I’ll take the two of you to the pond and toss you in.”
Alex came down on her knees, her arms out. Jason kissed his tiny daughter’s forehead and handed her to his mother. “Ah, my precious little sweetheart. You’re hungry, aren’t you, lovie, and here’s your stoat of a brother taking all the lunch. That’s right, you just suck on my knuckles.” She smiled over at her son, saw that Everett and Douglas were fidgeting. “I heard your uncle tell you to be patient, boys. You may have him in five minutes. Good. Now, Jason, I suppose I’m the one to tell you. Petrie has proposed to Martha. When she confided to Hollis, he told her she’d be far better off marrying him than Petrie, that even though he was approaching his golden years, he wouldn’t drive her as distracted as that codshead would.”
“What did Martha say?” Hallie asked, looking up.
“I believe after she tucked the blanket lovingly around Hollis’s legs, she told him that even though she preferred him to Petrie, she couldn’t marry him since she wanted children. She fancied that even though Hollis was surely superior to the codsbreath, she doubted even he would still be on this earth to greet his grandchildren, something she believed very important. She then assured Hollis that Petrie was no different from a racing horse or a racing cat. With a nibble of trout, a bucket of oats, or a smidgeon of a kiss, she could work miracles. Oh, dear, I see Mother-in-law. She’s still walking, can you believe that? She can even push Hollis’s chair, and believe me, it makes hi
m furious. He even yelled at her once, and do you know what? She laughed, told him since he’d waited on her his whole life, she could at least push him about a bit now.” Alex smiled, kissed Nesta’s tiny mouth. “Hallie, your aunt Arielle is so pleased you named your daughter after your mother, even though you never knew her. She said that counts.”
“Papa got tears in his eyes when I told him her name,” Hallie said. “It’s odd. He didn’t have a single tear when we told him we’d named Alec after him. I saw Angela pushing Hollis’s chair too.”
Jason was stretched out on his back, Douglas and Everett on top of him, holding him down, jabbering the same twin talk he and James had spoken as boys. He didn’t understand them. He wondered what sort of torture they were thinking up for him once they’d fired the cannon and headed to the pond.
He smiled over at his wife, who was kissing the sleeping Alec’s forehead, a bit of milk dribbling down his chin.
Hallie looked over at him, grinned at Douglas and Everett, who were trying to pull his boots off.
“Next,” she called out.
Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
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