He came out of bed, put on trousers and a loose shirt, and slipped downstairs.
He opened the door onto a white flurry of snow—and in dark counterpoint, with the streetlight behind her making a golden halo about her, Rose Sweetly. She had a cloak pulled about her, but her teeth were chattering noisily.
“Rose?” He had to be dreaming, but from experience, his dreams of her had never had her so bundled up.
“Stephen.” She sounded almost frantic. “I don’t know what to do. Patricia is in labor—her water broke—the baby’s coming and it’s still breech—”
“I’ll go fetch someone.”
“No.” She turned her head away and swiped at her eyes. “Mrs. Walton is out on another call, and Doctor Chillingsworth is…not available. Josephs is off in search of someone farther afield, but there is no time. The baby is coming now, and I don’t know what to do.”
He’d never seen her so upset. Little crystals of ice clung to her eyelashes, to the corners of her eye. Frozen tears, he realized. Her lips quivered.
“Right,” he heard himself say. “My father was a stable master. I’ve birthed dozens of horses, one of them breech. It’s not the same thing—”
But she was on the verge of a panic, and she needed him.
“—but I’m happy to come,” he finished. “Don’t worry. It’s going to be all right.”
“That’s what I kept telling Patricia.” Her teeth chattered. “And it just keeps getting worse and worse instead.”
“Well, you’re going to have to keep telling your sister that,” he said. “That’s your job now, Rose. You keep telling her that—and we’ll make sure it’s true. Come along.”
He found a pair of shoes in the hall.
“You’re coming like that?”
“No point wasting time. You’re only two houses down, after all.”
Rose nodded. It was cold outside—cold enough for the wind to cut right through the linen of his shirt, cold enough to drive the last remnants of his weariness from him. He followed her to her home. When she fumbled with her key, he took it from her numb fingers, unlocking the door.
“Rose,” he said as she took off her cloak in the hallway. “The most important thing is that you must not let her panic. You’re her sister. It doesn’t matter if there’s reason for her to be frightened; we must do our best not to scare her. You’re in command. I’m just here to make jokes. Understand?”
She paused looking up at him.
He set a finger on her chin. His hands were cold, but her skin was colder. No knowing how long she’d been outside looking for someone. Her lips parted; for a second, she looked up at him as if expecting a kiss. For a second, he wanted to give her one.
Instead, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and very gently wiped the ice crystals from her lashes.
“There,” he said quietly. “That’s better. You can do this.”
She drew in a shuddering breath. He reached out and took her hand in his. Her fingers were deathly cold; he rubbed them between his palms.
“Come,” she said. “Let’s go.”
As she ascended the stairs, her chin came up. Her jaw squared; he could see her gathering determination with every step.
She entered the room to the left of the small hallway.
“Patricia,” she announced. “I’ve returned.”
Stephen followed behind her. The room was warm and comfortable. A fire crackled on the hearth. Mrs. Wells was in bed, her head turned to the side. An older woman sat in a chair next to the bed, watching over her.
He’d only ever seen Mrs. Wells properly attired. Now she was in a loose-fitting gown. Her dark hair was held back by a kerchief. She took one long look at Stephen. “He’s not a doctor,” she said in a low tone.
“No,” Rose said firmly. “Chillingsworth…was otherwise detained. Patricia, you know Mr. Shaughnessy.”
“Mrs. Wells.” Stephen nodded at her.
“Stephen Shaughnessy.” A smile played along her lips. “Actual Man. My. I feel better already.”
“Mr. Shaughnessy has presided over many births,” Rose said in a commanding voice. “He’ll make sure all goes well.”
Stephen was not so sure about that, but he tried to look…well, competent.
Mrs. Wells raised an eyebrow at him. “Mr. Shaughnessy. I knew you were an Actual Man, but I had not thought you so…prolific.”
“Not my children,” he said.
“Oh.” She contemplated this. “Not human, either, then, I take it.”
“Horses.”
“Well, then.” Mrs. Wells swallowed. “Do we try to turn the baby?”
He regarded her thoughtfully. “I don’t think we can,” he said. “At this point in labor? I’m not sure it’s possible, and if it is, none of us know how to do it.”
“If there are any minor complications,” Rose said, “Mr. Shaughnessy will see to it.”
“And if there are major ones?” He could hear the strain in Mrs. Wells’s voice.
“Then the birth will take a little longer,” Rose said matter-of-factly, “and by the time greater expertise is needed, Josephs will have returned with another doctor.”
“Yes,” Stephen said. “So you’re in good hands. The best hands, Mrs. Wells. Your body knows what to do; it is doing it as we speak. Don’t fight it; do what your body tells you.”
“But the baby is coming breech.”
“Hundreds of babies are born breech every day,” Stephen said. “Hundreds of babies the world over—many of them without complications or further incidents. It’ll be a little harder on you, but you can manage.”
It wasn’t fast. Rose draped a sheet over her sister for modesty’s sake as the contractions came closer and closer. Mrs. Wells began to cry out with every passing wave; when she tried to choke back her moans, Rose encouraged her.
“Yell if you must,” Rose said. “You’re letting the world know the baby is coming.”
Stephen didn’t know when he became the one to hold Mrs. Wells’s hand. He didn’t even know when the room began to lighten from the burnished gold illumination cast by the lamp to the pale gray of dawn. The hours blurred together.
“There you are,” Rose said. “The feet are coming. Oh, Patricia. They’re the most darling feet.”
Mrs. Wells made a noise that might, under other circumstances have been a laugh.
“You’re almost there,” Stephen said. “You have it, Mrs. Wells.”
She gritted her teeth again and let out another cry.
“Patricia, he’s a boy.”
“There you are,” Stephen said. “All your friends will be jealous—they had to birth their babies all the way before they knew the sex. Here you are, beating them out.”
Mrs. Wells did laugh at that. “Yes,” she said with a shake of her head. “Surely they will all be jealous of my thirty-some hours of labor.”
Another push; her hands dug into his arm, hard—but nothing. When her contraction subsided, she gritted her teeth.
“Next one,” he told her.
But it wasn’t—not that one, nor the one after that. Out the window, the sun had come out. The snow had stopped falling; a little light played on tree branches laden with a heavy white blanket.
Another push came, and it, too, was futile. Mrs. Well’s face glistened with sweat; her teeth gritted in determination.
“Rose.” Stephen gestured. She looked up.
“You need to lend your sister a hand on the next push.”
“What—how—should I pull?” She looked dubious.
“No. Have Mrs. Josephs take your place. Come here.”
She stood.
“Set your hand here.” He gestured to her abdomen. “Feel—you should be able to find the baby’s head. A nice round lump. Yes?”
She nodded.
“Good. Then as soon as her next contraction comes, push. Start off gently; push harder and harder as she does, too.”
“But—”
Stephen took hold of her free ha
nd. “You can do it, Rose.”
It came in the next moment. Mrs. Wells gritted her teeth and let out a moan. Rose squared her jaw and pushed. And then—just a moment later—they heard a low wail.
“Oh.” Mrs. Wells’s voice was hoarse and ragged. “Oh, thank God.”
“He looks healthy.” Mrs. Jacobs sat at the edge of the bed. “Not that I’m an expert in babies—but he’s moving and breathing and crying…”
“Let me have him.”
Mrs. Jacobs stood. She wrapped a white cotton towel around dark, glistening chestnut skin. A tiny hand pulled at the air; a foot kicked out. A minuscule face scrunched in protest.
Stephen was not a baby sort of person. They’d always seemed strange, clumsy things to dote over—human beings that were not yet old enough to be interesting.
But this baby might have been the most beautiful thing Stephen had ever seen. Every toe seemed perfectly formed. The whole room seemed bathed with light.
“Excellent work,” he heard himself say. It seemed inadequate to the occasion.
Mrs. Wells took her child, holding him to her. Her eyes were shining. In fact, the entire world seemed to shimmer, and Stephen found himself surreptitiously wiping his own eyes.
Rose and her sister were holding each other, speaking in barely coherent sentences, and Stephen realized he was extraneous.
Scarcely a friend. Definitely not family. He’d only been the man who was close enough to help when no one else was around. He hadn’t slept; his presence in a woman’s bedchamber was entirely improper, and…and…
He stayed long enough to make certain that the cord was cut, the after birth properly expelled.
He wished he could stay longer, wished that he belonged here. But this wasn’t the time to demand attention—not now, when the sisters were basking in victory after a hard-fought war. This moment was about everyone but himself.
He smiled at the two of them and then slowly, quietly slipped out of the room.
MRS. JACOBS HAD LEFT to draw a bath for her sister, who was doing her best to stay awake with little Isaac in her arms, when Rose realized that Stephen was no longer in the room. She absented herself swiftly, ran to the stairwell—and caught sight of him in the entry below, staring bemusedly at the door in the entry.
“Stephen,” she called.
He turned around, tilting his head up. He looked every bit as exhausted as she felt. His shirt had long since lost any hint of crispness; it was unbuttoned past his throat, showing a triangle of pale skin and dark, wiry hairs.
“I’ll be on my way shortly,” he said with a small smile. “It’s just that I’ve realized it’s broad daylight—and it will be extraordinarily shocking if I’m seen walking out of your door. Particularly looking like this.” His hand swept down.
She followed his gesture. His sleeves were rolled to his elbow, showing a shocking, delicious amount of skin. His trousers were wrinkled—which only made them mold to his thighs all the more. Without a coat, the linen of his shirt clung to his shoulders—and if she remembered the gossip correctly, hadn’t he done some rowing at Cambridge? He looked like he had.
And she could see precisely what he meant. No shoes; no coat. It would be shocking indeed.
“Oh, dear.” Rose found herself drifting down the stairs toward him. “Oh, dear. I see what you mean. If you go out like that, you’ll start a veritable riot.”
He blinked once…and then ever so slowly, he began to smile.
“You can’t leave without letting me thank you.”
“Ah, Rose. There’s no need for that.”
She descended the staircase. “There’s every need. After what I told you yesterday—”
A sharp rap sounded on the door. Rose frowned—and then realized that Mrs. Josephs was assisting her sister upstairs and Mr. Josephs had not yet returned. She was the only one who could answer the door, and Stephen was standing right here, in a shocking state of undress. Not that she was doing much better; her gown was stained. It wasn’t just wrinkled; it looked as if it had spent the last year wadded up in the back of the wardrobe.
“Go to the back room,” she said to Stephen. “Quickly.”
He winked at her and disappeared.
Rose smoothed her hands over her gown, which did nothing at all. The cause was hopeless, and so she gave up on it and opened the door anyway.
She really ought not to have been surprised at the man who stood there. He had, after all, promised to come in the morning. But at the sight of Doctor Chillingsworth, all the emotion she’d hidden over the course of the night bubbled to the surface—all her fear, her despair. Every last ounce of impossible worry that she had swallowed came back in one blinding rush.
“Doctor Chillingsworth,” she said in a cold voice.
He looked down his nose at her. “I am here as promised.”
“You are too late,” she heard herself say. “Patricia gave birth an hour ago.”
His face did not even flicker at this news. He didn’t look surprised. He didn’t apologize for his hateful words the previous night.
“Ah, did she?” he said instead.
She felt her hands clench into fists at her sides. “You said it wasn’t her time.” No. It wasn’t despair that filled her. It was a cold fury, one that threatened to overwhelm her. “You said she was a lying malingerer—”
He shrugged. “Well, there was some chance I was mistaken—there is always that chance. But I figured there’d be no real harm. Women of her sort are like cows: They scarcely need any assistance when dropping their calves.”
He stepped into the entry and took off his coat, oblivious—or perhaps just indifferent—to Rose’s splutter.
“I suppose I’ll take a look now.”
Lying malingerer. Women of her sort are like cows. It was too much—far, far too much.
She took a step toward him. “When Doctor Wells left, he asked me to stand in his stead—to tell him every time I heard the baby’s heartbeat, to convey every last kick I felt.”
It had not been so long ago that she’d held her sister’s hand, had put her hands on her sister’s belly and pushed her son’s head that last inch. They had not needed this man—but they might have. It staggered her what might have happened had things been even an iota worse. His absence could have meant the baby’s life. Or Patricia’s. And to him, this was a matter that he could shrug off. She could scarcely think for the anger that filled her.
“On behalf of my sister’s husband,” Rose said, “this is for you.”
So saying, she punched him in the stomach. She felt the blow travel all the way up her arm, stinging in the most gratifying way. His breath blew out; he gave a satisfying grunt.
“This is for her.” Rose punched him again. “And this is for me.” She made to ram her fist into his belly again, but he caught her wrist this time.
“Why, you little—”
“You’d better let go of her.” The words came from behind her. Rose felt herself smile—a beautiful, impossible, gratifying smile.
Chillingsworth froze. He looked up at Stephen, who had come into the entry. “And you are?”
“Taller than you,” Stephen said. “Stronger than you. Younger than you. And at this moment, I’m angrier than you, too. Let go of Miss Sweetly and get out of here before I hold you down for her to pummel.”
The doctor released her wrist. He stepped back and then shakily took his coat from the hook.
“Get out, then,” Stephen said.
He took another step forward; Chillingsworth wrenched open the door, letting in a blast of cold air, and then, as swiftly as he could, he vanished. The door slammed behind him.
Rose could hear her own breathing echoing wildly in the entry. She’d punched a man. Twice. And he’d deserved it.
And Stephen…
She turned to him. He was looking at her with the most intense expression on his face, one that made her whole body tingle from head to toe.
“Stephen.” She took a step toward him. “Ste
phen.”
He raised a finger and set it on her lips. “Don’t promise anything when your emotions are running high,” he said. “Or when you’re exhausted.”
Tired though she was, Rose had never felt more certain. All her fretting had burned away.
She didn’t know when she’d become sure. Not when he’d sat with her sister. Not when he’d agreed to come with her. Maybe it was when Chillingsworth had sent her away, when Rose had not known where to turn…until she had known. She had known that help was not a million miles away, but right next door. That she had only to stretch out her hand and ask, and it would be hers.
She had known. She had gone to him, and he had come.
“Now,” he said, “have you a coat I could borrow so that I could look respectable long enough to return home?”
She smiled up at him. “Of course. I have everything you need.”
She found one of Isaac’s old jackets and a pair of his boots in a trunk and brought them out. He was sitting on the sofa, looking somewhat dazed. He smiled at her wearily.
“Here,” Rose said. “Let’s get these on you.”
They were both too large on Stephen’s frame. He let Rose do up his buttons. Her hands trembled as she did. She’d kissed him, let him touch her. But somehow, this seemed the most intimate act yet, the sort of favor that wives performed for husbands.
When she’d done the last button, she looked up into his eyes. She’d expected, maybe, to see a reflection of her own emotion.
Instead, his gaze was hard and utterly unreadable.
“You’re exhausted,” she said. But that was not all it was.
“I’m contemplating.” His words came slowly.
“Here. Let’s get you home, where you can rest.”
He didn’t resist her tug on his arm. Rose put on her own coat, opened the door to the house, and glanced down the street. It was empty but for the drifts of snow.
“Quickly,” she told him, “while nobody’s about.”
She accompanied him. Maybe she needed to make sure he arrived safely; maybe it was because he seemed strangely subdued, and she feared he’d not think properly. He unlocked his own door and then looked down at her.