The Bridgertons Happily Ever After - By Julia Quinn Page 0,70
it.
Hyacinth moved quietly to his side. Her hand found his, and without thinking he entwined his fingers in hers. He waited for her to say something like: She’s going to be fine. Or: All will be well, just have faith.
But she didn’t. This was Hyacinth, and she never lied. But she was here. Thank God she was here.
She squeezed his hand, and he knew she would stay however long he needed her.
He blinked at the midwife, trying to find his voice. “What if—” No. “What when,” he said haltingly. “What do we do when she wakes up?”
The midwife looked at Hyacinth first, which for some reason irritated him. “She’ll be very weak,” she said.
“But she’ll be all right?” he asked, practically jumping on top of her words.
The midwife looked at him with an awful expression. It was something bordering on pity. With sorrow. And resignation. “It’s hard to say,” she finally said.
Gregory searched her face, desperate for something that wasn’t a platitude or half answer. “What the devil does that mean?”
The midwife looked somewhere that wasn’t quite his eyes. “There could be an infection. It happens frequently in cases like this.”
“Why?”
The midwife blinked.
“Why?” he practically roared. Hyacinth’s hand tightened around his.
“I don’t know.” The midwife backed up a step. “It just does.”
Gregory turned back to Lucy, unable to look at the midwife any longer. She was covered in blood—Lucy’s blood—and maybe this wasn’t her fault—maybe it wasn’t anyone’s fault—but he couldn’t bear to look at her for another moment.
“Dr. Jarvis must return,” he said in a low voice, picking up Lucy’s limp hand.
“I will see to it,” Hyacinth said. “And I will have someone come for the sheets.”
Gregory did not look up.
“I will be going now as well,” the midwife said.
He did not reply. He heard feet moving along the floor, followed by the gentle click of the door closing, but he kept his gaze on Lucy’s face the whole time.
“Lucy,” he whispered, trying to force his voice into a teasing tone. “La la la Lucy.” It was a silly refrain, one their daughter Hermione had made up when she was four. “La la la Lucy.”
He searched her face. Did she just smile? He thought he saw her expression change a touch.
“La la la Lucy.” His voice wobbled, but he kept it up. “La la la Lucy.”
He felt like an idiot. He sounded like an idiot, but he had no idea what else to say. Normally, he was never at a loss for words. Certainly not with Lucy. But now . . . what did one say at such a time?
So he sat there. He sat there for what felt like hours. He sat there and tried to remember to breathe. He sat there and covered his mouth every time he felt a huge choking sob coming on, because he didn’t want her to hear it. He sat there and tried desperately not to think about what his life might be without her.
She had been his entire world. Then they had children, and she was no longer everything to him, but still, she was at the center of it all. The sun. His sun, around which everything important revolved.
Lucy. She was the girl he hadn’t realized he adored until it was almost too late. She was so perfect, so utterly his other half that he had almost overlooked her. He’d been waiting for a love fraught with passion and drama; it hadn’t even occurred to him that true love might be something that was utterly comfortable and just plain easy.
With Lucy he could sit for hours and not say a word. Or they could chatter like magpies. He could say something stupid and not care. He could make love to her all night or go several weeks spending his nights simply snuggled up to next to her.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered because they both knew.
“I can’t do it without you,” he blurted out. Bloody hell, he went an hour without speaking and this was the first thing he said? “I mean, I can, because I would have to, but it’ll be awful, and honestly, I won’t do such a good job. I’m a good father, but only because you are such a good mother.”
If she died . . .
He shut his eyes tightly, trying to banish the thought. He’d been trying so hard to keep those three words from his mind.
Three words. “Three words” was supposed to mean I love you. Not—