Даниэла Стил - Royal

“If this was a single baby, I’d have said it was going to be very fast. But it never is with twins. We can give you something for the pain, Lucy, but we need your help. I can’t give you much. We can put you out when it’s over, but we’re going to need your cooperation, so you’ll need to be awake and alert, especially for the second twin. We don’t want too much time between the two deliveries. How long did your last labor take?” he asked, and Lucy looked stunned for a minute and didn’t know what to say.

“I can’t remember,” she said vaguely, and the doctor looked surprised.

“It can’t have been too bad then.” He smiled at her. “Most women remember every minute of it. It won’t be long now for the first one. I can feel the baby’s head.” He examined her again, and that time she screamed, and the doctor asked Jonathan if he wanted to leave the room and he shook his head and didn’t move.

“I’ve helped a lot of mares give birth,” he said calmly, and although he said it was unusual, the doctor let him stay. He was worried at how severely Lucy was reacting, and thought she’d need all the support she could get. Jonathan was quiet and calm, and didn’t seem inclined to panic. He sat next to Lucy, while she cried, until they took her to the delivery room, and Jonathan stayed near her head. The doctor was right. Lucy sounded like she was dying, but the doctor had the first twin in her arms after half an hour of strenuous pushing. It was a boy. Then the contractions stopped for a few minutes, before they started again with a vengeance, and Lucy begged them both to do something to stop it. They put an oxygen mask on her while she pushed. The second twin took an hour and was much more difficult. He was bigger and gave a powerful cry when he was born. Jonathan held him for a few minutes, while the doctor tended to Lucy, and then he cut the cord. They gave her a shot for the pain the moment both babies were out, and she was groggy as she looked at Jonathan and seemed dazed. But everything had gone well. The first twin had weighed nine pounds, and the second twin weighed just over ten. She had been carrying nineteen pounds of baby, and felt as though she had given birth to twin elephants. They were strapping, healthy baby boys, no matter what they had cost their mother.

“I’m not going to die like Charlotte, am I?” she asked Jonathan with glazed eyes.

“You’re not going to die, my love. I’m so proud of you. We have two big beautiful boys. Who’s Charlotte?” he asked her then, and she shook her head and cried, as the doctor put another mask over her face and gave her a whiff of chloroform to put her out.

“She’ll sleep for a while now,” he said softly to Jonathan. “She did very well. Twins aren’t easy. And you have two great big boys there. I’m surprised she went full term.” They were fraternal twins, not identical, but they looked very similar to their father. “You can go to the nursery now if you like. We’re going to clean her up, and take her to a room. The nurse will call you when she’s awake.” Jonathan thanked him, and followed his sons to the nursery. It was the happiest day of his life, and he couldn’t wait to show the twins to their big sister.

He took turns holding them in the nursery, and he was sitting at Lucy’s bedside when she woke up. She looked as though she had been through an ordeal, and she had. He kissed her as soon as she was awake.

“I thought I was going to die,” she said in a hoarse voice.

“I wouldn’t have let you. We all need you too much.” He had never thought there was a risk of that, and the doctor seemed calm throughout. “Who’s Charlotte?” he asked her again, now that she was awake.

“Why?” She looked panicked at the mention of her name.

“You asked if you were going to die like her.”

“She’s a woman I used to know, who died a few hours after she gave birth.”

“That’s not going to happen to you,” he said firmly, as a nurse came in and asked her if she was going to nurse her babies. Lucy said she was, although it seemed daunting with twins, but she wanted to try. Now that she had survived it, she wanted to enjoy her baby boys to the fullest. She had been terrified for nine months.

“Did you nurse last time?” the nurse asked her, since she was listed as a second-time mother on her chart.

“No, I didn’t,” Lucy said, and seemed awkward about it. “But I want to this time.” The nurse told her how to do it with twins. It sounded complicated and she was going to need all the help she could get when she went home. But her mother-in-law had promised to be there, and Jonathan would help her at night.

She spent five days in the hospital, and the babies were nursing well by the time she went home. Annie couldn’t wait to meet them. They let her hold them, sitting down, one at a time. Jonathan was a natural father, and managed to make Annie still feel special too. He even cooked her favorite dinner of shepherd’s pie, and ice cream. Overnight they had become a family, with a mother, father, and three children. Their cottage felt as though it was bursting at the seams, and Jonathan enjoyed it thoroughly. Lucy was overwhelmed, but Annie did little chores for her, and her mother-in-law was a huge help. Three children were a lot for Lucy to cope with, and it was even harder than she expected. In comparison, Annie had been so easy. Twins were a lot to deal with. One was always hungry and crying, and sometimes both of them.

A month after their birth, Lucy was relieved to go back to work. All of her colleagues had come to see the twins while she was at home, and Mrs. Markham had sent them lovely gifts, in duplicate, with little matching outfits. But it was nice getting out of the house and going back to her job. She stopped nursing when she did, and she went home at lunchtime to help her mother-in-law give the twins their bottles. After the terror of the last nine months, thinking she would die like Charlotte, she hadn’t, and Lucy felt complete with the family she and Jonathan had. She was emphatic about not wanting more children. Annie remained special to both of them, and the twins were like whirling dervishes going in opposite directions as soon as they could walk, which one of them did at nine months, the other at ten. Annie was the perfect big sister, patient, loving, responsible. She told her parents she would teach her brothers to ride one day, and she admitted to her grandmother that as much as she loved her baby brothers, she still liked horses better.

“She certainly doesn’t take after you,” Jonathan’s mother commented to her daughter-in-law, laughing. Blake, one of the twins, was the image of Lucy and looked just like her, and Rupert was identical to his father. And Annie looked nothing like any of them. She was fine-featured, tiny, and seemed to float when she walked. She had a regal air and grace even at six. And looking at Lucy’s large frame, and plain facial features, at times it was hard to imagine she was Annie’s mother. They looked and acted nothing alike.

“The fairies must have left you on your mom’s doorstep,” her grandmother teased her. Annie loved that idea, and Lucy didn’t comment when she heard her say it.

Chapter 7

When Blake and Rupert were eighteen months old, they were running everywhere, and it took Lucy, Jonathan, Annie, and their grandmother to control them. They knocked things down, pushed over lamps, climbed up on tables. They got into mischief everywhere, and the only time Lucy and Jonathan had peace was when the boys were asleep at night in the crib they shared. They slept in one crib, and cried when they didn’t, so whichever of them woke first invariably woke the other, and then the fun began.

Jonathan and Lucy had no time for long, lazy mornings, or romantic nights. The twins were like a tornado that hit the cottage every day, as soon as they got up. Jonathan thoroughly enjoyed them, and Lucy loved them too, although Jonathan had more patience with them. They wore Lucy out and she told Jonathan that the twins and Annie were enough for her. He would have liked one more, but she said he’d need another wife to pursue that plan, and he graciously conceded, and settled for three children. In his opinion, Annie and the twins were the best things that had ever happened to him. He was a happy man. He loved his wife, his family, and his job. He loved working on the estate where he’d grown up, even with new owners. He had never hungered for distant shores or great adventures. He had exactly the life he wanted and was content.