As Doctor McKenzie climbed the stairs, he grumbled incessantly. Rams wick could not even imagine what Lord Dalton had done to drag the doctor here.

They reached the third floor, where the birthing room was located. As they walked down the corridor, the sound of screams grew closer. Doctor McKenzie’s steps quickened instinctively.

“Is the cervix dilated?”

“Yes, but they say the baby’s head isn’t visible yet. And it’s a month earlier than expected, sir.”

“A month early is manageable.”

McKenzie pounded on the birthing room door. Hannah opened it. The dim room was stifling, filled with muggy air.

“Is her breathing normal?”

“Yes, but the pain is so severe she can’t make out words.”

“Hmph, looks like this will be a tough one.”

Doctor McKenzie turned to Rams wick.

“Keep Ian Dalton out until the little one sees the world. I can’t focus with that irritating man hovering around.”

“Understood, sir.”

Doctor McKenzie disappeared into the room with Hannah.

Rams wick let out a sigh of relief. With Doctor McKenzie here, there was no chance anything would go wrong with the lady. He was a man who never abandoned a patient’s life, no matter the circumstances. It wasn’t for nothing that he was called the Hippocrates of Yorkshire.

Rams wick wiped his sweaty forehead with the pale pink handkerchief Noel had given him. Then, he heard footsteps approaching the birthing room from the end of the corridor.

It was Lord Dalton. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, likely from washing his hands, revealing long, veined arms.

“How’s it going in there?”

“The cervix is dilated, but the head still isn’t visible.”

“Two babies to deliver, and not even a head in sight…”

At that moment, a scream erupted from the birthing room.

The two men at the door froze. It was the wail of someone grappling with death itself.

The screams continued relentlessly. Interspersed were Doctor McKenzie’s shouts and Hannah’s soothing voice, but they were drowned out by the screams, their meaning lost.

Ian reached for the doorknob. Rams wick, snapping out of his daze, quickly grabbed his arm.

Ian turned to Rams wick.

“Doctor McKenzie requested no entry.”

“Why?”

“…For the lady’s safety, he said.”

Ian’s jaw clenched, trembling. His hand fell from the doorknob.

The screams persisted. They were shrill and broken, unlike anything ever heard from the usually composed Laura.

Ian’s face grew paler by the moment. His arm began to tremble faintly, and soon he steadied himself against the door with his hand.

Rams wick grew alarmed, fearing his master might collapse.

“Sir, perhaps you should wait in the bedroom or study? This won’t be over in an hour or two, and, forgive me, but your presence here won’t be of much help.”

“Laura is in there.”

His voice was drained of life as he murmured.

“She’s suffering, giving birth to my child. Laura, alone…”

Ian pressed his forehead against the door. His broad shoulders shook slightly.

“I’m not in pain at all, so why is she the only one…”

Ian’s breathing grew increasingly ragged.

Rams wick realized he couldn’t persuade his master. The lord would rather suffer alongside her. Suggesting he wait comfortably elsewhere was practically an insult.

“I’ll fetch a chair.”

Rams wick left.

“God…”

Alone now, Ian whispered the prayer he had silently repeated over the past months.

“Please, leave your angel by my side.”

He began to sob. His wife’s anguished screams pierced his ears as he sank into a mire of distant pain.

At 10:25 p.m., two children came into the world.

One girl and one boy. Fraternal twins. The boy emerged first, followed two minutes later by the girl.

As the robust cries of the two infants echoed, the servants, who had been anxiously waiting throughout the manor, breathed sighs of relief. Noel, who had delayed going home and was smoking a cigar in a corner of the garden; Philip, trembling with the other cooks in the kitchen; and Rams wick, praying in his study.

Ian, too, heard the babies’ cries.

Seated in the chair Rams wick had brought, his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands, he slowly raised his head. His face, drenched with cold sweat and tears, looked haggard, like a prisoner dragged in chains for days.

The birthing room door opened. Doctor McKenzie emerged, wiping his bloodied hands with a damp cloth.

“Anyone would think you were the one giving birth,” he said, spotting Ian with a smirk.

“Congratulations, though. You’re now the father of a boy and a girl. Most men would need two shots to hit that kind of luck—you nailed it in one. Quite the marksman.”

“Laura?”

Ian’s voice cracked as he asked.

“She’s fine. Get her some flowers or something.”

Ian rose from the chair. He brushed past Doctor McKenzie and entered the room.

The dimly lit birthing room, illuminated only by a few candles, reeked of blood. Near the bed, Hannah and a prearranged midwife were cradling the babies, wrapped in towels.

Hannah beamed when she saw Ian.

“Sir, congratulations! They look just like both of you. It’s rare for newborns to be this beautiful.”

Hannah chattered cheerfully, but Ian didn’t hear her.

He approached the bed slowly.

Laura lay there, covered up to her chin with a blanket. As he drew closer, her condition became clear. Her face was deathly pale, as if drained of blood. Broken capillaries left stains on her cheeks and neck. Her lips were chapped, her eyes sunken, her hair matted with sweat.

She looked like a corpse.

“Laura?”

Her tightly closed eyelids slowly lifted. Gray eyes, framed by reddened rims, met Ian’s.

“Darling.”

Her voice was hoarse, like an old woman’s, but unmistakably Laura’s. Tears welled in Ian’s eyes.

Laura managed a faint smile for her husband.

“Don’t cry. It didn’t hurt that much.”

Ian sank to his knees beside the bed. He took his wife’s hand and pressed it to his cheek.

“Laura.”

His cracked voice mingled with sobs.

“Thank you.”

For staying alive.

Laura’s hand, held by her husband, grew damp with his tears. She wiggled one finger to tickle his cheek.

“Jane and Louis have quite a tearful father.”

Her teasing stirred a sense of relief. With it, the floodgates of his tears opened wide. Ian pulled Laura’s neck into an embrace and wept.

Jane and Louis, the two children, would come to know this: though Ian would be a loving father, he would never be loved more than their mother.

No matter how precious the two children were, the one glove that completed Ian was Laura alone.

A month after the children’s birth, Ian headed to the Yorkshire registry to file their birth records.

Louis Dalton. Jane Dalton.

As he wrote their names on the documents, his heart pounded fiercely. The fear of losing his wife had faded, replaced by the swelling realization of fatherhood. Every time he looked down at the babies in their cradle, watched his wife nursing, or held them in his arms, a voice of overwhelming emotion shouted within him:

I’m a father now!

Leaving the registry, he looked up at the sky. To his heightened emotions, the blue sky felt like a divine message, both celebrating and encouraging him.

He placed a hand over his left chest. The thumping of his heartbeat pulsed against his palm. Closing his eyes, he tilted his head skyward and prayed.

God, thank you. Watch over my children with your holy touch. And let me never fall short in loving them.

Filled with emotion, he returned to Whitefield Hall.

The first place he went upon arriving home was the nursery. His urgent footsteps echoed as he climbed the stairs, already hearing the babies’ cries.

Impressive.

Ian sighed inwardly.

Jane’s lungs are really something.

Jane was a crier. She cried when held, when soothed, when fed, when her diaper was changed. Scolding her to stop only made her cry harder. The only way to calm her was to beg and rock her for hours. She was not an easy child to please.

As a result, Laura had barely slept lately. Though the nursery was separate from their bedroom, Laura, hypersensitive to the babies’ cries since giving birth, woke at the faintest sound.

Even with Hannah staying in the nursery, Laura rushed there whenever Jane cried.

The one saving grace was that Laura’s body had recovered well after the birth. For a few days, muscle pain and difficulty walking lingered, but with good meals and rest, she was moving freely within a week.

As Ian climbed the stairs, Jane’s cries grew louder. He clicked his tongue. He could picture Laura, exhausted, bustling about with an equally weary Hannah.

He entered the nursery. As expected, a drained Laura was soothing the baby alongside an equally fatigued Hannah.