“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 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—
He took a deep, shuddering breath. He had to stop thinking this way.
The window had been cracked open to allow a slight breeze, and Gregory heard a joyful shriek from outside. One of his children—one of the boys from the sound of it. It was sunny, and he imagined they were playing some sort of racing game on the lawn.
Lucy loved to watch them run about outside. She loved to run with them, too, even when she was so pregnant that she moved like a duck.
“Lucy,” he whispered, trying to keep his voice from shaking. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.
“They need you more,” he choked out, sh
ifting his position so that he could hold her hand in both of his. “The children. They need you more. I know you know that. You would never say it, but you know it. And I need you. I think you know that, too.”