Page 79 of A Fine Scottish Dream

“Hang on a minute,” Lexi said just as they reached the doorstep to the second kitchen. She leaned forward the slightest bit, her breathing strained. “Wow. This one’s a good one.”

Water splashed between her feet, alarming Jeros even more. “By all the gods and goddesses, is she about to come out on the doorstep?”

Lexi squeezed his hand and held tight to his arm. “She’s close,” she said with a low groan. “Just get me to the library. I don’t think I can make it up all the steps to the bedroom.”

He started to sweep her up into his arms, but she stopped him. “No! I don’t want to be carried. Help me make it to the library, or she’s going to be born in this kitchen.”

Clenching his teeth to keep from arguing the point, he held her close and helped her down the hallway after sending a maid upstairs to notify Rill and the midwife of the change of plans.

As soon as they entered the library, Lexi latched hold of the back of a chair and wouldn’t let go. “Your daughter is impatient.” She panted and groaned while leaning forward to stretch her back.

“How the hell long have ye been in labor?” Jeros glanced back at the door. “And where the hell is that feckin’ midwife?”

Bent forward and resting her forehead on her arm, Lexi noisily breathed in and out while rocking in place. “Since about midnight, actually, but the pains haven’t been bad until now. They were more like muscle spasms that didn’t hurt. That’s why I thought Torian and I had enough time for a ride.”

“Ye thought wrongly, my own.”

“It would seem so.” She huffed and puffed, then lowered herself to a squat with a long, low groan. “Get ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“To catch your daughter.”

“Aww feckin’ hell.” Jeros crouched behind her and yanked her skirts up out of the way. “I dinna have a cloth or a blanket or anything.”

“Your hands will be fine,” Lexi said with another groan. “I’m pushing.”

And then, with the slickness of a wee selkie, his tiny daughter, red and growling, slid into his hands. “Lore a’mighty,” he said in an awe-filled whisper as he cradled her close. “Lore a’mighty.”

“How is she?” Lexi said, with a breathlessness made even worse by her impatience. “Let me see her.” She turned and lowered herself to the floor, her face wreathed in smiles.

“Here she is, my own.” Jeros laughed as he reluctantly handed over the squalling infant. “What an angry wee lassie! She has the temper of her mother.”

“I do not have a bad temper.” Lexi kissed the wee one’s head and murmured unintelligible words that only mother and daughter understood.

Rill and the midwife burst into the room.

“Oh, Yer Highness. On the floor!” Rill said.

“No, Yer Highness. Do forgive us. Here…let us help ye. Let us help ye,” the midwife chimed in.

Both women fretted and fussed, bumping Jeros out of the way as they helped Lexi to the sofa they covered with the birthing sheet. They helped her expel the afterbirth.

“Here now! Let me in here.” Jeros took his rightful place at his beloved side, kneeling beside her. “My lovely ladies,” he crooned as he pressed a kiss first to Lexi’s cheek and then to his daughter’s head. “She’s an impatient lassie, I’ll grant ye that.”

“If she has my temper,” Lexi said while putting the child to her breast, “she has her father’s impatience.” She laughed. “And her brother’s appetite.”

“Ye should not have waited so long to tell us she was coming.” Jeros barely traced the curve of the baby’s velvety cheek. “We were ill-prepared.”

“We had everything we needed. Didn’t we, Gwenna?”

The infant ignored her mother and continued nursing.

Lexi smiled up at Jeros as she relaxed back into the pillows. “Are you happy, my king?”

“Happier than ye will ever know, my queen.”