“Er, milord…she’s actually more than a bit tap-hackled.”

The earl stared at him incredulously. “Damn it, how drunk is she?”

“She thinks she’s the queen. She shouted at me for stepping on her train.”

A short silence followed as the group digested the information.

“I’m going to kill someone,” the earl said to no one in particular, and then Lillian’s cry from inside the bedroom caused him to turn pale.

“Marcus!”

“I’m coming,” Westcliff shouted, and turned to view the footman with a menacing glare. “Find someone,” he bit out. “A doctor. A midwife. A bloody sideshow fortune-teller. Just get…someone…now.”

As Westcliff disappeared into the bedroom the air seemed to quiver and smoke in his wake, as if in the aftermath of a lightning strike. A peal of thunder boomed from the sky outside, rattling chandeliers and vibrating the floor.

The footman was near tears. “Ten years in his lordship’s service and now I’ll be dismissed—”

“Go back to the doctor,” Simon Hunt said, “and find out if his leg is better. If not, ask if there is some apprentice or student—who might suffice as a replacement. In the meantime I’ll ride for the next village to search for someone.”

Matthew Swift, who had been silent so far, asked quietly, “Which road will you take?”

“The one leading east,” Hunt replied.

“I’ll take the west.”

Daisy stared at Swift with surprise and gratitude. The storm would make the errand dangerous, not to mention uncomfortable. The fact that he was willing to undertake it for Lillian, who had made no secret of her dislike, raised him several degrees in Daisy’s estimation.

Lord St. Vincent said dryly, “I suppose that leaves me the south. She would have to have the baby during a deluge of biblical proportions.”

“Would you rather stay here with Westcliff?” Simon Hunt asked in a sardonic tone.

St. Vincent threw him a glance rife with suppressed amusement. “I’ll get my hat.”

Two hours passed after the men left, while Lillian’s labor progressed. The pains became so sharp that they robbed her of breath. She gripped her husband’s hand with a bone-crunching force that he didn’t seem to feel in the slightest. Westcliff was patient and soothing, wiping her face with a cool damp cloth, giving her sips of motherwort brew, kneading her lower back and legs to help her relax.

Annabelle proved so competent that Daisy doubted a midwife could have done any better. She applied the hot water bottle to Lillian’s back and stomach and talked her through the pains, reminding her that if she, Annabelle, had managed to survive this, Lillian certainly could.

Lillian trembled in the aftermath of each hard contraction.

Annabelle held her hand tightly. “You don’t have to be quiet, dear. Scream or curse if it helps.”

Lillian shook her head weakly. “I don’t have the energy to scream. I have more strength if I keep it in.”

“I was that way too. Though I warn you, people won’t give you nearly as much sympathy if you bear it stoically.”

“Don’t want sympathy,” Lillian gasped, closing her eyes as another pain approached. “Just want…it to be over.”

Watching Westcliff’s taut face, Daisy reflected that whether or not Lillian wanted sympathy, her husband was overflowing with it.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” Lillian told Westcliff when the contraction was over. She clung to his hand as if it were a lifeline. “You’re supposed to be downstairs pacing and drinking.”

“Good God, woman,” Westcliff muttered, blotting her sweaty face with a dry cloth, “I did this to you. I’m hardly going to let you face the consequences alone.”

That produced a faint smile on Lillian’s dry lips.

There was a quick, hard rap at the door, and Daisy ran to answer it. Opening it a few inches, she saw Matthew Swift, dripping and muddy and out of breath. Relief swept over her. “Thank God,” she exclaimed. “No one else has come back yet. Did you find someone?”

“Yes and no.”

Experience had taught Daisy that when one answered “yes and no,” the results were seldom what one would have wished for. “What do you mean?” she asked warily.

“He’ll be upstairs momentarily—he’s washing up. The roads have turned to mud—sinkholes everywhere—thundering like hell—it was a miracle the horse didn’t bolt or break its leg.” Swift removed his hat and swiped at his forehead with his sleeve, leaving a dirty streak across his face.

“But you did find a doctor?” Daisy pressed, snatching up a clean towel from a basket beside the door and handing it to him.

“No. The neighbors said the doctor went to Brighton for a fortnight.”

“What about a midwife—”

“Busy,” Swift said tersely. “She’s helping two other women in the village who are in labor as we speak. She said it happens sometimes during a particularly bad storm—something in the air brings it on.”

Daisy stared at him in confusion. “Then whom did you bring?”

A balding man with soft brown eyes appeared at Swift’s side. He was damp but clean—cleaner than Swift, at any rate—and respectable looking. “Evening, miss,” he said bashfully.

“His name is Merritt,” Swift told Daisy. “He’s a veterinarian.”