“No. I want Matthew to do it,” I said. If he didn’t, he was going to regret it later.
My words got Matthew moving, and he was soon on his knees next to Dr. Sharp. In spite of his initial reluctance, once he was presented with a baby and the proper medical equipment, his movements were practiced and sure. After the cord was clamped and cut, Dr. Sharp quickly swaddled our daughter in a waiting blanket. Then she presented this bundle to Matthew.
He stood, dumbstruck, cradling the tiny body in his large hands. There was something miraculous in the juxtaposition of a father’s strength with his daughter’s vulnerability. She stopped crying for a moment, yawned, and resumed yelling at the cold indignity of her current situation.
“Hello, little stranger,” Matthew whispered. He looked at me in awe. “She’s beautiful.”
“Lord, just listen to her,” Marcus said. “A solid eight on the Apgar test, don’t you think, Jane?”
“I agree. Why don’t you weigh and measure her while we clean up a bit and get ready for the next one?”
Suddenly aware that my job was only half done, Matthew handed the baby into Marcus’s care. He then gave me a long look, a deep kiss, and a nod.
“Ready, ma lionne?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I said, seized by another sharp pain.
Twenty minutes later, at 12:15 A.M., our son was born. He was larger than his sister, in both length and weight, but blessed with a similarly robust lung capacity. This, I was told, was a very good thing, though I did wonder if we would still feel that way in twelve hours. Unlike our firstborn, our son had reddish blond hair.
Matthew asked Sarah to cut the cord, since he was wholly absorbed in murmuring a stream of pleasant nonsense into my ear about how beautiful I was and how strong I’d been, all the while holding me upright.
It was after the second baby was born that I started to shake from head to foot.
“What’s. Wrong?” I asked through chattering teeth.
Matthew had me out of the birthing stool and onto the bed in a blink.
“Get the babies over here,” he ordered.
Marthe plopped one baby on me, and Sarah deposited the other. The babies’ limbs were all hitched up and their faces puce with irritation. As soon as I felt the weight of my son and daughter on my chest, the shaking stopped.
“That’s the one downside to a birthing stool when there are twins,” Dr. Sharp said, beaming. “Mums can get a bit shaky from the sudden emptiness, and we don’t get a chance to let you bond with the first child before the second one needs your attention.”
Marthe pushed Matthew aside and wrapped both babies in blankets without ever seeming to disturb their position, a bit of vampire legerdemain that I was sure was beyond the capacity of most midwives, no matter how experienced. While Marthe tended to the babies, Sarah gently massaged my stomach until the afterbirth came free with a final, constrictive cramp.
Matthew held the babies for a few moments while Sarah gently cleaned me. A shower, she told me, could wait until I felt like getting up—which I was sure would be approximately never.
She and Marthe removed the sheets and replaced them with new ones, all without my being required to stir. In no time I was propped up against the bed’s downy pillows, surrounded by fresh linen. Matthew put the babies back into my arms. The room was empty.
“I don’t know how you women survive it,” he said, pressing his lips against my forehead.
“Being turned inside out?” I looked at one tiny face, then the other. “I don’t know either.” My voice dropped. “I wish Mom and Dad were here. Philippe, too.”
“If he were, Philippe would be shouting in the streets and waking the neighbors,” Matthew said.
“I want to name him Philip, after your father,” I said softly. At my words our son cracked one eye open. “Is that okay with you?”
“Only if we name our daughter Rebecca,” Matthew said, his hand cupping her dark head. She screwed up her face tighter.
“I’m not sure she approves,” I said, marveling that someone so tiny could be so opinionated.
“Rebecca will have plenty of other names to choose from if she continues to object,” Matthew said. “Almost as many names as godparents, come to think of it.”
“We’re going to need a spreadsheet to figure that mess out,” I said, hitching Philip higher in my arms. “He is definitely the heavy one.”
“They’re both a very good size. And Philip is eighteen inches long.” Matthew looked at his son with pride.
“He’s going to be tall, like his father.” I settled more deeply into the pillows.
“And a redhead like his mother and grandmother,” Matthew said. He rounded the bed, gave the fire a poke, then lay next to me, propped up on one elbow.
“We’ve spent all this time searching for ancient secrets and long-lost books of magic, but they’re the true chemical wedding,” I said, watching while Matthew put his finger in Philip’s tiny hand. The baby gripped it with surprising strength.
“You’re right.” Matthew turned his son’s hand this way and that. “A little bit of you, a little bit of me. Part vampire, part witch.”
“And all ours,” I said firmly, sealing his mouth with a kiss.
* * *
“I have a daughter and a son,” Matthew told Baldwin. “Rebecca and Philip. Both are healthy and well.”
“And their mother?” Baldwin asked.
“Diana got through it beautifully.” Matthew’s hands shook whenever he thought of what she’d been through.
“Congratulations, Matthew.” Baldwin didn’t sound happy.
“What is it?” Matthew frowned.
“The Congregation already knows about the birth.”
“How?” Matthew demanded. Someone must be watching the house—either a vampire with very sharp eyes, or a witch with strong second sight.
“Who knows?” Baldwin said wearily. “They’re willing to hold in abeyance the charges against you and Diana in exchange for an opportunity to examine the babies.”
“Never.” Matthew’s anger caught light.
“The Congregation only wants to know what the twins are,” Baldwin said shortly.
“Mine. Philip and Rebecca are mine,” Matthew replied.
“No one seems to be disputing that—impossible though it supposedly is,” Baldwin said.
“This is Gerbert’s doing.” Every instinct told him that the vampire was a crucial link between Benjamin and the search for the Book of Life. He had been manipulating Congregation politics for years, and in all likelihood pulled Knox, Satu, and Domenico into his schemes.