How to Tame My Beastly Husband — Chapter 261. Childbirth (3)

A father would always see his daughter as a child. Annette was his small, pretty child, always sweet-tempered. But now she was going to have a baby, and Allamand had to try to hide his shock.

“Her mother labored with her for fourteen hours,” he answered. “So it may be a while yet, assuming she doesn’t faint.”

It was the first time he had ever heard his father-in-law say something so personal, and it felt ominous to Raphael. His hands clasped together.

“How did my mother-in-law die?”

Please don’t say childbirth, he pleaded fervently in his heart. Allamand glanced at him, his lip curling with disgust, but he understood why he was asking the question. Raphael’s hands were shaking.

“The winter Annette turned five, her mother died of lung disease during a cold snap,” he answered slowly. “She always had weak lungs. Nothing to do with childbirth.”

Allamand had begun smoking again after his wife passed. For a long time, he had given up the habit for her health. But with no reason to abstain, he smoked more heavily than he ever had before. Perhaps hoping to follow her.

Raphael couldn’t know this history, so he only felt relief. He was grateful to hear that Annette’s mother had survived giving birth, twice. Annette had shown him a portrait of her mother only the other day, and his mother-in-law had been as slim and petite as her daughter. It boded well for Annette’s chances.

He swiped at his forehead with his hand and found he was sweating. Her pregnancy had already taken an emotional toll on him, and since it seemed she would survive that, he had to protect her from everything else. He would keep the mansion baking with fires all winter. No lung disease would claim his wife.

“……”

“……”

Again, there was silence between the two men. Occasionally they could hear Liza through the door, encouraging. But every time he heard Annette’s pained cries, Raphael felt as if he would fall apart.

What if she did die? He had only just begun to know the happiness a family could give him. He didn’t want to live without her by his side.

“What is taking so long,” Allamand muttered. “Damn it.”

His serenity was fracturing. Raphael could see his own fear in Allamand’s eyes. Both of them treasured the same woman.

“Ahhhh!!”

There was a long, tearing scream from inside, a scream that sounded as if Annette really might die, and both of them jerked to their feet. Raphael yanked the doorknob off the door and burst inside, and then stopped as if he had walked into a wall.

The room reeked of blood. It couldn’t mean anything good.

He couldn’t force his feet forward to approach the bed. He was terrified to look, thinking he would find only Annette’s bleeding corpse. The nightmare he had had again and again over the last few months, manifested before his eyes.

“Annette!” Allamand had no hesitation, and went straight to the bed, blocking Raphael’s view of his wife. For a second, it added such a sinister, dreamlike cast to the scene that Raphael was dizzy with fear.

But not knowing was worse, and he forced his shaking legs forward.