Her screams echoed through every corridor of Bridgerton House, fighting for dominance over the harsh howls of wind battling against the windowpanes. For winter ravaged the world lingering just beyond the frosted window glass and the thick doors of intricately detailed wood, that concealed the numbing temperatures of the night. Shadows engulfed the London skies, obscuring the stars that faded into the blanket of deep indigo as if they hadn't even seen the sky that night and hid away the sliver of a crescent moon in the coverage of dense clouds, that sprinkled a heavy snow upon the cobblestone streets below.

Completely coating the land in a powdery coverage that in it's own way, made up for the lack of moonlight. For it twinkled, even in the shrouding darkness, with it's own light that illuminated the Earth as it remained dormant in the clutches of a snowstormy night. The last of the year in fact, as each hour of the evening ticked by, a new morning on the breath of a brand new year, inched itself one hour closer. But as Anthony Bridgerton sat in his study, just a floor below the bedchamber that echoed with his wife's anguished screams, morning seemed a forever away.

For even as he listened to the growing howls of wind forced against the siding of the house, whipping it's icy precipitation against the sturdy brick and the dormant land below, her cries were louder than the sky's gusts of terror and they struck him in a way he'd never felt in his life. For he had been a child never fearful of thunder or the frightening storms that followed, he was a man unshaken by the resounding bang of gunfire, Anthony had yet to find a sound or sensation that could rattle his very bones, until this very night when one shot through his chest and punctured his very heart.

Anthony sat slouched in his large chair of sleek umber brown upholstery, behind the mahogany wood of his wide desk and watched the flames flickering in the adjacent fireplace twist and twirl as if they were spinning together in a form of a dance. Crackling embers illuminating the room in a citrine hue that bathed his tense form in a breath of fiery warmth, but as Anthony's eyes stared absentmindedly into the blistering flames, he could barely feel the heat of the fire through the thin material of his ivory muslin shirt. Even as his sleeves were furiously rolled up beneath his elbows, exposing his bare flesh and the pulsing veins running just below the surface to the glowing warmth, Anthony could hardly feel a thing. As he sat immersed in a room that felt suffocatingly silent, as night engulfed the land, all the while, listening to it echo off of the walls with the horrid screams of his wife's painful labor.

With seven siblings under his belt, Anthony was more than familiar with the labor process, as he'd heard his mother's screams many times during the span of her child bearing years. The night dear Hyacinth emerged into the world, having been the worst of them all. As not only was her arrival the most complicated of all her siblings that came before her, but the fact that his father was no longer with them to meet the infant who screamed her way into the world that fateful night.

Anthony remembered the echoes, after he should have been long asleep, waiting anxiously and at times excitedly for the newest arrival, with his other siblings who were also too excited to even attempt to feign sleep. He'd remembered the exhaustion on his beautiful mother's face, after his parents had introduced the newest Bridgerton addition to the rest of the family. The glisten of sweat and the reddened hue of exertion, but the smile she adorned, Anthony believed he recalled that sight most of all.

But as Anthony sat still in his overbearing chair, all the while, feeling as though he had enough adrenaline coursing through his veins for five grown men, he realized that the echoes of his wife's were completely different than the way his mother's had hit him as a young adolescent. For every ounce of his heart ached with each of her growing cries, feeling helpless in a way he'd never felt before. For he was a man swift to action, especially when it pertained to his family, he had the answers before they could beg to ponder the very question and he aimed to rectify all he could as quickly as he could. But now, as he sat alone with nothing else he could possibly do but wait, left him with an unsettling feeling that made him uneasy and rather sick to his stomach.

Anthony's fingers, slickened by the sheen of clammy sweat, fiddled with a small circular object in the confines of his pocket. The metal sleek and once cool against the touch of his fingertips, now heated by the pressing of his burning palm against it's golden surface, Anthony's fingers flipped it back and forth and over and about repeatedly in the grasp of his hand. Feeling the chain that dangled the ticking pocket watch slide through the flesh of his fingers, the scrape of the heirloom handed down to him at an age when everything, no matter how small, made an insurmountable imprint. For when it came to Anthony's father, everything that man had ever spoken or handed down for Anthony to now claim as his own, were priceless in their worth and irreplaceable in their presence in Anthony's life and in the depth of his heart, that still ached deeply for his father.

Clutching the pocket watch tightly in the stern grasp of his tensed fist, Anthony slid it from his pocket and casted his intense gaze down upon the golden object that reflected with a glint of the blistering firelight. As his amber brown eyes watched the tiny hands of black tick with each passing second, he couldn't help but wonder just how his father had possibly managed to go through this very moment with his mother seven times.

For it was the first of many children Anthony hoped to share with the woman who he'd chosen to spend the rest of his life with, or rather, the woman that his heart had found the match his mind had always deemed impossible in, but as he listened to the torturous echo of his wife's tearful cries, he wondered how he was to ever fair to go through it again. How had his father managed to not cripple to the ground beneath the overwhelming and rather debilitating shatter of his mother's screams? How had he stayed strong when all Anthony wanted to do was cry right alongside her? For Anthony had realized, not too long after he'd fallen head over heels for the woman who'd stolen his heart in a single swoop, that her pain was the ultimate wound he could ever endure in this lifetime.

From the moment Anthony could recognize the face of the man who he'd one day call father, when he could form the words of course, a young age far before his recollection of memories, Viscount Edmund Bridgerton was Anthony's hero. He was the man he looked up to, the man he idolized, the man Anthony wished to be when he became one when the day came. His father was the figure in his life that he always believed would simply be there, that there would cease to be a day when Anthony could not go to him when he needed a word of advice or a mere moment with the man who gave him immeasurable strength, when he couldn't send a letter like he did when he was a student, from his housing at Eton and hear back in only a few days time.

Anthony never imagined that he would be sitting here now, awaiting the arrival of his own heir, without the presence of his father. He was about to become a father himself, with the only woman he realized he would ever want to share little ones with, but he found that in that moment, when the churn of all-consuming worry, the ache of his wife's painful outcries and the blatant setting in that he was to be responsible for another life other than his wife's and of his own, that he wished more than anything that his father was right there beside him.

Anthony hadn't realized the rush of anxiety soaring through his body, had rattled him so violently to the point that the furniture around him could feel it as well, until he heard the sharp noise of harshly clinking glass and the shattering bang of ice against it's confines. His tumbler of whiskey, a drink yet to be touched by his lips, as the rim sat spotless and the amber burned liquid itself swirled unscathed with the same clear line poured an hour prior. His fingers had pressed tightly to the glass, until indentations from the crystal had appeared in the pads of his fingertips, but he'd yet to feel the burn of the alcohol glide across tongue and trickle down his throat in an attempt to calm his churning stomach. He relinquished the glass, replacing it with the smooth gold of his pocket watch and Anthony hadn't returned to the drink since that moment nearly an hour ago.

But now, as he realized that his boot hammered like a roar of thunder against the floorboards, that were luckily covered by an intricate burgundy rug that attempted to absorb the booming sensation, with his knee bouncing furiously until it shook the very surface of his desk itself, it rattled the untouched glass of whiskey. Sloshing the liquid in reckless waves as the not yet melted ice cubes clinked and clambered, echoing in the room until it pierced through his dense collection of thoughts, ultimately capturing Anthony's attention. Watching the glass rock against the smooth mahogany surface, Anthony's movements came to a skidding halt until the only part of him that seemed move, was the harsh pulsating of his thundering heart and the shallow expansion of his lungs that clambered inside of his chest for a deep breath.

Watching the liquid sway to a leisurely stop, Anthony's fist tightened around the gold metal of his pocket watch one last time, glancing down at the ticking hands that were nearly upon the hour of midnight, and stood abruptly from his chair. Nearly knocking it over behind him, listening to the brushed wooden legs bump and skid against the floorboards, Anthony shoved the watch back down into the safe confines of his pocket and made his way around the wide desk. Hectic actions shaking the glass once again and as his footsteps met the wooden floorboards at the door with a harsh conviction, Anthony grabbed hold of the doorknob and twisted it roughly.

Her voice seemed to ring out so clearly as it reverberated off the surrounding walls of his study, but as Anthony's boots met the threshold of the corridor with hurried steps that fell in bounding stomps, her cries appeared as though she was merely in the room away. For they echoed as if the intricately detailed and elegantly displayed walls of Bridgerton House absorbed her pain, unleashing them in a deafening reiteration that Anthony could feel sinking into every crevice of his very bones. The hallways had long since become shadowed by the darkness of night that fell over the city, shrouding the rooms in a density barely altered by the low flickering of lit candelabras and lanterns propped in every few rooms.

For the snowstorm raging on just the other side of the large windows, seeped it's blistering presence in through the sprawl of pale periwinkle and powdery blue curtains drawn for the evening. Leaving the corridors and the long since abandoned rooms Anthony passed through, to feel cold and iced as though the windows had been left open with the softest crack, to allow harsh winter's breath to filter through the house. He hadn't been able to feel the heat of the fire roaring in the core of his study, but now as he rushed his way through the estate, that he hadn't once cursed for being so large in scale up until that very moment, he felt the extensive chill of the night dance across his exposed flesh.

Even as his fist that swung at his sides with each of his bounding steps, were still slickened with an anxious sheen of sweat and felt rather swollen in nature, as the veins in his hands appeared to drum to their own separate heartbeat, he felt the breath of late December span across his bare flesh. Up his forearms until it wrapped itself around his skin covered by thin fabrics and an unbuttoned waistcoat, coiling it's icy presence around his bare neck and through the curls of disheveled chestnut locks that brushed against his forehead. He was coated in a layer of sweat, brought on by the nerves that threatened to shut his entire functioning system down and the unbearable hours of listening to his wife's anguished cries, but all Anthony felt in that very moment, was unnervingly cold.

Anthony's boots stormed up the staircase, clambering against each and every step, as if his feet were the source of the missing thunder from the swirling storming lingering in the midst of the last December night of the year. The journey was short as he soon met the second level in record time, but it felt as though he may never reach her as the corridors appeared long and the stairs taller than he'd ever thought them to be before. But as he soared down the last corridor on his way to the bedchamber he shared with the love of his life, he knew he was close as he caught sight of her lady maid and another member of the staff standing beside her.

Lingering just outside of the bedchamber, with it's large wooden door shut closed, but the thickest set of wood could never be enough to conceal the sound of her screams that penetrated the dense oak. For it shred through each splinter of finely designed wood and pierced through the keyhole, until it blasted into the hallway and echoed throughout the entire estate.

Anthony's footsteps slowed as he reached the door, running his clammy palm across his jawline as his boots began to pace furiously against the carpet, nearly burning a hole through the fabric in a single repetition of harsh steps. Men were not often in the bedchamber when the women were giving birth, whether it be they were simply waiting to discover they did in fact sire an heir for their estate as they drank in the drawing room below, or that they simply chose not to be witness to such a sight.

His father however, had been an exception to the tradition. He'd been there, right there in the bedchamber clutching tightly to Violet's squeezing hand, as she delivered each and every one of the Bridgerton children. And as Anthony continued to pace back and forth in front of the closed door, he felt rather foolish to wait a second longer as he felt the way his heart nearly hammered straight out of his chest. What good was he to his wife waiting for her out here? What good was he to his child, if he were not able to tell them that he was right there to witness them take their first breath? What good was Anthony to himself, if he were to look back upon this day and know that he'd spent it solitary as his wife suffered alone?

Breaking his roughly repetitive pace, Anthony dashed forwards towards the door and as his hand met the cool brass door handle, he heard his wife's lady maid call out in an urgent voice. "My Lord, you should not be in there!"

Anthony's hand did not retreat from the handle however, if anything, it tightened around the now warmed brass. But his head did swivel sharply to the right, catching sight of the dear maid that had always been good and sweet to his wife, and addressed her a clear tone. "My wife is having my bloody child, where else should I be?"

And with those words, Anthony pushed the doors open and barged into the bedchamber that echoed with his wife's pained voice. The room, shrouded in the burning low light of flickering candles, felt exceedingly large as Anthony stammered his way through the doorway in hurried steps. His boots hitting the carpet in anxious steps that nearly bounced off the tall ceiling, and it felt as though his eyes had to search through the bodies huddled around the bed, pressed against the far right wall. As the doctor sat at the very foot of it, while two nurses stood beside with supplies in hand as they hovered above the stripped mattress. For the bundle of warming wool blankets and silken ivory sheets were strewn across the room, as only the thin bedsheet remained snug around the mattress that shook with her cries.

The room smelled of lavender and Anthony swore he could nearly sense the salt of her tears penetrating the rather humid atmosphere, as he sauntered through the warm room and made his way around to the left side of the bedside.

It was then, that his glistening amber eyes fell upon the sight of her, propped up in the bed they shared each and every night. Her back supported by a mountain of pillows, as her knees were bent out in front of her, the fabric of her soft cotton nightgown cascading down her thighs. Her palms gripping harshly to the sides of the bed, her knuckles nearly turning white beneath the crushing pressure. And as Anthony grew closer, his fingertips grazing against the silk of the sheet, he saw that her eyes were scrunched so tightly that she surely hadn't realized his presence in the room. For it appeared as though they may never open she forced them together so harshly, a reddened hue exploding across her cheeks as her lips gritted through a scream that straggled its way up her throat, hitting the air in a sharp screech.

Anthony fell to his knees as he stared at her anguished face, reaching out and forcing her right hand to release the now crumpled edge of the sheets. Replacing it with the strength of his own palm, allowing her to squeeze his fingers as tightly as she desired, as painfully as she needed. He'd known his hands were sheen with a thin streak of anxious sweat, but hers were nearly burning with the extent of a heat that threatened to burn through the flesh of his palm. They were sticky with sweat and they clung to Anthony's as if his fingers were the only grounding presence she could find in that very moment.

Anthony's heart nearly lurched out of his chest, as it clambered harshly at the sight of his wife's exhausted and pained expression. The neckline of her soft cotton nightgown, made of thin white material, absorbed her sweat to the point where the collar nearly appeared sheer. Her tendrils, pulled back from face in a twisted bun at the base of her neck, slipped from it's confines as strands stuck to the sweat glistening in light droplets down her neck. Wispy strands sprawled across her temples, while her face shone with the slickening presence of her every flowing tears and the sheen of her sweat. They glinted across her skin simultaneously, until Anthony could hardly tell the difference between them. But as he watched his wife sink back into the pillows as a powerful exhale blew past her lips, and her scrunched tightly eyes begin to flicker open, it was then that he started to smile softly at the way she still looked remarkably beautiful.

For the candlelight that flickered as if the flame itself, swayed with the wind howling on the other side of the wall, captured the faintest streaks of gold that entwined itself through her thick tendrils. The softest glow of highlights that seemed to remain with each passing season, but only noticeable when light danced across it at just the right angle. And her skin, although shimmering with the moisture of fresh tears, glowed. It had since the day she found she was with child, a glow one couldn't replicate even if they tried. For it illuminated her entire face, even in the darkest shadows of the night, it appeared as if the glittering stars had lent her a little of their glow to take as her own.