How to Tame My Beastly Husband — Chapter 262. Childbirth (4)

Liza took off her gloves as she approached Raphael, wondering how he had entered until she spotted the doorknob gripped in his hand.

“I was about to call you,” she said, frowning. “But I see you’re impatient. Watch your hands at the basin and put on this robe. Newborns are very vulnerable to foreign contaminants.”

Like a frightened child, Raphael obeyed, and moved back to the bed with a stiff and brittle face, a moment from shattering in tears.

At last, he could see Annette. It was not the pale face he had seen in his nightmares; she was red with exertion and sweating, her eyes closed. Not dead, just exhausted.

“Annette…” His voice shook as he called her name.

“…Raphael?”

Slowly, her beautiful eyes opened, red with the strain and pain of childbirth. But unmistakably filled with life. Raphael fell to his knees.

“Annette…!” He gasped, grasping her hand, immeasurably reassured to feel its warmth. Before he could stop it, a large tear streaked over his cheek, and then something lodged in his throat and he couldn’t speak.

Annette’s eyes widened. This was a man who would rather bite off his tongue than show emotion in public, and it was shocking to see his face working like a small boy’s, fighting his tears.

“Were you very worried?” She asked with a smile.

It only made him cry harder. All the anxiety and fear he had buried for months was coming out at once. And Allamand Bavaria, looking on at his weeping son-in-law, would have felt contempt except for the way Raphael was gripping his daughter’s hand.

Perhaps it would have been a mistake, after all.

He remembered when he had told Annette to prepare for divorce, and the expression on her face, filled with determination to protect Raphael.

Children could only grow up when they left their parents’ arms. His daughter had become an adult.

“Oh, my goodness,” said the doctor, returning with the newborn baby to find Raphael breaking down.

Allamand was sympathetic. Liza was just waiting to show the baby to his parents, but suddenly Allamand was interested in his first grandchild.

“Let me see him,” he ordered.

“Of course,” said Liza, and promptly handed him the child.

Allamand had meant he wanted to look at the baby, not that he wanted to hold it in his arms. He had not even held his own children when they were babies; that was normal for a nobleman with many servants.

“Be careful with his head,” said Liza. “And don’t touch his face, you haven’t washed your hands.”

Allamand stiffened.

What a wrinkled, strange creature.

His first impression of his grandson was unfavorable. A very ugly thing, which looked as if it had been submerged in liquid for a long time and then squeezed out through a very narrow passage.