Midnight Rain:

Chapter 35: News:

After the game, Evelina explored the grounds with Anthony. Evelina smiled as Anthony walked beside her, telling her stories from his childhood—stories about his father.

"Oh, how lovely... A willow tree." Evelina smiled, stopping when she saw the same willow tree with the wooden bench. "I saw one, not nearly this grand, back in France. It was so lovely." She smiled, walking toward the tree, but noticed that Anthony had stopped, staring toward the wooden bench. "My lord?" She asked when she watched him frown, clenching his jaws.

"We shall return inside." Anthony sighed, offering his hand to her to walk back inside.

Evelina took his hand and walked back to the house, but she kept glancing at the tree, wondering what made the viscount so distant at the sight of it.

Ten years earlier.

Anthony stood out in the hall, hearing the thunder crash outside the window. Violet's cries echoed through the house. Anthony looked to the side, seeing Daphne sighing to Eloise to comfort her.

"You cannot do this! You get him back in here now!" Violet yelled from her and Edmund's bedroom.

"My lord," the doctor said, making Anthony look away from his sisters. "You must come in," he told the boy, who had been trying to hold it together for weeks now.

"Me?" Anthony asked with widened eyes.

"It is imperative." The doctor said as Anthony glanced around the room, wishing his father was there to help him. But he nodded, following the doctor into the room where his mother was wailing out in pain. "All is well. Please. You must not be standing." The other doctor in the room told Violet, who was holding onto the column of the canopy bed.

"All is not well. I have done this seven times. I know what well is, and this is not well. He cannot do this." Violet cried out as she had been panting. "I will not allow it. You stop him." She said, looking over to her confused and worried son.

"The baby is not in position." The first doctor told Anthony, who looked at him, furrowing his brows.

"What does that mean?" 

"It's turned the wrong way. I need to know what you'd like us to do..." The doctor tried to explain, but Anthony's confusion grew.

"I don't know what you--"

"I'll do my best. But there may need to be a choice made. Who would your lordship prefer?"

"What?" Anthony asked, furrowing his brows in utter confusion.

"What are you saying to him?" Violet asked the doctor. "I told you, you may not speak to him. Speak to me! Ah!" Violet said, holding herself up on the bed, screaming out in pain.

"It is a conversation for his lordship." The doctor said to Violet, but he looked at Anthony.

"His lordship is a child! He's my child. He was born in this very room, from this very body. It is no matter to him." Violet tried to say, fighting back the pain.

"Let us speak in the hall." The doctor said as Anthony went to follow him.

"No, Anthony. Do not leave this room," Violet said, trying to hold onto the column so she could stand up.

"Mother, please. Lie down, still your mind. I will find out what he is asking of me and return immediately." Anthony said, walking over to reassure his mother.

"He is asking of you to decide which one of us should live. Me or the baby. You kill the baby. You save the mother. You cut the mother. You save the child... It is not your choice to make. It is mine." Violet said to her eldest child.