“Lad.” His voice had gentled to that particular tone he used only with Henry—warm and steady and infinitely patient. “You’re giving your mama quite a fright, you know. That’s very poor form.”
Henry’s eyes fluttered open, glassy and unfocused. “Papa?”
The word was barely audible, slurred with fever and exhaustion. But clear enough.
“Yes.” Tobias pressed his lips to the boy’s burning forehead. “Papa’s here. And you’re going to be just fine.”
Amelia watched through blurring vision as Tobias carried Henry to the bed, settling him against the pillows with infinite care. His large hands—hands she’d seen handle cards with careless expertise, hands that had caught her when she’d stumbled, hands that had almost cupped her face that night in thedrawing room—now moved with heartbreaking tenderness as he arranged the coverlet and smoothed dark curls back from Henry’s flushed face.
“Fresh cloths,” he said quietly. “Show me what to do.”
She demonstrated, through the fog of exhaustion, how to wring out the excess water and where to place it for maximum effect. Tobias watched with absolute concentration, then took over with steady competence.
Mrs. Boldwood returned with a laden tray. Amelia couldn’t face food, but Tobias pressed a cup of tea into her shaking hands.
“Drink,” he ordered. “You’re no use to him if you collapse.”
She wanted to argue. Couldn’t find the energy. The tea was over-sweetened—Mrs. Boldwood’s remedy for shock—but she drank it obediently whilst Tobias maintained his vigil beside Henry’s bed.
The night stretched on.
They took turns applying fresh cloths, administering the herbal draught, trying without success to coax barley water past Henry’s fever-cracked lips. The storm outside had intensified—rain lashing the windows like accusations, wind howling through the eaves with voices that sounded almost human.
Amelia found herself watching Tobias as much as she watched Henry. The careful way he lifted the boy when restlessness made him thrash. The low humming that emerged when her own voice finally gave out—some wordless melody that seemed to soothe even when nothing else could. The absolute refusal to leave, despite the lateness of the hour, despite propriety shrieking that an unmarried man had no business spending the night in a widow’s household.
None of it mattered. The rules and conventions that governed society felt absurd here in this room where a child fought fever and two adults fought terror in equal measure.
“Tell me about your mother.”
Tobias’s voice startled her from a half-doze. She’d been slumped in the chair beside Henry’s bed, watching the too-rapid flutter of his pulse at his throat.
“My mother?”
“You mentioned her earlier. When you were frightened.” He didn’t look up from where he was wringing out another cloth. “Said she was fine one day and gone the next.”
Amelia’s throat tightened. “Childbirth. She died bringing me into the world. My father said her body simply... gave up. That some women aren’t made for it.”
“Were you not terrified?”
She looked up at him quickly, and he tilted his head in an almost curious manner. “When you expected Henry. Did it not frighten you? The thought that you might have to face the very same?”
“Terrified doesn’t begin to cover it.” The words emerged barely above a whisper. “Every day of my pregnancy, I waited for my body to fail. For the physicians to tell me I wouldn’t survive. When Henry was born and I lived—” Her voice broke. “It felt like a miracle. Like I’d been granted something I didn’t deserve.”
Tobias’s hands stilled. He looked at her fully, and the expression in his grey eyes made her chest constrict.
“Did Edward know?”
She nodded slowly. “I told him. Sought… comfort from him. When I first realized I was with child. But he said dwelling on morbid possibilities was unseemly. That I should focus on producing a healthy heir rather than indulging in feminine hysterics.”
“Of course he did.” The words were quiet. Bitter. “My brother was exceptionally talented at dismissing anything that required actual feeling.”
Before she could respond, Henry stirred with a soft whimper. They both moved simultaneouslt, her hand found his forehead while Tobias lifted him into a sitting position. The fever still burned, relentless and cruel.
“It’s all right, darling.” She stroked his hair with fingers that trembled despite her best efforts. “Mama’s here. Papa’s here. We’ve got you.”
Henry’s eyes opened fractionally. He looked at her, then at Tobias, then back again. His small hand reached out, grasping weakly at Tobias’s shirt.
“Don’t go,” he whispered. “Stay.”
