Both women, especially Betsy, looked reluctant to leave the baby. After a moment of hesitation, though, she began giving Constantine instructions for the medicine. Elara watched as he stared intensely at Betsy as she issued the orders, as if he was being told the most sacred secret.
After he listened, he repeated it back to her for confirmation. When Betsy was satisfied, she gave him a stiff nod, leaned down to place a kiss atop William’s head, and then she and the wet nurse left.
“Look,” Elara sighed, drawing her full attention to William. “He is already starting to calm down.”
Relief flooded through Elara as she saw such evidence. Heat still radiated from the baby, but William’s cries had quieted a little, and he was not squirming as much.
“That is because he is a strong lad,” Constantine replied, placing his large hand across William’s tummy. “Are you not, boy? Are you not my strong lad?”
As if William understood, he let out a cooing sound, followed by a sigh of relief as his tears finally stopped. Elara felt her heart swell and quiver upon seeing Constantine’s paternal nature shine through his usually gruff exterior, and again, she realized that her initial disdain for him was shifting into affection.
“Let us take him to your chambers,” Constantine suggested, looking from William to Elara. “It faces the east, so the air is cooler.”
Elara offered no questions or argument to Constantine’s suggestion. She was not sure whether what he said about the east and such was true, but she also did not quite care. She just wanted William to feel better.
The first night was long.
They took turns holding William, one resting in the chair by the fireplace while the other walked slow, steady circles around the room with the baby pressed against their chest. Constantine administered the willow bark at the intervals Betsy had instructed, with a concentration that Elara found both reassuring and quietly moving.
When it was Elara’s turn to rest, he took William from her arms without a word and waved her toward the chair. However, she did not sleep. She watched him instead, this man she had once been so certain she despised, pacing the room in his shirtsleeves with a feverish baby tucked against his shoulder, and she realized that her feelings had changed.
She loved them. Both of them. It had been growing for weeks, perhaps from the moment Constantine had fed her piece by piece at their wedding breakfast, perhaps from the first time William had curled his small fist around her finger. She had simply been too stubborn to accept it.
And in four days, Augustus will arrive, and it will all be over.
The fever broke on the morning of the second day.
“We did it,” Constantine whispered.
A weary smile drew across Elara’s face as she reached for the sleeping baby lying between them on her bed and softly caressed his cheek. It was nearing dawn, she suspected, but they had finally broken William’s fever, and now he was deep asleep, his soft little breaths making ‘ah’ sounds through his parted lips.
“We did indeed,” Elara whispered back, letting her head rest against the pillow.
Constantine followed suit, lying on the other side of the baby. Their eyes met, and Elara felt her heart swell.
“This was not what I had planned when I mentioned we should share a bed,” Constantine whispered, a handsome grin spreading across his lips.
Elara let out a soft giggle as she shook her head.
“Me neither,” she whispered, her gaze dipping back down to the sleeping baby. “But I must admit I still quite like it.”
She put her hand gently on William’s stomach, feeling his deep, even breaths move in and out. Then Constantine’s hand so very gently caressed the top of hers, and she looked back up at him. The look of fondness in his green eyes was so evident that itmade a lump of emotion appear in her throat.
“As do I,” he whispered, then leaned forward. Elara met him halfway, their upper bodies hovering above William so their lips could meet. Constantine’s kiss was slow and full of affection; the sweetness of it made her sigh softly when they parted.
“He is safe now,” Constantine whispered, settling back down into his pillow. “Thank you.”
Elara looked across at him. “For what?”
“For not leaving him with the nanny,” he said simply. “For staying.”
Elara felt the lump rise in her throat before she could stop it, and she pressed her lips together and looked back down at William so Constantine would not see.
“I could not have done otherwise,” she said, when she trusted her voice again. “He is mine. For now, at least.”
“He is not going anywhere. You should get some rest while he sleeps. We both should.”
Feeling the excitement, pleasure, fear, and overall exhaustion of the last two days pulling her back down to her own pillow, Elara only nodded in agreement as she closed her eyes.
