“I am here,” he said, and the words felt useless—obscene in their smallness. “You are in your chamber. You fainted.”
“I…” Her face twisted suddenly. “Rowan.”
He understood a heartbeat before she turned.
He caught the basin from the washstand and brought it to her just as she retched. The sound tore through him. He moved without thought, one hand gathering her hair back from her face, the other steadying her shoulder as her whole body trembled with the violence of it.
“It is all right,” he murmured, though nothing felt all right. “Easy. I have you.”
She vomited again, weakly this time, and the humiliation in the small, broken sound she made afterward struck him nearly as hard as the fear.
“Do not,” he said, as though she had spoken. “Do not be ashamed.”
Her fingers curled in the counterpane. She looked too fragile there, all soft, night-pale skin and trembling lashes, and the sight of it did something terrible to his chest. This was the woman he had left in tears. This was his wife, sick and shaking beneath his hand, and all his clever walls had become useless things.
A maid rushed in with Juliet close behind her.
“Cool water,” Rowan said without looking away from Emmeline. “Cloths. Send another servant for Arbuthnot. If he is not at home, wake every physician within three streets until one comes.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Juliet stood frozen at the foot of the bed, her face white. Behind her, Aaron appeared in the doorway, barefoot now, his little face ravaged with terror.
“Is she dying?” he asked.
Emmeline’s eyes closed as though the words hurt her.
“No,” Rowan said at once, too sharply, because the word dying had struck through him like a musket ball. He softened his voice with effort. “No, Aaron. She is unwell. That is all.”
Aaron did not move. “But Mama was unwell too.”
Juliet made a small, wounded sound and moved quickly to him, kneeling before him. “Come with me, darling.”
“I want to stay.”
“I know,” Juliet whispered, cupping his cheek. “But your father must help her now, and we shall only be just outside. We willwait together. You may bring Biscuit, and he may be very brave with us.”
Aaron looked past her to the bed, his eyes shining. “Will she know I am waiting?”
Rowan swallowed against something vicious in his throat. “Yes.”
Emmeline’s fingers moved faintly against the counterpane. Aaron saw it and began to cry silently.
Thankfully, Juliet drew him away before Rowan could break entirely from the sight.
For the next hours, time narrowed to the heat of Emmeline’s skin beneath his palm and the soft, damp weight of cloths he changed again and again. She drifted in and out of awareness, sometimes whispering his name, sometimes turning her face away as though even in illness she remembered there was hurt between them.
Each time she shifted, he felt it like judgment.
He rubbed slow circles between her shoulders when nausea took her again. He held water to her lips when she could bear it. He sat beside her and watched her chest rise and fall, hoping, praying to whoever might hear him, that she would get better.
Once, her hand found his wrist.
It was only a weak touch, fingers closing around him as if seeking anchor. His body reacted so violently that he had to bow his head and close his eyes.
He remembered those fingers clutching his shoulders in the dark, her breath breaking against his mouth, her body arching beneath his with trust so complete it had frightened him even then.
He had thought desire was the dangerous thing. He had thought wanting her body was the surrender.
