“And now?”
“Her breathing is still faster than it should be, but less shallow.”
He nodded.
He examined the baby with careful thoroughness, listening and asking Isadora questions that she answered as accurately as she could while swaying gently.
James had not moved from the wall. She could feel him watching her, but she did not look at him.
“Well,” the physician said at last, straightening.
The room held its breath.
“It is a respiratory illness.” He addressed Isadora first, then turned to include James. “Not uncommon in children of this age, particularly in the summer months. ” He paused. “Her lungs are inflamed. It is not dangerous at present, provided the conditions that are aggravating it are addressed.”
“What conditions?” James asked, pushing off the wall.
The physician looked at him. “Unclean air. Distress. Instability. Changes to routine. Babies are extremely sensitive to their environment, Your Grace. When they become upset, their airways tighten. When their airways tighten, they become more upset.” He paused. “The cycle is the problem. Breaking it requires consistency and care from familiar people who are always present.” He looked at James steadily. “What this child needs, more than any medicine I can offer, is a household that does not change from one day to the next.”
James looked at Violet. “Will she recover?” he asked.
“In a healthy environment, yes. Fully.” The physician’s voice was level, honest. “Otherwise, if she remains in a state of constant anxiety and disruption, the illness might worsen. Babies are fragile and need all their energy to grow.” He paused. “I do not say this to alarm you. I say it so that you understand what the household needs to prioritize.”
“Understood,” James said.
The physician gave his instructions on care, herbal preparations, and poultices to the nurse and then withdrew with the quietness with which he had arrived.
The room fell silent.
Violet was asleep.
Isadora stood very still. She looked down at the baby against her chest. At the dark lashes and the flushed cheek and the small hand that had not fully released its grip on her gown even in sleep, curled loosely against the fabric as though unwilling to let go entirely.
Care from familiar people who are always present.
She knew what it meant. She had known it before the physician said it. Had known it on some level she had been refusing to think about because the examination led somewhere she was not ready to go. But now, standing here with Violet asleep against her chest and the physician’s words still ringing in her head, she could not ignore it.
If she left Ashbourne now—if she returned to Blackmoor, if she put distance between her and this house and this child and the situation she had been telling herself for four days was not her responsibility—Violet would know it. Would feel it in the absence of something that had been present and was now gone.
The nurse had settled in her chair by the door. Cecily was watching her from across the room.
James was still there, standing a few feet away, watching Violet with the same expression he had been wearing all evening. He looked up and found Isadora’s eyes. She held his gaze for a moment, then looked back down at Violet.
She thought about quiet days at Ashbourne and a man who had told her plainly he was not capable of love and then stood in a nursery against the wall for thirty minutes, unable to leave a baby he had just met because the thought of something happening to her had rendered him entirely unable to not care. She thought about what it would mean to leave.
She looked at James.
“When the nurse has rested,” she said quietly, “I will take the morning shift.”
Something flashed across his face.
“Isadora—”
“She needs consistency.” She kept her voice even. The voice of a woman making a sensible decision for sensible reasons. “I am here. She knows me. It makes sense.”
James looked at her for a long moment. Then, more quietly than she had expected, he said, “Thank you.”
She nodded once and looked back down at the baby.
