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Her eyes widen. “Is there summat wrong?”
“I have no cause for concern, but I would still like to check. It is better to be safe.”
I catch her wrist before she can work herself into a fit of worry, resting my thumb against a pulse that is rather quicker and weaker than I would like. After several days of bringing up almost everything she eats, however, I can hardly expect otherwise. Her skin is warm without the dry heat of fever, and there is still enough colour at the base of her nails to reassure me.
“Loosen your dress for me,” I say, letting go of her wrist.
Nell pulls the ties free while Ophelia asks the little boy some grave question about the wooden horse clutched in his fist.
I place my hand low against Nell’s belly, feeling for the firm curve of her womb where it rises out of the pelvis. I follow its shape carefully with my fingers, keeping my attention on her face rather than what my hand is doing.
“Does this hurt?”
“No.”
I press a little farther to the left. “And there?”
“No.”
“That is excellent news.” I ease my hand away and draw the linen back into place over her stomach. “Ophelia Harrow, pass me the ginger from your basket.”
When no ginger comes, I look towards the hearth, where the little boy is busy thumping Ophelia’s knee with his wooden horse, apparently determined to get her attention. She pays him no mind, sitting with her arms wrapped tightly around herself despite the fire burning at her feet, her gaze fixed on the flames.
And she is shaking.
“The ginger,” she murmurs eventually. “Yes.”
She leans towards the basket at her feet, but her fingers close on empty air, trembling violently before falling back into her lap. My gaze darts over her face, taking in the deep flush across her cheeks and the way her cracked lips part with each hurried breath.
I ease the little boy back towards Nell before crouching in front of Ophelia and taking her trembling hands in mine. The heat of her skin scalds through my gloves, and I wince.
“Mrs Mercer,” I say, keeping my voice level. “We are going to have to leave.”
Nell looks between us. “Is she all right?”
I release one of Ophelia’s hands to retrieve my satchel, slinging it over my shoulder before gathering her into my arms.
This is not right.
She ought to be fighting me, threatening to make poultry feed of my remains for daring to carry her about again. Instead, she lies limp in my arms, without so much as a murmur of protest, and I tighten my hold on her as I turn towards the door.
I have seen this progression too many times to mistake it for exhaustion.
Ophelia Harrow is dying.
21
OPHELIA
Ihave known better mornings.
The sheets are wet beneath me, my shift plastered to my stomach and back, soaked through with sweat, and I’m burning so fiercely that even my teeth ache inside my skull.
Yesterday is a blur of tilting floors and snow. I remember sitting beside Nell’s hearth, shivering uncontrollably, and Iscairn lifting me into his arms, but how I ended up upstairs stripped to my shift is beyond me. Now it’s morning, and I haven’t so much as set a foot on the floorboards.
Oh, this is bloody awful. There are dressings to change at the tanner’s, and Old Man Garrow is still waiting for the tonic I promised him yesterday. Instead, I’m lying here while Iscairn takes on the whole miserable parish by himself, and I cannot even muster the strength to get out of bed and help him.
Another slow pulse of pain spreads through my groin, and in the fog of fever my hand drifts towards it. My fingers slip beneath the blankets and follow the inside of my thigh until they find the swelling tucked high in the crease by the patch of hair.
