“Thank you,” she said.
Felix wanted to take her in his arms right then, to kiss her until the windows steamed over. But he had a performance to stage, and she deserved better than a scandal in a dressmaker’s shop.
Instead, he leaned in, close enough that his breath stirred the curls at her temple. “You are going to be a dangerous distraction, Rose. Try to remember that I’m the only one here who’s supposed to be on your side.”
She half-turned, startled, and nearly toppled from the dais. Felix caught her, steadying her waist with strong hands. The heat of her skin burned through the fabric.
He held her just a second too long.
The staff returned, arms loaded with boxes and wrappings and no small measure of delighted giggling. Felix escorted Rose to the sitting room at the front, where a waiting tea service had been laid out for two. He poured her a cup, watching as she fought to keep the gloves free of jam and biscuit crumbs.
There was a childlike pleasure in it, and for a moment Felix wondered what sort of childhood she’d actually had.
Had anyone ever given her a present just because it would make her happy? Had anyone ever told her she looked beautiful, without expecting to own her afterwards?
He meant to ask, but the words would not form.
“Tomorrow is the baptism. The whole city will be there. I’ll wager a year’s rent that Lady Rutledge tries to upstage us.”
Rose sipped her tea. “She will be impossible to avoid. Even my mother expects her to make trouble.”
Felix smiled. “I look forward to it.”
She looked up, the intensity of her gaze pinning him to the chair. “You really don’t care what they say about you, do you?”
He shrugged. “I’ve heard worse. And if I haven’t, I intend to.” She laughed, the sound unguarded, and he realized this was the first time he’d heard her truly laugh.
He leaned in, his tone dropping. “You must know, Rose, that there’s nothing they could say to make me regret this.”
Rose looked at him, the question plain. “Will it always be like this?”
He shrugged, then grinned. “With you? I certainly hope so.”
She laughed again, and the air between them shifted—charged, expectant.
Felix finished his tea, offered her his arm, and together they stepped out into London’s soft sunlight.
CHAPTER 11
“Fetch the doctor. Now. And bring towels. Warm ones,” Rose’s voice cut through the nursery like a bell, startling both maids to motion.
The first dashed out, skirts lifted indecorously, while the other hovered with the stunned intensity of a rabbit cornered by hounds.
In the cradle, Lizzie wailed, every note scraped raw with distress. Her face, normally the color of cream, had gone violently pink. The breath that shivered from her lungs steamed in the chill morning air. Her whimper was not the healthy, complaining cry of an infant refusing to sleep; it was thinner, desperate, edged with a hoarseness Rose had never heard from her before.
She bent over the cradle, heart stumbling in her chest. “Darling, darling,” she whispered, stroking the baby’s hair. She pressed her palm to the child’s forehead; it was too hot to bear.
She turned to the second maid, who lurked at the door. “Go! Tell Mrs. Durham to fill the copper bath, not too hot, and to bring the fever powders if she has them.”
The maid fled.
Left alone, Rose scooped the screaming child into her arms, cradling her close despite the inferno radiating through the layers of muslin and flannel. The baby’s skin was damp, hair plastered to her skull, the usually contented green eyes now wild and unfocused.
For one paralyzing instant, Rose’s mind blanked to nothing but white fear. She had never seen a child so sick, had never been the one responsible for its survival.
She pressed Lizzie tighter, rocking at a rhythm she hoped would trick the body into peace. The baby’s cries only grew more ragged.
The door burst open, and Mrs. Durham entered, flushed and breathless, bearing a chipped blue bowl full of tepid water and a hunk of coarse linen. “The physician’s been sent for. But it may be hours before he arrives.”
