Rose nodded. “Give me the cloth.”
Mrs. Durham tried to take the baby; arms outstretched. “Let me help, Your Grace?—”
“No,” Rose said. “I must do this myself. She needs me.”
The nurse withdrew and set the bowl down on the chest of drawers as Rose lay Lizzie out on the changing table, stripping the sweat-soaked nightgown from her body with trembling fingers. Her little belly, round and pale in the firelight, heaved with each breath.
Rose checked for the faint, purplish bruises that Sister Miriam had once warned signaled disaster. There were none.
She dipped the linen in the water, wrung it out, and began dabbing the baby’s face, neck, wrists, and ankles. “Easy, darling, easy. Just a bit of cool water, you see?”
Her hands moved with purpose, though inside she was unraveling.
As Rose worked, the baby’s shrieking began to slow, replaced by hiccupping, open-mouthed sobs. The heat was not lessening, but Lizzie’s strength was failing, the angry kicks giving way to limp shudders.
She gathered the child against her shoulder, rubbing slow circles along the spine.
“What if…” she muttered.
“We do what we can until the doctor comes. That’s all.” Mrs. Durham’s voice was grim, but kind behind her.
Rose set her jaw. “Prepare the bath. Now, please.”
The nurse and the staff worked together, lugging the copper basin from the night nursery into the bedroom properly and filling it with buckets of water, half cool from the outside pump, half boiled over the kitchen fire. Steam haloed from the surface.
Rose checked the temperature with her elbow, a habit borrowed from the nuns, and nodded when it was neither scalding nor chill. Then, she carried Lizzie to the bath, one arm cradling the head, the other gripping the legs so tightly her own knuckles blanched.
The maids hovered, uncertain if they should help, but Rose shooed them back. “I have it. Just stay nearby. Please.”
Lizzie let out a wavering, plaintive sound as Rose eased her into the water. The contrast of hot skin against tepid liquid made the child arch her back and yelp, but Rose kept murmuring, “Hush, dear, hush now. I’m here.”
She let her free hand dip the cloth into the water, wringing it out and trailing it along the baby’s body, careful as if polishing glass. Lizzie’s wails softened with each pass, growing smaller and smaller until they were little more than whimpers.
Rose sang, low and unsteady—not a proper song but the old tune Julia had hummed while sewing, a refrain that wound itself around the words, “you are loved, you are loved, you are safe.”
Rose did not remember ever being sung to herself, but the words came anyway, stubborn as weeds through stone.
The baby stared up at her with enormous, liquid eyes, glazed and so heartbreakingly vulnerable that Rose could barely meet them. She kept singing, voice trembling but determined, and the nursery fell into a hush that felt sacred.
The water cooled, and Mrs. Durham stepped forward, holding a towel. “If you wish, Your Grace?—”
“I can do it,” she said as she lifted the child from the basin, wrapping her instantly in the towel and cradling her close.
The baby shivered, but then, blessedly, went limp, her breath easing into the slow, regular pattern of deep exhaustion.
Rose exhaled, realizing only then that she’d not truly breathed since the moment she entered the room.
She pressed her lips to the baby’s head. “You are safe. You are safe. I have you.”
Lizzie blinked once, and in that moment, Rose felt the connection, an invisible thread, drawn tight and sure as any vow. She had never understood what it was to love something so fiercely, so completely, until now.
She sat by the hearth, rocking Lizzie, letting the towel soak up the water and the baby’s own trembling sweat. Themaids hovered at a respectful distance. Mrs. Durham brewed chamomile and brought it to Rose, but she did not touch it. Her entire body was focused on the small bundle in her arms.
The doctor would come, and the fever would break, or it would not. There was nothing left to do but wait and hold on.
Rose kept singing, softer now, until her voice was nearly lost in the hush of the nursery. She rocked and rocked, never letting go.
Felix watched them through the open crack of the nursery door, unseen and, he hoped, unneeded.
