The sun was a pale-yellow suggestion along the east windows, not yet enough to warm the old bones of Carden House.
Even from this vantage, he could see how Rose’s arms encircled Lizzie. It wasn’t just a cradle, but a fortress, a promise, the child wrapped so tight against her chest that not even air dared come between them.
He took in every detail: the fever sweat standing in beads on the baby’s brow, the exhausted damp at Rose’s temples. She moved with a certainty he had never seen in her before, rocking in the high-backed chair, one foot tapping out a pulse on the nursery rug, humming a tune that did not quite settle into any melody.
Lizzie’s tiny hands flailed, then relaxed, flailed again, then stilled. Rose never lost rhythm. She simply absorbed the panic and pressed it out as warmth, as if the very act of holding could will the fever away.
The knowledge landed on him heavy and sour: This is what a mother should be. This is what home should feel like.
He recoiled from the thought.
Weakness, he told himself.Sentiment.The traitor of all men.
The old duke had taught him early that affection was a leash, nothing more. He remembered his own mother pacing these same halls, trailing the scent of cold roses and gin, her smile a brittle thread pulled too tight. He remembered how the nursery had felt chilly even when the fire blazed, how his own childhood nurse had been dismissed for holding him ‘too often.’
If this was what a home felt like, it was a lie. Some beautiful, impossible thing doomed to fall apart the moment you reach for it.
Still, he found himself standing there, his hand braced on the doorframe, unable to turn away.
He told himself he was only waiting for a moment when he might be useful. That it was practical to observe, to learn the signs in case the fever returned, or in case Rose herself collapsed from exhaustion. But this, too, was a lie. He was waiting becausesome part of him wanted this scene branded into memory: Rose in the chair, Lizzie safe, the rest of the house held at bay.
What would it be like to have this every day? To walk through these halls and hear laughter echo from room to room instead of the measured footfalls of servants or the brittle laughter of society’s wolves? The thought made him dizzy and furious.
He would not be that man. He would not become his father, who mistook conquest for care and considered children mere investments. He would not become his mother, frozen by the weight of her own disappointment.
He would not, could not, believe that home could be anything but a series of transactions.
The sound of the chair creaking as Rose shifted snapped him back. She glanced up, and for a heartbeat, he thought she had seen him. She did not call out. Instead, she looked down at Lizzie and pressed her lips to the child’s forehead, murmuring something too soft to carry.
Felix let his hand drop from the door. He flexed his fingers, finding them cold. He knew, with the fatal clarity of his own design, that if he ever let himself want this, he would break it beyond all repair.
He straightened his cuffs and made himself walk the length of the corridor. Each step was a little easier than the last.
By the time he reached his study, the door closing behind him with a decisive click, he had almost convinced himself he had not lingered at all. But the image of them burned behind his eyelids, impossible to banish.
He poured himself two fingers of whiskey and did not sit.
Felix did not intend to return to the nursery. He told himself Rose was perfectly capable, and there was nothing he could offer but interference. Yet the next time he looked up from his desk, having accomplished nothing but to scrawl three versions of the same letter and discard them, he found himself already halfway up the stairs.
The nursery door was not closed. He hovered, then knocked.
Rose’s voice, soft as last night’s dream. “Come in, Your Grace.”
He entered. She was still in the armchair, swaddled in a shawl, Lizzie wrapped against her chest, only the baby’s downy hair and one pink ear visible.
Felix stood there, awkwardly. He tried to find something to say that might not sound foolish. “I can have a cot brought in, if you prefer,” he whispered.
“No. She will not settle in the cradle, not after last night. And I don’t mind sitting up. I slept less at the convent.”
He nodded. She busied herself tucking the blanket around Lizzie’s feet, then ran her finger along the baby’s cheek with the gravity of a priest making the sign of the cross.
For a long time, there was only the small sound of Lizzie’s breath, still too rapid, but deeper now. Rose watched the pulse flutter at the base of the baby’s neck, each beat like the ticking of some terribly important clock.
Felix crossed to the hearth, knelt, and poked at the coals until a small, reluctant flame sparked and flared. Then he turned to Rose.
“She’s through the worst of it?” he asked, low.
“She’s cooler. I think she’s safe for now.”
