He reached Emmeline’s chamber before the physician had finished climbing the stairs. Emmeline lay propped against the pillows, pale and exhausted, but awake. Her eyes found him at once, and whatever remained of his anger collapsed beneath the fragile relief in her face.
“You frightened us,” he said, because he could not yet say what nearly tore out of him.
“I did not mean to,” she whispered.
Arbuthnot entered, black bag in hand. “Your Grace, if I may examine Her Grace?”
Rowan moved to step back, but Emmeline’s fingers caught his sleeve. The touch was weak, small, and yet it gave him everything.
“Stay,” she whispered.
Rowan looked down at her hand, then at her face.
“I am here,” he said, and sat beside her while the physician came forward. “I am not leaving.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Her Grace is with child.”
For one suspended moment, Emmeline did not understand the words.
She stared at Dr. Arbuthnot, at his kind, lined face and the black bag set neatly beside his chair, and waited for him to correct himself.
Surely, he would smile, clear his throat, and say he had meant something else entirely.
Beside her, Rowan went utterly still.
“With… child?” Emmeline repeated, and her voice sounded too delicate, as though it belonged to some other woman lying in her bed, pale and weak and foolish enough not to know the shape of her own body.
Dr. Arbuthnot inclined his head. “Yes, Your Grace. It would explain the faintness, the sickness, the distaste for certain foods, and the fatigue. Early months can be trying, but none of what you have described is uncommon.”
A child.
The word bloomed inside her with such force that fear followed immediately after, swift and cold. Her hand moved to her stomach before she could stop it, fingers pressing lightly over the place that had seemed only hollow and unsettled for days.
“I did not know,” she whispered. “I did not realize I had… I had missed my courses.”
Her cheeks burned. She looked to the physician almost helplessly, searching his face for some sign that her ignorance had already harmed what was inside her.
Dr. Arbuthnot’s expression softened. “It happens more often than ladies imagine, particularly when there has been stress, travel, changes in household, or emotional distress. You must not torment yourself. The sickness may be eased with rest, light meals, ginger if you can tolerate it, and fresh air when you feel strong enough. I shall send a tonic as well, though not too strong. We do not wish to bully the body when it is already doing a great deal of work.”
Emmeline tried to nod.
Rowan’s child.
The thought sent a strange, helpless warmth through the terror. She felt his body beside hers, and fear struck again. He had lost one wife, and the shadow of it had shaped his whole life after. Catherine’s suffering, her illness and death. Aaron’s fear. Rowan’s terror turned into control.
He would hate this.
No. Not hate the child. She did not think that. But he would fear it. He would fear her and the risk of loss before it had even come near them.
The physician rose. “I shall call again tomorrow, Your Grace. For now, she must rest. No agitation, no long walks, and certainly no more arguments, if such things can be avoided.”
Rowan’s mouth tightened. “They will be avoided.”
The physician gave him a look over the rim of his spectacles, one that suggested he had attended enough noble households to know better than to trust a husband’s certainty. “See that they are.”
Emmeline almost laughed, but it came out as a weak breath instead.
