A shadow passed over her expression. “For many, they have been. We remain only by God’s grace… and perhaps by not drawing too much attention to ourselves.”
He gave the faintest huff of breath that might have been a laugh, had he possessed the strength.
“Fortunate,” he murmured.
“For now,” she said simply. Then, after a moment, “We have hope that our situation may improve.”
“Oh?” he asked. “How so?”
“There is a missionary expected,” she said. “Mr. Carey. He and his wife were delayed in their arrival, but we have been given reason to believe he will assist us.”
“Carey?” Frederick repeated. “I do not know the name.”
“Mr. William Carey,” she clarified. “He is connected to the Particular Baptist Society.”
Frederick raised a brow. “The… what?”
A faint smile touched her lips—small, but unmistakable.
“The Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen,” she said. “Though in India, no one has the time to say the whole of it—we are too busy.”
He gave a weak chuckle, which earned him a small smile.
The days passed in fragments.
He woke.
He slept.
Sometimes he was aware of voices, of movement, of the low murmur of prayers.
More often, it was her.
The girl.
She came when he was at his weakest—when the fever surged and his thoughts slipped away from him. She spoke little, if at all, but her presence was constant. The cloth, the broth, the steady care that asked nothing and expected nothing.
Once—only once—he thought he heard her humming, soft and low, as she worked.
Another time, he woke to find her dozing in the chair beside him, her head bowed, one hand still loosely wrapped around the edge of his blanket as though she had not meant to sleep at all.
But whenever he was fully awake—
She was gone.
And the nun took her place.
“Who is she?” he asked at last, one afternoon when the worst of the fever had passed and his thoughts came more clearly. “The young woman who has been attending me.”
Sister Mary Francis followed his gaze across the room, her expression changing. The girl was there, tending to a child—lifting it gently, murmuring something too soft to hear.
Her lips pressed together, just slightly. “You refer to Anya,” she said.
He inclined his head.
“She is… one of many,” the nun said, her tone measured. “The daughter of a man in service to the East India Company. A tradesman of some means.”
Frederick frowned. “Then why—?”
