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“I’ll send for Ortolon,” Darby snapped, swinging his legs out of bed.

Henrietta tried to grab his arm. “No, Simon, I want to wait. I barely felt anything at all. It was a mere twinge.”

“Nonsense.”

It turned out there was nothing Ortolon could do. In fact, he was wildly ineffective from Darby’s point of view, only saying a few nonsensical things about how well things were going and heading back to his club.

Darby followed him to the door and took his arm in an ungentle grip. “I shouldn’t drink anything at your club, Ortolon.” He didn’t care how rude he was being. He had half a mind not to let the physician leave the house at all. 344 Eloisa

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Ortolon shook him off, and barked, “Pull yourself together!” and left. Henrietta went back to bed. The pains didn’t seem to bother her much.

“You know, Simon,” she finally said rather sleepily, “I am used to living with a certain degree of discomfort.” And to his utter shock, she fell asleep again.

He lay on his side, watching her face. She wasn’t all that beautiful. She didn’t have a classically beautiful Roman nose. But every pulse in his body was tied to hers: to her blunt little English nose, and to those blue eyes that couldn’t hide a thought.

Every once in a while she frowned, and discomfort shot across her face. In the middle of the night, she woke and said his name, groggily.

“I’m here.”

“What on earth are you doing awake?”

“Thinking about the poem you used in that absurd love letter.”

“The John Donne poem,” she said, smiling up at him.

“How could I forget the poem I used to trap you into marriage?” She squeezed his hand rather hard. “Goodness, that seems to be—oh, it’s gone.”

“I’ll send for Ortolon.”

“There’s nothing he can do, Simon. We simply have to wait. Why are you thinking about the Donne poem?”

“Just remembering it. Sweetest love, I do not go, for weari-ness of thee,” Darby said, gathering her close. “You see, the poet is afraid because he has to leave his beloved: When thousigh’st, thou sigh’st not wind, but sigh’st my soul away. Because if something should happen to her, his soul is in her keeping.”

Henrietta blinked. “Nothing is going to happen to me!

Haven’t you been listening to Ortolon all these months?”

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Darby ignored her. “He says, Thou art the best of me. And that’s true. Thou art the best of me.”

“I thought I wrote the love letters in this family,” Henrietta whispered, turning her face up to his.

His mouth touched hers. “He tells his lover to pretend that the time they spent apart is just a long sleep. Oh God, Henrietta, if anything happens to you, my life would be nothing more than a sleep.”

“Sleep? You look awful, Darby!” She peered at him.

“Haven’t you slept?”

He ran a hand through hair that was already on end. “No.”

“Why not?” She winced and clutched his hand again. “My goodness. These pains are getting stronger. Why didn’t you sleep?”

He said it into her hair. “If I sleep, I might miss an hour or two with you. And—” he couldn’t finish.