Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Days had passed since they had traveled back to Stonehelm Hall. And to Gabriel’s obvious frustration, nothing much had changed.
Sibyl reverted to abandoning their mealtimes, and still he refused to force her to join him.
Although, as the days passed, she often found herself pausing outside the dining hall, considering going in.
If Gabriel ever heard her pausing outside, he did not call out to her.
She always ended up ordering her dinner to be sent up to her chambers.
Mercifully, that day Gabriel had been out since breakfast, and Sibyl had not needed to worry about avoiding him.
Instead, she had spent a glorious day walking around the lake with Rosie, humming some tunes to keep the little girl’s spirits high.
She had been crying less and less, and Sibyl could only hope that her daughter was finally settling into their new home.
She wished she could say the same, for her only obstacle to settling in was the master of the manor.
“How is she doing?” Hannah asked now.
Sibyl turned towards the nursery doorway, still holding a damp, cool cloth to Rosie’s head.
“She is still too hot,” she sighed. “I do not know what happened. We were having a lovely time at the lake, and she was happy, babbling away. She had not cried once, and then suddenly she started burning up. Her temperature has not gone down since, and no amount of cool compresses has helped.”
“That can happen with children, especially if she is adjusting to the colder countryside air after being in the city,” Hannah assured her.
Sibyl nodded, not entirely comforted, and rocked Rosie again.
Her mother had once told her that Alicia had been prone to fevers as a baby and that they used to simply wait for them to break.
But Sibyl didn’t want to ask her mother for advice now, and she hoped that Rosie’s fever would break before her mother would even have the chance to ride to Stonehelm Hall.
Lowering herself into the rocking chair, she kissed Rosie’s forehead. But as soon as she settled, Rosie started wailing. Her little body squirmed wildly, her eyes closing as tears streamed down her face.
“Oh no,” Sibyl cooed. “Oh, my sweet, poor baby. You must be in so much pain.”
Her heart aching miserably, she looked up at Hannah, panic rising in her chest. She needed to be better. She needed to be composed.
“Can you prepare another cool compress? This one has warmed a little too much, I think.”
Hannah was out of the room immediately.
Sibyl held her baby close. “I know it hurts,” she whispered. “I am sorry, I cannot take away the pain. I am right here, and I will stop at nothing to make you comfortable again.”
But Rosie’s cries only grew louder and more pained.
Sibyl struggled to keep her composure. She hated seeing her daughter hurting, and waiting to call for a physician felt unbearable, but she didn’t know when the right time was.
For a moment, she thought of the Duke’s age and how much younger his sister had looked in those portraits. That first night, when Rosie had cried terribly, he had been there in an instant, wanting to help. Would he know anything about a baby’s fever?
Sibyl gritted her teeth, telling herself that she did not need her husband’s help. That, if anything, his absence was better, in case he was angered by Rosie’s cries.
Still, her eyes kept drifting to the window, watching for the black horse the Duke had ridden away on that morning as though he couldn’t get away from the manor fast enough.
Hannah soon returned and pressed the fresh compress to Rosie’s forehead. Her own face was pinched with worry. She then offered a beaker of milk to Sibyl.
“I thought this might help,” she said. “It is only slightly warmed up.”
“Thank you.”
As Sibyl reached out, Rosie squirmed once more, her arms flailing out, and the beaker was knocked right out of Hannah’s hands. Sibyl cried out as it fell into her lap, milk spilling all over her gown.
She froze as her daughter’s cries grew shrill, her heart thundering in her ears.
“Let me take her, Your Grace,” Hannah urged, holding out her arms.
“No,” Sibyl insisted. “I can do this.”
“You can, but you may also take a moment to breathe and change your dress.”
“She has not even had her afternoon nap,” Sibyl bemoaned, looking down at her daughter in distress. “She gets fussier when she doesn’t have it.”
“We can try,” Hannah assured her. “We can call for more milk, and the compress will help cool—”
But Sibyl was already on her feet, shaking her head. “No, no, I cannot wait any longer. I wish to send for a physician. I cannot bear watching her cry out in pain.”
Hannah nodded. “Then I will send for one.”
She left the room quickly, and Sibyl held her daughter close once more, fighting her own tears of frustration. She felt so helpless.
“Please do not cry,” she whispered, stroking her baby’s damp wisps of hair. “I know it hurts, my sweet girl, but we shall see you through this. The physician will arrive soon.”
She tried to set Rosie down in her cot, hoping that the comfort of the mattress and blanket would soothe her into a sleep despite her fever, but Rosie just wailed harder.
Sibyl ended up pacing back and forth with her, rocking her gently and trying to keep her own head above the wave of panic.
Heavens, she wished she were not alone at that moment.
As soon as Gabriel arrived back home, he was hit with the sound of Rosie’s wails.
After the roar of the crowd at the King’s Hound, his ears had still not stopped ringing, and now he winced as her pained cries echoed through the manor.
He rushed upstairs, ignoring the ache in his body from the punches he had taken. He hadn’t needed to, but a part of him had needed to feel those blows to quiet his thoughts when his own fists had failed to do it.
It had all come to a head once more: his attraction to Sibyl, his need for her, tangled up with his wrath towards Edmund and the desire to exact revenge.
And then there was the confirmation of more planning permissions for the rehabilitation center in Italy, dredging up the grief that he worked so, so hard to bury.
But the boxing matches that day hadn’t been enough, and he was still too wired with everything he couldn’t think about. Still, he forced himself to relax right as he entered the nursery and found Sibyl’s eyes shimmering with tears as Rosie wailed in her arms.
“What happened?” he asked, striding further into the room.
“She has caught a fever,” Sibyl said, her voice thin. Her hands trembled as she held Rosie closer. “It—It will not break, and I sent for a physician, but he has not arrived yet, and I—” She heaved for breath. “I do not know what else to do.” Her voice cracked.
Gabriel found himself at her side in an instant, instinctively reaching for her to comfort her, but his hands curled into fists at the last moment.
“Let me take her from you,” he spoke over Rosie’s cries. “You are overwhelmed, and you look as though you have not rested. And…” He frowned, sniffing. “Is that milk I smell?”
At that, Sibyl gave a half-sob, half-laugh. But he could tell it was the laugh of a woman who didn’t know what else to do.
“She spilled milk on me earlier.” She glanced down at her damp skirts, which now clung to her thighs.
Gabriel held out his hands again. “Duchess, please,” he said. “Let me take her, even for five minutes. You can go change and collect yourself. You have done so much for her already, but you cannot go on if you do not take care of yourself, too.”
“But—”
“She will be fine with me for five minutes,” he assured her. “Besides, she is my stepdaughter. I ought to be more involved.”
Sibyl gave him a funny look, as though she doubted his motives.
Gabriel just gestured to the baby again. He could see how she struggled to hand over her daughter. Not from lack of trust—unlike in her first week here—but because she just couldn’t part with her while the baby was ill.
“You are a good mother,” he murmured, not sure if she needed to hear the affirmation in order to step out of the room for five minutes. “And she is in safe hands with me.”
Eventually, Sibyl slipped Rosie into his waiting arms.
Gabriel froze. Despite his assurances, he had underestimated the complexity of carrying a baby. He was certain he had held Letitia when she was a baby, but now he struggled to handle Rosie correctly.
It wasn’t that she was heavy, but more how her weight was distributed, and he couldn’t work out how to cradle her correctly.
“Heavens, you are hopeless.” Sibyl huffed a laugh. “Offering to do something, yet you do not know how to do it.”
“I know how,” he muttered defensively. “It has just… been a while.”
“If ever?”
He shot her a mock glare.
Sibyl gave him an amused look, and he found himself happy that she didn’t look so close to tears again.
“I will take her back,” she insisted, reaching out her hands, but Gabriel stepped away.
“No, no, let me figure it out.”
“She is not a puzzle.”
“And yet she confounds me like one.”
For a moment, their eyes held, and he found himself smiling, aware that she was too. He cast his mind back to when Letitia had been a baby.
Eventually, he realized how to crook his elbow just so for Rosie’s head to nestle in it. Her back was supported by his broad forearm and cushioned by his sleeve. He held her with both hands, making sure she was comfortable.
“How does it feel?” Sibyl asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
“It feels like I know why you have a backache,” he quipped.
“You… hone your body, yet you cannot hold a baby for a minute without complaining?” Her tone was teasing.
At that moment, he realized just how much he had wanted to hear it again.
Against all his instincts, Gabriel found himself chuckling. “Brandishing sparring swords, exercising, and boxing are rather different from carrying a squirming bundle.”
“Boxing?”
Gabriel paused, turning away from her. “From time to time. It is good for…” For chasing away thoughts of you. “It is good for me.”