Chapter 25
25
Constantine jolted awake. A baby cried. He blinked, disoriented, before realizing Modesty was no longer beside him. The sheets on her side were cold.
He stood, grabbing his dressing gown.
Augustus. Something was wrong.
The chill night air nipped at his bare chest and shins as he hurried towards the nursery. He’d just made love to Modesty and usually slept naked after.
When he pushed open the door, the sight before him made his heart clench. Modesty paced the room, cradling Augustus against her chest. “Shh, my darling. It’s all right.”
The baby’s cries were weak and pitiful.
Constantine moved to stand by her side, looking at Augustus’s flushed face. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s burning up. I can’t get him to settle.”
He laid a hand on Augustus’s forehead. The skin was far too hot for comfort. “He needs a doctor.”
“I’ve already sent for one.”
Constantine nodded, his mind racing. “We need to cool him down. I’ll fetch some water and cloths.”
“Mrs. Walcott is fetching them.”
“Well, it’s taking too long.”
He hurried down to the servants’ quarters and found the astonished Mrs. Higgs and Mrs. Walcott, who was preparing the linens, dark circles under her eyes. Feeling pity for the woman, he told her to stay and take a break. He asked for the supplies, and Mrs. Higgs helped him carry them back upstairs.
Returning to the nursery, he found Modesty rocking the feverish Augustus, shushing softly.
Mrs. Higgsset the basin of water on the chest of drawers.“Ah, poor child.”
Constantine went to stand by Modesty’s side. “Let me take him. You should rest a little.”
Gently, he lifted Augustus from her arms. The baby whimpered, his little body still radiating heat. Constantine’s chest tightened with worry.
“Shall I fetch Mrs. Walcott?” asked Mrs. Higgs.
With his free hand, Constantine dipped the cloth into the cool water. “No. In fact, please make sure she gets some sleep. We’ll require her in the morning when we surely will need a rest. She must be exhausted.We’ll take turns, wiping him with cool cloths, try to bring the fever down.”
Singing old lullabies he barely remembered, Constantine cradled Augustus against his chest. He paced the nursery, his bare feet silent on the carpet, willing the fever to break.
This child, so small and vulnerable, was the biggest threat to his station. By all logic, he should resent this innocent babe, fear him even. Yet, as Augustus’s tiny fist curled around Constantine’s finger, the thought of any harm coming to the babe was unbearable. When had it happened? When had this little one wormed his way so deeply into Constantine’s heart?
His gaze drifted to Modesty, her brow furrowed with concern as she prepared a cool compress. She was the piece he never knew was missing. For her, he wanted to be better, to be worthy of the love she offered so freely.
Soon, the physician came and suggested it was fever and the inflammation of the throat and sinuses. What they were doing helped, he said, so they should keep at it. Mrs. Walcott came and fed the child, then went back to sleep. A small bath of lukewarm water was brought.
The night wore on. When Augustus’s cries grew particularly distressed, Constantine found himself telling stories, just as Mr. Hawthorne had done for him when he was a boy.
“And then,” he said, voice low and soothing as he dabbed Augustus’s forehead with a cool cloth, “the clever hare outran the wolf, leaping over hedgerows and ducking under fallen logs.”
Modesty, curled up in the rocking chair, smiled weakly. “I didn’t know you were such a storyteller.”
Constantine chuckled softly. “Neither did I. Mr. Hawthorne’s education runs deeper than I thought.”
While he rocked the child, his mind returned to the practical arrangements he had been taking care of since the confrontation with the Regent five days earlier. The claws of dread dug deeper into his spine each day. The Regent was after him. Investigating. And more determined than ever to see him suffer.
Yesterday, Blackmore had given him both bad and good news. The Nightshade twins had found the lad who’d brought the second blackmail letter demanding ￡2,000. The urchin had been hired by a beggar, Three-Finger Bob, half-mad with ramblings. Clearly, he wasn’t the blackmailer but an intermediary used to hire the urchin.
According to Blackmore, Three-Finger Bob described the man who hired him as neither young nor old, neither tall nor short, neither slim nor fat, neither rich nor poor. After he’d said that, he’d sunk deeper into ramblings, and his gaze had grown cloudy. How he could have been trusted by the blackmailer to do anything was beyond Constantine.
Blackmore’s search for other urchins, or “starlings,” continued. And his men observed the market stalls in case they saw something suspicious leading up to the payment date.
But Constantine felt like he was losing.
Therefore, he had asked his solicitors to transfer the property that wasn’t tied to the Pryde title to Modesty’s name. He’d also made sure most of the assets he had accumulated as duke would be hers, so that she could be independent, fund a dozen excavations, and also take care of Augustus and Mr. Hawthorne.
And even though she’d want nothing to do with him, there would still be six dukes to watch over her. They’d protect Constantine’s family as their own, according to their credo. His destruction wouldn’t have to devastate the people he cared about most.
As the first hints of dawn began to lighten the sky, Augustus finally drifted into a fitful sleep. Constantine settled into the window seat, the baby nestled against his chest. The last of his defenses crumbled. In this child’s feverish face, he saw how connected they were. Augustus was another soul marked by his father’s ruthless pride. Ophelia had been cast aside, Constantine was forever striving to prove worthy of a title that wasn’t rightfully his, and now this innocent babe was heir to a legacy of pain and unhappiness. He deserved better than to inherit their family’s wounds.
No. The cycle would end here, with him. Augustus would know something Constantine never had—unconditional love and acceptance, without the crushing weight of expectation. Because of Modesty. Because somehow, in trying to protect his carefully constructed world, Constantine had found something far more precious: a real family.