Chapter 21 #2
“Yes.” Tobias pressed his lips to the boy’s burning forehead. “Papa’s here. And you’re going to be just fine.”
Amelia watched through blurring vision as Tobias carried Henry to the bed, settling him against the pillows with infinite care.
His large hands—hands she’d seen handle cards with careless expertise, hands that had caught her when she’d stumbled, hands that had almost cupped her face that night in the drawing room—now moved with heartbreaking tenderness as he arranged the coverlet and smoothed dark curls back from Henry’s flushed face.
“Fresh cloths,” he said quietly. “Show me what to do.”
She demonstrated, through the fog of exhaustion, how to wring out the excess water and where to place it for maximum effect. Tobias watched with absolute concentration, then took over with steady competence.
Mrs. Boldwood returned with a laden tray. Amelia couldn’t face food, but Tobias pressed a cup of tea into her shaking hands.
“Drink,” he ordered. “You’re no use to him if you collapse.”
She wanted to argue. Couldn’t find the energy. The tea was over-sweetened—Mrs. Boldwood’s remedy for shock—but she drank it obediently whilst Tobias maintained his vigil beside Henry’s bed.
The night stretched on.
They took turns applying fresh cloths, administering the herbal draught, trying without success to coax barley water past Henry’s fever-cracked lips. The storm outside had intensified—rain lashing the windows like accusations, wind howling through the eaves with voices that sounded almost human.
Amelia found herself watching Tobias as much as she watched Henry.
The careful way he lifted the boy when restlessness made him thrash.
The low humming that emerged when her own voice finally gave out—some wordless melody that seemed to soothe even when nothing else could.
The absolute refusal to leave, despite the lateness of the hour, despite propriety shrieking that an unmarried man had no business spending the night in a widow’s household.
None of it mattered. The rules and conventions that governed society felt absurd here in this room where a child fought fever and two adults fought terror in equal measure.
“Tell me about your mother.”
Tobias’s voice startled her from a half-doze. She’d been slumped in the chair beside Henry’s bed, watching the too-rapid flutter of his pulse at his throat.
“My mother?”
“You mentioned her earlier. When you were frightened.” He didn’t look up from where he was wringing out another cloth. “Said she was fine one day and gone the next.”
Amelia’s throat tightened. “Childbirth. She died bringing me into the world. My father said her body simply... gave up. That some women aren’t made for it.”
“Were you not terrified?”
She looked up at him quickly, and he tilted his head in an almost curious manner. “When you expected Henry. Did it not frighten you? The thought that you might have to face the very same?”
“Terrified doesn’t begin to cover it.” The words emerged barely above a whisper.
“Every day of my pregnancy, I waited for my body to fail. For the physicians to tell me I wouldn’t survive.
When Henry was born and I lived—” Her voice broke.
“It felt like a miracle. Like I’d been granted something I didn’t deserve. ”
Tobias’s hands stilled. He looked at her fully, and the expression in his grey eyes made her chest constrict.
“Did Edward know?”
She nodded slowly. “I told him. Sought… comfort from him. When I first realized I was with child. But he said dwelling on morbid possibilities was unseemly. That I should focus on producing a healthy heir rather than indulging in feminine hysterics.”
“Of course he did.” The words were quiet. Bitter. “My brother was exceptionally talented at dismissing anything that required actual feeling.”
Before she could respond, Henry stirred with a soft whimper. They both moved simultaneouslt, her hand found his forehead while Tobias lifted him into a sitting position. The fever still burned, relentless and cruel.
“It’s all right, darling.” She stroked his hair with fingers that trembled despite her best efforts. “Mama’s here. Papa’s here. We’ve got you.”
Henry’s eyes opened fractionally. He looked at her, then at Tobias, then back again. His small hand reached out, grasping weakly at Tobias’s shirt.
“Don’t go,” he whispered. “Stay.”
“I’m not going anywhere, lad.” Tobias shifted so Henry was cradled against his chest, the boy’s burning forehead pressed against his shoulder. “Not now. Not ever.”
The promise hung in the rain-loud silence. Amelia found herself unable to look away from them—this man who had no true claim to her son, no obligation beyond a distant family connection, holding Henry as though he were the most precious thing in creation.
This is what love looks like, something whispered in the back of her mind. This is what I’ve been missing. What we’ve both been missing.
She shoved the thought away. Too dangerous. Too impossible.
But it returned anyway, insistent as the rain.
The hours blurred together. At some point, Tobias insisted she rest—just for a moment, just close her eyes. She must have dozed despite intending otherwise, because when she jolted awake, grey light was seeping through gaps in the curtains.
Dawn.
And—
She sat bolt upright, her heart lurching. “Henry—”
“Shh.” Tobias was exactly where he’d been before—or perhaps he’d never moved. Henry lay against his chest, but something had changed. The terrible flush had faded from the boy’s cheeks. His breathing, when she strained to hear it, had steadied. Deepened.
“The fever?” Her voice cracked on the question.
“Broke about an hour ago.” Tobias’s smile was exhausted but genuine. “He’s been sleeping peacefully since. Real sleep, not fever-sleep.”
Relief crashed over her with physical force. She pressed both hands over her mouth, muffling the sob that tore free. Her vision blurred with tears—grateful tears this time rather than terrified ones.
Henry was safe. Her boy was safe.
“Come here.” Tobias shifted carefully, making room beside him on the chair he’d commandeered hours ago. “You’ll make yourself ill standing there crying.”
She shouldn’t. Propriety, convention, all the rules she’d lived by for so long—
None of it mattered.
She crossed to them and sank down beside Tobias, her body fitting against his side as though explicity carved for that purpose. One of his arms came around her shoulders, pulling her close. His other hand cradled Henry, holding the sleeping boy secure.
They sat like that in the grey dawn light, neither speaking, whilst Henry’s steady breathing provided the only sound beyond the diminishing rain.
Tobias’s heart beat slow and sure beneath her ear.
His warmth seeped through the layers of fabric separating them.
And for the first time in longer than she could remember, Amelia felt safe.
Not the cold security Edward had provided—all financial stability and appropriate position. But real safety. The bone-deep certainty that she wasn’t alone. That someone saw her fear and stayed anyway. That her terror didn’t disgust or inconvenience but instead drew him closer.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “For staying. For—” Her throat closed around words too large to force past it.
“You never need to thank me for this.” His hand tightened fractionally on her shoulder. “Not for him. Not for you.”
The words should have felt neutral. Familial concern between in-laws. Instead, they landed with a weight that made her pulse quicken.
She tilted her head back, meaning to say something—what, she had no idea. But the movement brought them face to face, mere inches apart in the strengthening dawn light.
His eyes held hers. Grey as storm clouds, darkened by exhaustion and something else.
Something that made her breath catch. Made her suddenly, acutely aware of every point where their bodies touched.
Of how his fingers had begun tracing absent patterns against her upper arm.
Of how her hand had somehow come to rest against his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath her palm.
“Amelia.” Her name emerged rough, scraped raw by the long night. “I—”
Henry stirred between them, making a small sound of contentment as he burrowed deeper against Tobias’s chest. The moment shattered like sugar glass.
Tobias cleared his throat. Released her slowly, though his hand lingered perhaps a heartbeat longer than strictly necessary. “He’ll likely sleep for hours yet. You should rest properly. In your own bed.”
She should. She absolutely should.
But the thought of leaving this room—leaving them—felt impossible. As though by stepping through that door she’d break whatever fragile thing had been built during the night’s vigil.
“I’ll stay.” She settled more firmly into the chair beside him, close enough that their shoulders pressed together. “Just in case he wakes. In case he needs—”
“In case,” Tobias agreed quietly.
The rain had stopped entirely now. Pale sunlight began filtering through the windows, painting everything in shades of pearl and gold. Somewhere in the house, servants would be stirring. The world beyond this room would soon intrude with all its demands and expectations.
But for now—for this stolen moment whilst Henry slept peacefully between them—there was only the three of them in the quiet dawn.