Chapter 6 The Proposition
The thing about saving a child in a ballroom is that no one lets you forget it for five minutes.
Lady Pemberton’s nursery is probably charming in daylight. At nearly one in the morning it is a shrine to beeswax and fear—candles guttering, lavender sachets, a fire that cannot quite push the damp from the walls.
Augusta Pemberton—seven years old, curls coming loose, cheeks blotched from crying—sits propped against pillows and keeps touching her throat as if she expects the almond to return and finish the job.
She takes a shallow breath, then another. Relief hits me so hard I nearly laugh.
“It hurts,” she whispers, voice raw.
“I know,” I say gently, perched on the edge of the bed. “Your throat will feel sore. And your stomach may ache where I pressed. But pain is an excellent sign right now.”
Augusta’s frown is immediate and offended. “I do not like pain.”
“Neither do I,” I tell her. “But I like breathing more.”
Beside the bed, Lady Pemberton grips the bedpost with white knuckles. Her gown is rumpled, her hair no longer a tower. In the ballroom she was a queen; here she is only a mother who watched her child turn purple under a chandelier.
“Is she—” Lady Pemberton swallows hard. “Is she in danger still?”
In my world I would listen to her lungs and check a number. In this world, I have my eyes, my hands, and a very opinionated child.
“She is breathing well,” I say. “But she should be watched through the night. If she struggles to breathe again, if she vomits, if she becomes very sleepy—truly sleepy, not simply bored—someone must wake me at once.”
Lady Pemberton nods rapidly, taking every word like scripture.
Augusta coughs—small and wet—and Lady Pemberton flinches so violently she nearly pulls the bedpost loose.
“Coughing is good,” I say quickly. “It means air is moving. It means the passage is open.”
Augusta scowls and coughs again, as if to prove she can do it whenever she pleases.
“She has spirit,” I tell Lady Pemberton.
Lady Pemberton lets out a sound between a laugh and a sob. “She has her father’s stubbornness and my talent for melodrama.”
A maid offers warm water. Augusta sips, grimaces, and then gives me a look of profound betrayal.
Lady Pemberton’s eyes shine again. “Miss Hartford—Emma—”
My pulse jumps at my real name. Names are hooks here.
“Miss Hartford,” I correct softly.
Lady Pemberton blinks, then nods, understanding. Society may be chaos, but it is chaos with rules.
“Miss Hartford,” she repeats, voice breaking anyway. “I cannot thank you.”
“You can,” I say, because gratitude is lovely but breathing is better. “Keep her upright for a bit. Keep her calm. Small sips. And no one puts fingers in her mouth.”
Augusta’s eyes widen with fascinated disgust. “People do that?”
“People panic,” I tell her. “It makes adults stupid.”
She looks delighted by the concept.
Behind me, the nursery door opens quietly.
I do not have to turn to know it is James.
I feel him in the doorway—presence and restraint. At some point in the chaos, I have been freed from my ball gown and stays, and my lungs are still remembering how to work.
“Your Grace,” Lady Pemberton whispers, exhausted.
James steps into the candlelight without his coat, cravat loosened, sleeves rolled. He looks like a man who has been awake too long.
He inclines his head to Lady Pemberton. “How is she?”
“Breathing,” I say. “Sore. Frightened. Alive.”
James’s gaze goes to Augusta. She looks back, chin lifted, unimpressed by dukes.
“Very good,” he murmurs, and there is relief in it that he will never admit.
Lady Pemberton presses a hand to her mouth. “Will you truly stay?” she asks him—propriety disguised as gratitude.
James’s eyes flick to me for the briefest instant. “I will.”
The words land heavy. In the ballroom they were scandal. Here they are a door closing behind me.
“Thank you,” Lady Pemberton whispers.
James turns slightly, voice low. “The house is yours. Whatever you require, you need only ask.”
“I require a chair,” I say, because my legs have begun to shake and I refuse to be melodramatic in a nursery.
James inclines his head. “Of course.”
A chair appears. I sit beside the bed and keep my eyes on Augusta’s chest, watching it rise and fall like I can will it to continue.
Lady Pemberton sinks into a seat at the bedside, one hand on Augusta’s hair, the other gripping the coverlet as if it can keep death away.
The room settles into a tense hush.
It is past midnight when Lady Pemberton’s eyelids start to flutter.
“You should rest,” I tell her softly.
“I cannot,” she whispers.
“You can,” I correct. “If she coughs, I will wake you. But you must rest.”
Lady Pemberton’s eyes close against her will. “Do not leave her,” she murmurs.
“I will not,” I promise, and I mean it.
Her head tips back against the chair. Her hand remains on Augusta’s hair like a spell. Within minutes she is asleep—fitful, breathing fast, as if her body is still running.
Augusta watches her mother’s face, then looks at me.
“You are not a doctor,” she says solemnly, like a tiny judge.
My heart lurches. “Why do you say that?”
“Doctors are old,” she informs me. “And they smell like vinegar.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud and waking her mother. “Then perhaps I am something else.”
Augusta considers. “Are you a witch?”
Oh.
I glance toward the door, because in this century the witch question is not merely adorable.
Augusta follows my gaze, then whispers, conspiratorial, “Mama says witches are nonsense, but Nurse says they can turn you into a toad.”
“If I could turn people into toads,” I whisper back, “I would start with Dr. Thornbury.”
Augusta’s eyes go wide. Then, astonishingly, she giggles—a small, painful sound that turns into a cough.
I sit up straighter. “Easy,” I murmur, rubbing her back gently. “Small breaths.”
She obeys, eyes watering, then settles again. “Will you stay until morning?” she asks, suddenly serious.
“Yes,” I say. “I will stay.”
Augusta nods, satisfied, as if I have signed a contract.
She drifts, wakes once in a panic, then sleeps again when I count her breaths with her like counting dance steps.
At last, Augusta sleeps properly—deep and heavy and irritable in the way only children who feel safe can be.
I sit and watch until my eyes burn.
The door opens quietly.
James stands in the hall, one hand on the doorframe. Candlelight catches the shadow of exhaustion under his eyes. The loosened cravat makes him look less invulnerable.
“Lady Pemberton?” he asks, barely above a whisper.
“Sleeping,” I whisper back.
His gaze shifts past me to Augusta, then returns. “And the child?”
“Breathing. Sleeping. Angry with me for not being old enough to qualify as a physician.”
His brows knit. “She said that?”
“She did,” I whisper. “She also asked if I was a witch.”
James’s expression flickers—amusement and alarm in a brief, human collision.
“Children are frank,” he says carefully.
“Children are alarming,” I correct.
He gestures toward the sitting room across the hall. “Come. If you remain in this doorway all night, the servants will begin to think you are haunting the place.”
“I am,” I whisper. “Technically.”
His gaze sharpens. “Come, Miss Hartford.”
The borrowed name is a shield and a shackle. I rise carefully and follow him, leaving the nursery door ajar. I keep my ear tuned for any change in breathing like it is music.
The sitting room is quiet, fire low, furniture arranged for conversation rather than comfort. A footman stands outside like a sentry.
James pours water into a glass and hands it to me.
I take it and drink like I have been underwater.
“You did not panic,” he says.
I let out a breath that might be laughter. “Oh, I panicked. I simply did it on the inside.”
James studies me for a moment. “How did you know what to do?”
The question is simple. The answer is a trap.
I look at the glass in my hands. “In America,” I say carefully, committing to Boston yet again, “children sometimes choke. We are taught how to help. It is…common knowledge.”
James studies the low fire. “It is not common here.”
“No,” I whisper. “It isn’t.”
He leans back slightly, gaze intent. “You have knowledge that is not…usual.”
Not usual. Not female. Not safe.
I set the glass down before my hands betray me. “I have knowledge that keeps people alive,” I say, and make it sound like the only point that matters.
James’s jaw works, restraint and something else warring. “Dr. Thornbury will not like this.”
“Dr. Thornbury does not like air,” I mutter.
A brief softening crosses his mouth—almost a smile, almost gone. Then he sobers. “He is dangerous.”
“So am I, apparently,” I whisper.
Silence settles, fire popping softly.
“Are you frightened?” he asks.
“I am always frightened,” I say quietly. “I am simply…functional.”
James’s gaze does not waver. “You do not appear frightened.”
“That is because terror and sarcasm share lodgings,” I say, and then regret it immediately because the phrase sounds wrong in his world.
His brows lift. “Lodgings.”
“Rooms. Quarters,” I correct quickly. “A very small, crowded space in my head.”
His expression softens, brief and dangerous.
“Why?” he asks, and the single word holds more than curiosity. It holds recognition.
The truth scrapes on the way out. “Because I do not belong here,” I whisper.
James’s gaze drops for a fraction, then returns. “No.”
The agreement is simple, and kinder than comfort.
I swallow. “I had a life,” I say. “Work. People.”
James’s eyes narrow slightly. “You speak of them as though they are far away.”
“They are,” I say, and my voice cracks.
James goes very still.
Then, carefully, as if approaching something skittish, he asks, “And now?”
“Now,” I say, forcing humor into my throat like medicine, “I am learning to curtsy without dying.”
James frowns. “That is not what I meant.”
“I know,” I whisper.
He looks down at his hands—strong hands, controlled hands, hands that sign documents and never tremble.
“I was not always a duke,” he says quietly, and the confession lands like a key turning.
I look at him.