“I know how it must look, and you are good to protect her, but I need to be here,” Adam said, without stopping. He did not wait to be granted permission, just went bounding up the stairs.
Miss Magdalene rushed out to greet them. “Thank you for coming so quickly, Mrs. Hawksmoor. She’s resting in here.”
Mrs. Hawksmoor followed, leaving Adam gasping for breath in the door.
“She’s with child,” Miss Magdalene said over her shoulder to Hawksmoor, her voice pitched low. “Early, about two and a half months. Terrible sickness all week, and just now she nearly fainted. You know she lost—”
Mrs. Hawksmoor nodded as they disappeared into another room. Adam tried to follow them, but Mrs. Hawksmoor stopped him. “It’s best she has some privacy.” She closed the door behind her.
He slumped back against the wall, unsure of what to do. He heard a cry and rushed to the door and knocked at it.
Miss Ludgate opened the door and glared at him. “You should leave. If she wishes to speak to you, she’ll write.”
He didn’t move. “I need to see her. Please. I’ll wait.”
She stepped out of the room and pointedly closed the door behind her, as if his merely looking at Seraphina might worsen her condition. “Mr. Anderson, I won’t have you upsetting her worse than she’s already—”
“It is not your affair,” he said, trying not to raise his voice. “If she’s carrying my child—if she’s lost it—I need to bloody be here for her.”
Miss Ludgate let out a breath. “Listen to me. This is very delicate, she’s upset—”
“I lost a wife in childbirth,” he interrupted, unable to control his tone. “I know exactly how bloody delicate it is and I’m not leaving.”
Cornelia paused, looking torn. “Fine, wait here. But if you do the slightest thing to cause her pain—”
“I have no intention of hurting her,” he shouted. “I would never hurt her.”
But even as he said it, he knew he already had.
He collapsed onto a chair. “Fuck. Fuck.”
Miss Magdalene came out of the room with tears streaming down her face.
Catriona’s lifeless form flashed before his eyes. He jumped to his feet. “What is it?” he rasped. “What happened to her?”
“She’s fine,” she said, wiping her eyes. “She’s fine. Just a scare. She just needs rest.”
“And the baby?” he got out.
Thaïs’s face looked strained. “All fine, for now. Too soon to say.”
He strode to the door, shaking. “Sera? Love, it’s Adam. May I come in?”
The midwife opened the door for him. Behind her, Sera sat on a bed wearing only a shift. Her hair fell around her shoulders. She was pale, damp with sweat.
Mrs. Hawksmoor wrapped a blanket around her. “See that she rests. Plenty of sleep. No intercourse.”
He shuddered. Like he would try it. Ever again.
“Summon me if there’s any bleeding,” Mrs. Hawksmoor continued. “I’ll check on her in a few days.”
“I’ll take care of her,” he said. “Thank you.”
And then they were alone.
Except they weren’t, because she was pregnant.
Pregnant.
He repeated the word to himself a few more times, waiting to be awoken from a dream.
But it was only him and her in the small, dark room. Him and her and their baby.
Their baby.
His baby.
His, like Adeline was his and Jasper was his and the little one he couldn’t bear to name had been his, the one he’d buried in the same coffin as her mother beneath a gravestone marked Catriona Anderson and Baby, Much Beloved.
Tears pricked in his eyes and he ignored them, for the more urgent feeling than this surge of emotion was ferocity. Ferocity.
He wanted to kill the men outside. Rip them limb from bloody limb and sling them maimed and bleeding in the streets, the cowards, for trying to intimidate this woman who was braver than all of them. And braver than him.
He was going to be braver for her.
He had to be, for the family they would make. The family that—leaving aside he didn’t know how, that it turned all his careful plans to rot, that he could not even slightly afford it—the family they would make because he knew that he must and would bloody find a way.
“Why are you here?” Seraphina asked weakly.
He knelt down next to her, grasping her hands so tight he worried he would hurt her, but unable to loosen his grip because he knew now that the dream he’d had in Cornwall had been a premonition. He was a superstitious bloody Scotsman who believed in the prickle in the neck and he would not close his eyes and let her go.
“Why are you weeping?” she asked flatly. “Get up.”
“Oh, Sera, I know it’s mad,” he said, wiping away his tears with both hands. “I know it is, love. I’m just unstrung.”
And what he meant was that he was strangely, radiantly happy.
And terrified. And so full of love and hope and joy and bloody certainty that it felt like madness.
It had been a lifetime since he’d been as sure as he was about what was in this room, and it scared the very marrow in him, and he was grateful.
“Marry me,” he whispered. “Be my wife.”
“Collect yourself,” she said again. “You’re raving.” Her expression was as dull as her voice. Her eyes were almost vacant.
He held her face, willing her to see that he was sincere.
“Sera, darling, I didn’t know about any of it. Had I known about Pendrake hurting you or about the baby—I didn’t even know about the article. I’ll fix it, all of it, just let me hold you.”
Her chest rose in a long, long, damning breath that sent the joy washing out of him and left him feeling chilled. “No.”
“But, love—”
“Collect yourself,” she said again in that dreadful voice, “and be sensible. Nothing has changed about your circumstances. And I’m almost certainly going to lose this baby, if I have not yet.”
“But the midwife said—”
“She said there is no certainty until it quickens.”
“But if there is even the slightest possibility, we must—”
“No!” she whispered. “No. I cannot hope.”
The pain in her voice shattered him. “Darling—”
“No, Adam. Do not continue this. I will go mad. I want you to leave, and I do not wish to see you. In the event there is a child, I will write you and you can make arrangements as you wish. You can count on my discretion if you do not wish to be associated with me, as I would not harm your children’s futures. But now you must leave, because I cannot bear looking at you.”
Could not bear looking at him?
He tried again. “Sera, I’m trying to tell you that I love you. I’ll do anything to fix this.”
She laughed a low, terrible laugh. “Then go.”
He stood, but could not bring himself to turn around. He could only look at her, taking in the contempt on her face and the fear.
“Thaïs,” she called, with a strength of voice that belied her pallor and the sweat on her brow. “Please see Mr. Anderson out.”