Chapter Twenty-Nine
And so, Cornelia and Thaïs took Seraphina home.
She let them wash her, brush out her hair, and build a nest for her of blankets on the sofa. She let them order beef broth and chamomile tea from the cook.
The midwife had not been alarmed. It’s only a fright. Avoid too much excitement, my girl, and stay off your feet until the sickness eases.
But Sera would not let herself focus on what that meant or didn’t mean, because pregnancy was perilous, and hoping for joy only set one up for heartbreak. It had been a mistake to hope.
She would inure herself. She would not feel that fear again.
She was too tired.
Tired of wanting things she shouldn’t have and of not wanting things she should. Tired of wondering which was which and what it said about her soul. Tired, so bloody tired, of being a champion and a firebrand and a metaphor and a picture in the paper.
She wanted to be Seraphina, a woman in a tired body, who had nothing more to say.
She wanted to stay in her house, under the blankets, and mourn.
Thaïs and Cornelia did not suggest it would all be fine or offer platitudes that were patently untrue. They let her simply sit in her tiredness and sadness until she fell asleep.
It was a half-waking sleep. She flickered through a dream in which she was her mother, and nursed a child that was herself. She woke up filled with terror, soaked once again with a sense of loss that seemed far out of proportion to what she’d thought she’d wanted.
She wanted her baby to live. She wanted to be held. She wanted Adam.
She banished the thought. She hated his dishonest, empty promise that he could ever fix this. That he loved her. Of all the treacherous things to say.
Cornelia reached out and smoothed her hair. “You’re awake. What is it?”
“I dreamt of a baby. Of my mother.”
“Oh, darling,” Cornelia murmured.
“I’m terrified that I will lose her,” Sera whispered. “I feel trapped in my own body. I can’t stand not knowing.”
Thaïs kissed her hand. “You’ll get through it, love, whatever happens. How do you feel?”
Sera knew Thaïs was asking about her body, which in fact felt better now that she’d slept.
“I feel stupid,” Seraphina said.
“Why?” Cornelia asked.
“Because of Adam.”
Thaïs came and nestled up beside her. “What do you mean?”
“Letting myself care about him, when I knew better. I suppose I believed that he saw me. As I am. The good and the bad. I thought he was growing to care for me despite what he saw—because of what he saw. But it was just a fancy, no different from when I was a girl. And if I can still be so foolish, what was the point of all that pain? Have I learned nothing?”
Cornelia shook her head. “No. I won’t let you entertain such thoughts.”
Good. A bracing dose of Cornelia Ludgate’s famed intolerance of sentimentality was just what she needed to return to clear-headedness.
“Sera,” Cornelia continued, “there is no question in my mind that the distraught man who was in Jack Willow’s house today cares about you deeply. Whatever he has done, however misguided, surely you cannot think he is unfeeling. You are not blind.”
Sera closed her eyes. This was not what she was expecting from Cornelia, of all people.
“He cares now that he knows I am pregnant with his child,” Sera protested. “It is not the same as caring for me. He asked me to marry him. Which, if he understood me, he would know is—”
“Oh, Sera,” Thaïs sighed. “Do you hear yourself?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, stung.
“You know I cower before your terrifying brain. But Adam is a man, not some theory you can prove with words. You need to talk to him.”
Cornelia smiled faintly. “Thaïs is right.”
Thaïs tossed her hair with pleasure and stretched her toes toward the fire. “Finally, she admits to my wisdom.”
“I don’t want to talk to Adam,” Sera muttered. “I’m scared of what he’ll say.”
“And that is why you must,” Cornelia said gently.
Sera considered this. Perhaps they were right. It could not be good for her health to lie here circling the possibilities.
She wanted clarity.
She wanted it right now.
“Fine.” She rose. “Help me dress.”
Neither of her friends moved.
“The only place you are going is to bed,” Thaïs said firmly. “It’s late, and you’ve been ill.”
“I feel better now. The sickness will be worse in the morning. You said I must talk to him and you are correct. I must.”
“I didn’t mean now. Hawksmoor said to rest.”
But she could not rest feeling this way. She would be up all night. “I’m going to see him. Can you ask Tompkins to summon my carriage?”
Adam walked through the dreary streets of London and raged at himself for failing Seraphina.
He understood her pain. He understood her desire not to see him. And yet he wanted to pound on her door and plead with her to see that sometimes people became capable of more when life gave them an opportunity to stretch.
He wanted to stretch for her.
He wanted to be the kind of man worthy of a woman who could stare down a crowd of screaming men and firmly tell them, “No, you’re wrong.”
He had never been an outspoken man. His life was built on things Seraphina rejected.
But he was an architect. If he had one true skill, it was renovation.
He wanted to renovate his life for her.
Baby or no, wife or no.
He simply wanted her.
He went home, to his quiet rooms, where his family was already sleeping.
At his desk, he prepared a quill. He wrote a letter to the newspaper, retracting Mayhew’s denunciation and reconfirming his personal support for Miss Arden’s institute.
He began a second, longer, letter to Mayhew. Pages began to stack up on his desk. The clock struck midnight and he looked over them.
They were good. In fact, they were very good.
He could do this. He really could.
He heard something outside in the street and looked out the window. A carriage was pulling up in front of his house. Odd, for this street never had much traffic, much less so late at night. A hooded figure stood out and walked to his front door. Underneath the hem of her cloak, he saw the frilly laces of a nightdress.
He rushed down the stairs.
Chapter Thirty
Adam pulled open the door before Sera had even finished knocking.
His face broke open as he looked on her, light emanating from his eyes like the glow from a paper lantern.
“Sera,” he said, like her name was a poem.
He opened his arms.
She walked into them.
They closed around her, and she felt such a rush of warmth and pleasure. This, at least, had always been lovely between them. He held her like no one ever had.
“You came to me,” he whispered, his voice muffled in her hair.
She made herself pull back. “Yes. We need to talk.”
He nodded. “I’m afraid we’re on the second floor,” he said. “Can you climb up?”