Page 53 of A Highly Unlikely Duchess
“Emily...” the boy whispered, his voice cracking. “I want Emily.”
Theodore looked at him. At the flush in his cheeks and the too-bright eyes and the way he was holding himself with the careful stillness of a child whose body was not feeling the way a body should feel.
He reached out and placed the back of his hand against Frederick's forehead.
The boy was burning.
Theodore did not say anything. He simply straightened and picked Frederick up.
Frederick immediately made a sound of protest. “Emily,” he said again, more urgently this time, squirming slightly in Theodore's arms. “I want Emily.”
“I know you do,” Theodore said. He adjusted his hold, settling the boy against his chest. “She will come. But right now, you are going back to bed, and I am taking you.”
“Emily,” Frederick repeated, looking up at him with red-rimmed eyes.
Theodore looked down the corridor in both directions before he stood, scooping the boy into his arms. Frederick was far lighter than he expected, a fragile weight that made Theodore’s chest tighten with a sudden protectiveness. He strode toward the nursery wing, his hand finding the embroidered bell pull near the landing. He gave it a sharp, authoritative yank that he knew would ring a frantic summons in the servants' hall below.
Gently, he set the boy down on his bed and pulled the covers over him.
Minutes later, the hurried footsteps of the housekeeper, Mrs. Holt, echoed in the corridor. She arrived breathless, adjusting her cap. “Your Grace! I didn't expect you to be...”
“Why was he wandering the halls alone, Mrs. Holt?” Theodore’s voice was like flint, cold and sparking with an anger he didn't fully understand. “The boy is unwell. Severely so.”
Mrs. Holt winced, her hands twisting in her apron. “He had been feeling better before he went to bed, Your Grace. Her Grace and Peggy, her maid, had stayed with him until he fell into a deep sleep. We thought the fever had broken.”
“He was unwell before he went to bed?” Theodore asked. “And he was left alone?”
“He had improved. His temperature had come down, and he seemed to be settling —”
Theodore felt a sharp pang of something that felt dangerously like hurt. “So everyone in this house knew the boy was unwell,” Theodore said. “Except me?”
The housekeeper looked down at her shoes, unable to meet his gaze.
“Shall I fetch the Duchess, Your Grace?” Mrs. Holt asked tentatively. “She only went to her chambers an hour ago.”
“No,” Theodore said firmly, his hold on Frederick tightening as the boy let out a soft, pained moan. “Let her sleep. Bring me a basin of cool water and several clean cloths. Immediately, and a carafe of fresh water. I shall stay with him for the night.”
“You, Your Grace?” Mrs. Holt looked stunned. “But the staff can —”
“I said I would take care of him,” Theodore snapped. “Go. Now.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” she said. “Right away.”
Mrs. Holt arrived within four minutes with the basin, cloths, and a small pot of something that smelled strongly of eucalyptus, which she set on the bedside table, with instructions that Theodore absorbed with focused attention.
“Thank you,” Theodore said when she was finished. “You may go now.
Mrs. Holt hesitated, but curtsied and made her way out of the room. Theodore looked at the basin. He looked at the clothes. He looked at Frederick.
Frederick looked back at him.
“Right,” Theodore said.
He sat on the edge of the small bed, looking down at the damp cloth in his hand as if it were a complex piece of military machinery. He had navigated the halls of Parliament and negotiated land disputes with the most stubborn lords in the country, but he had never been responsible for the maintenance of a six-year-old.
He carefully pressed the cool cloth to Frederick’s forehead. The boy’s eyes fluttered open, glassy with fever, peering up at the tall, imposing man seated on his bed.
“There. That is done.”
