Honoria, noting her feverish behavior, appearance, and answering supplemental questions such as what she’d had to eat the night before and where she’d traveled to in the past couple of days.
“You are a rather observant lad,” the doctor remarked over the rims of his spectacles. It was difficult to distinguish beneath the man’s curly russet beard if he was being complimented or condemned until Alcott said, “Would that my nurses would be half as detailed as you.”
Even though it wasn’t his place, upon their arrival Titus trailed the Doctor up the grand staircase and lurked in the hallway near an oriental vase almost as tall as he was, doing his best to blend with the shadows.
Through Honoria’s open door he watched helplessly as Mrs. Mcgillicutty, the housekeeper, ran a cool cloth over Honoria’s face and throat. The Goode’s hovered behind her, as if nursing their firstborn was still so beneath them, they needed a servant to do it.
Honoria lay on her back, mummified by her sheets, her lids only half-open now.
Titus thought he might be sick. She’d become so colorless, he might have thought her dead already, but for the slight rapid rise and fall of her chest.
The doctor shooed them all aside and took only minutes of examination to render the grave verdict. “Baron and Lady Cresthaven, Mrs. Mcgillicutty, have any of you previously suffered from Typhoid Fever?”
Honoria’s mother, an older copy of her dark-haired daughters, recoiled from her bedside. “Certainly not, Doctor. That is an affliction of the impoverished and squalid.”
If the Doctor had any opinions on her reaction, he kept it to himself. “If that is the case, then I’m going to have to ask you to leave this room. Indeed, it would be safer if you took your remaining children and staff elsewhere until…”
“Until Honoria recovers?” the Baron prompted through his wealth of a mustache.
The doctor gazed down at Honoria with a soft expression bordering on grief.
Titus wanted to scream. To kick at the priceless vase beside him and glory in the destruction if only to see something as shattered as his heart might be.
“I knew she shouldn’t have been allowed to attend Lady Carmichaels’ philanthropic event,” the Baroness shrilled. “I’ve always maintained nothing good can come of venturing below Claireview Street.”
“Is there anyone else in your house feeling ill, Lady Cresthaven?” The doctor asked as he opened his arms in a gesture meant to shuffle them all toward the door.
“Not that I’m aware of,” she answered as she hurried from her daughter’s side as if swept up in Alcott’s net.
“Two maids,” Mrs. Mcgillicutty said around her mistress. “They took to their beds ill last night.”
The doctor heaved a long-suffering sigh as they approached the threshold. “Contrary to popular belief, Typhoid contamination can happen to food and drink of anyone at any time. It is true and regrettable that more of this contamination is rampant in the poorer communities where sanitation is woefully inadequate, but this is a pathogen that does not discriminate based on status.”
“Quite so,” the Baron agreed in the imperious tone he used when he felt threatened or out of his depth. “We’ll leave for the Savoy immediately. Leticia get your things.”
“I’ll need someone to draw your daughter a cool bath and help me lift her into it,” the doctor said, his droll intonation never changing. “If you’d inquire through the household about anyone who has been inflicted with Typhoid fever in the past—”
“I have done, Doctor,” Titus stepped out of the shadows, startling both of the Goodes. “It took my parents and my sister.”
Before that moment, Titus hadn’t known someone could appear both relieved and grim, but Alcott managed it.
“Absolutely not!” Letitia Goode, Baroness Cresthaven was not a large woman, but her staff often complained her voice could reach an octave that could shatter glass and offend dogs. “I’m not having my eldest, the jewel of our family, handled by the boy who shovels our coal and horse manure. This is most distressing, Honoria was invited to the Princess’s garden party next week as the Viscount Clairmont’s special guest!”
Titus lowered his eyes. Not out of respect for the woman, but so she wouldn’t see the flames of his rage licking into his eyes.
At this the doctor actually stomped his foot against the floor, silencing everyone. “Madam, your daughter barely has a chance of lasting the week and the longer you and your family reside beneath this roof, the more danger your other children are in. Do I make myself clear?”