dress. She sounded as calm as a minister reassuring his faithful, but her fingers told another story. “She has insisted on leaving London, even though he advised her there was no need.”
Thaddeus hadn’t sent James the news about these latest cases. He must have deemed them irrelevant, even if Miss Castleton did not.
“I’m sure there’s no reason to be alarmed, Sophia. They must be isolated cases. I will look into them in the morning. I’ll stop in at the hospital and see what’s happening, if it would reduce your anxiety.”
“It would.” The sort of smile one gives to feign valor lifted the corners of her lips but did nothing to soften the anxious lines fanning out from her mouth like patterns of frost along a window. “However, I confess to being a trifle upset with Agnes, in light of this news. Yesterday, she came back from a walk with Amelia claiming to feel rather fatigued. She sent Amelia to bed early and retired shortly after. I have already had the doctor in, and he says it’s just exhaustion.”
“Symptoms?”
“Agnes felt vaguely unwell, she claimed, and frightfully tired. Her condition worries me because, just a few days ago, she’d gone to see her sister who lives near Soho Square. Not the best part of town anymore.” Sophia’s knuckles looked white against the black of her skirts. “She took Amelia, too, without informing me first.”
James pulled his gaze off her hands. He wouldn’t let her agitation affect him. “Agnes must have overexerted herself. It’s been very warm lately. She simply needs rest.”
“So you do not think . . .?”
“No,” he reassured, understanding what she was asking. It couldn’t be the cholera. “I don’t think that at all. Agnes is getting on in years and tires easily. By the time you return home, you’ll find her up and good as new.”
“You are undoubtedly right, but I very much dislike hearing that the cholera is moving closer to my house.”
“Isolated cases, as I said before. However, if you’re concerned about contracting the cholera, stay out of the city and keep the household from going as well. Especially Amelia.”
Especially her.
James had a sudden memory of Amelia’s tiny, round face peering back at him from the comfort of Agnes’s bony arms as the nurse carried the baby away from the house, off to Sophia’s, where she was to be cosseted, tended by a loving aunt who had replaced the mother she’d lost, always safe.
“I would propose we leave London,” Sophia was saying, “except we’ve nowhere to go. Other than Finchingfield House,” she added, hopefully.
James shook his head. “The house isn’t ready to be occupied. I am heading there in two days, but from what I understand, it’s in terrible condition. There is water damage to the north rooms from a leak in the roof and most of the bedchambers on that end need repair. I intended to stay there no more than a day myself, this trip.”
“Then Amelia and I have to stay in town.”
“If you stay within the neighborhoods of Mayfair or Belgravia, you won’t come to any harm, Sophia. Trust me. Everything will be all right.”
He didn’t blame her for the skeptical look she shot him. He didn’t feel much more optimistic himself.
Through the drawing-room blinds, Rachel peered at the top of Mrs. Woodbridge’s head, the gray feathers of her bonnet fluttering as she ducked to enter the hired carriage, Dr. Edmunds’s hand at her elbow. Had Rachel heard correctly? She had been heading for his office to consult with the doctor on what to do with a duplicate travel memoir she’d found in the library when the sound of his sister-in-law’s voice had stopped her. Rachel had no desire to face Mrs. Woodbridge. The woman clearly despised her. Rachel had begun to turn away when she heard the word which had stopped her in her tracks—cholera. She had only eavesdropped in the hallway for a few moments before hurrying off, but it had been long enough.
Letting the slat fall, Rachel retreated from the window The cholera was spreading in London, alarming Mrs. Woodbridge, her voice so taut with anxiety it had affected Rachel. She shuddered and rubbed her hands over her arms. Mrs. Woodbridge should be alarmed. They should all be alarmed. The cholera was a disease to be feared. Rachel could think of a dozen possible cures, but would any of them work against such a rapidly wasting illness? Chalk and laudanum, linseed tea or maybe beef broth, or both. Perhaps her mother’s