not leave me here, James imagined her thinking. Not with this angry man.
Sophia shoved into the entry hall, Amelia stumbling to keep up. “Amelia, say hello to your father.”
Amelia sidled up to Sophia until she was half-hidden by her aunt’s voluminous black skirts. Scared to death of James. As scared as James was of her.
“Good day, Papa.” She had such a tiny voice. Its impact was far from tiny, however. The child wielded it, unknowingly, as sharp and large as a scimitar James had once seen in the British Museum.
“Hullo, Amelia,” James stiffened his back against the cuts bleeding away his composure. “Would you like to see the kitchen? Have a bite to eat? I would guess a young person your age is hungry.”
“James, she doesn’t need to eat right now She has already taken her midday luncheon, like she always does at this time.”
Should I have known that? “That may be the case, but I insist.” He signaled to Mrs. Mainprice, who had hurried up from the depths of the kitchen, anticipating his need.
“Kiss your Aunt Soph before you go,” said Sophia, bending down for the girl’s swift peck on her cheek. “Be a perfect miss, like you know how to be.”
“I will, Aunt Soph.” She smiled adoringly at her aunt. Amelia didn’t need a mother when she had Sophia. Might not need anyone else at all.
“Come now, lass,” encouraged Mrs. Mainprice, “we’ve all sorts of good food to eat in my kitchen.”
Smiling, she took Amelia’s hand and led her away. The girl steered clear of James as she passed. A natural response, James reassured himself. Caution was good when you only saw your father a scant few times a year.
The scimitar cut deeper, right down to his heart.
“I would not have brought her if the situation weren’t desperate, James,” Sophia explained unnecessarily. “I had to get away from the house. I have instructed my housekeeper to burn sulphur in Agnes’s room and to wash down the walls with carbolic acid. I could hardly stay with that going on.”
“Are they sure Agnes has the cholera?”
“Quite sure. She’s . . . she’s terrible. It’s terrible.” Sophia freed her hair from the monstrous bonnet she wore, all feathers and ribbons. “I sent her to the hospital. Tell me that was the right thing to do.”
Sophia, asking his approval, when the only person she had ever taken advice from was her husband. If she took advice at all. The world had turned on its head. “Dr. Castleton would have attended Agnes at your house.”
“Forcing me and Amelia to stay there with her, nursing her, exposing the sweet girl to the consequences of such a frightful disease.” She tossed her gloves and bonnet onto the entryway table with a slap. “Agnes must have contracted it over at her sister’s. She’d been there to visit recently—you remember me telling you that. And I heard that her sister died from the cholera. Right out on St. James Street, if you can believe it! In the middle of the pavement!”
“In front of a chophouse?” James asked, certain he knew the answer. He’d wondered why he had thought he recognized that woman. Years ago, Agnes had introduced him to her sister, not many weeks after Agnes had been hired to act as Amelia’s nursemaid. “Thatched House?”
“Precisely the place! How utterly dreadful. To breathe your last in front of an uncaring mob. I can’t be certain, though, that Agnes caught the cholera at her sister’s house. Maybe she had done so in my own home. If you consider, New Bond Street is really not much of a barrier to protect us from St. George’s. I told you about that fellow passing away who lived in that neighborhood. The winds have been so hot, and blowing toward our house from that direction . . . the mere idea we could contract cholera by staying has kept me awake all night. I couldn’t imperil Amelia like that. So I sent Agnes off and now we are here.” Her voice rose with each word until she reached an impossible soprano squeak. “I have nowhere else to turn. You must take us in.”
“I . . .” How could he face Amelia every day, in this small house with few places to avoid the child? This reunion was supposed to wait until Finchingfield, where there was more space for them all. That was what his carefully laid plan had been. “I . . .” he stuttered.