observer. Excluded from the tiny circle Sophia had drawn around her and Amelia. The circle he had permitted her to draw Asked her to draw.
“James.” Sophia looked up from her reading. “It is most pleasant out here. I’m glad you could join us. Aren’t you, Amelia?”
“Yes, Aunt Soph,” she said, eyeing James with cautious curiosity. Determining that her father wasn’t going to scowl at her and wasn’t going to hug her either, Amelia resumed playing with her dolls, singing an off-key tune for their awkward dance steps.
An urge to crouch down next to the girl—his daughter—rose in James’s body, twitched along his feet to move him forward. He should go play with her, ask about her dolls. He had every right. A right he had never bothered to exercise before, though. Those brief visits at Christmas and for Amelia’s birthday had been staid affairs where James had maintained his distance, close enough to observe Amelia but not close enough for the girl to penetrate his heart.
The earlier urge withered like a spring flower beneath summer’s hot sun. There would be time enough in Finchingfield to play with Amelia. If the girl even wanted his attention, something she had done without all of her life. James looked away, over to Sophia, but his ears continued hearing—the tiny childish murmurings Amelia made while she pretended to hold ladylike conversation, the pauses when she stopped to have the dolls curtsy or shift their positions along the gravel pathway.
“I thought I would come out and see how you two are getting along,” James said.
“Well enough, though I’m not sure Amelia slept well in that chilly attic room. She seems a trifle out of sorts this morning. I am somewhat peaked too.” Sophia sighed and pressed a palm to her forehead. “Perhaps your little assistant could make up a healing tea for me.”
“Are you intent upon discussing Miss Dunne with me again?”
“No, James. That topic of conversation has been suitably dispensed with.”
He frowned and tucked his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets. “Mr. Jackson informs me he has located rooms at an inn near Finchingfield House for you and Amelia. You’ll find them to your liking.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “An inn to my liking?”
“You would not enjoy sleeping in the drawing room, Sophia, while repairs are underway.”
“True.”
James doubted she would even enjoy sleeping in the bedchamber he’d chosen for her. All of them at Finchingfield House were smaller than what Sophia was used to. “He expects all the work to be finished within the month. Good progress.”
“Excellent.” Sophia gave one of her thin-lipped smiles. “Amelia shall be so happy in the countryside. Won’t you my dear?”
“Em, yes, Aunt Soph . . .” A sudden grimace twisted Amelia’s face. “Em . . .”
“What is it, sweeting?” Sophia asked, setting down her book.
Amelia wobbled, as if the ground had gone liquid beneath her feet, and she sank to the gravel. Her doll slipped from her fingers. “I feel bad.”
James rushed to his daughter’s side.
“Amelia!” Sophia dropped to the ground next to her, black skirts ballooning, swallowing up the doll. Her fingers swept across Amelia’s forehead. “Sweeting, what is it?”
Easily, James lifted Amelia, her small body trembling against his chest. The heat of fever radiated off the child through his sleeves to scorch his arms. The trembling became contagious and spread to James. “She’s burning up, Sophia. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She was restless but ate breakfast this morning,” she said, her gaze never leaving Amelia. “I would have told you if I thought she was unwell.”
Amelia’s watery eyes blinked up at him. “I feel sick.”
“You’ll be all right, Amelia. Trust me.” But why should the lass trust him at all?
Sophia’s face crumpled with panic. “Agnes has infected her with the cholera. My precious darling.”
“Let’s not presume the worst.”
James stumbled back into the house, carried the girl up the stairs, his sister-in-law hurrying to keep up. Fear chasing them both.
“How is Amelia, Dr. Edmunds?” Rachel peered into Molly’s old room. The cramped space smelled of sickness. “I heard from Mrs. Mainprice she was taken ill.”
Dr. Edmunds slouched at the child’s bedside, his waistcoat and cravat discarded, the sleeves of his linen shirt rolled up to his elbows. His face had aged, the weight of anxiety carving grooves across his face like a heavy downpour gouging fissures in soft dirt.
“She’s resting easy.” He flattened his palms against his knees and stood. “The fever she had earlier has abated and she’s not been ill again.”
“So it is not the cholera.”
That was