Stephen took hold of her free hand. “You can do it, Rose.”
It came in the next moment. Mrs. Wells gritted her teeth and let out a moan. Rose squared her jaw and pushed. And then—just a moment later—they heard a low wail.
“Oh.” Mrs. Wells’s voice was hoarse and ragged. “Oh, thank God.”
“He looks healthy.” Mrs. Jacobs sat at the edge of the bed. “Not that I’m an expert in babies—but he’s moving and breathing and crying…”
“Let me have him.”
Mrs. Jacobs stood. She wrapped a white cotton towel around dark, glistening chestnut skin. A tiny hand pulled at the air; a foot kicked out. A minuscule face scrunched in protest.
Stephen was not a baby sort of person. They’d always seemed strange, clumsy things to dote over—human beings that were not yet old enough to be interesting.
But this baby might have been the most beautiful thing Stephen had ever seen. Every toe seemed perfectly formed. The whole room seemed bathed with light.
“Excellent work,” he heard himself say. It seemed inadequate to the occasion.
Mrs. Wells took her child, holding him to her. Her eyes were shining. In fact, the entire world seemed to shimmer, and Stephen found himself surreptitiously wiping his own eyes.
Rose and her sister were holding each other, speaking in barely coherent sentences, and Stephen realized he was extraneous.
Scarcely a friend. Definitely not family. He’d only been the man who was close enough to help when no one else was around. He hadn’t slept; his presence in a woman’s bedchamber was entirely improper, and…and…
He stayed long enough to make certain that the cord was cut, the after birth properly expelled.
He wished he could stay longer, wished that he belonged here. But this wasn’t the time to demand attention—not now, when the sisters were basking in victory after a hard-fought war. This moment was about everyone but himself.
He smiled at the two of them and then slowly, quietly slipped out of the room.
MRS. JACOBS HAD LEFT to draw a bath for her sister, who was doing her best to stay awake with little Isaac in her arms, when Rose realized that Stephen was no longer in the room. She absented herself swiftly, ran to the stairwell—and caught sight of him in the entry below, staring bemusedly at the door in the entry.
“Stephen,” she called.
He turned around, tilting his head up. He looked every bit as exhausted as she felt. His shirt had long since lost any hint of crispness; it was unbuttoned past his throat, showing a triangle of pale skin and dark, wiry hairs.
“I’ll be on my way shortly,” he said with a small smile. “It’s just that I’ve realized it’s broad daylight—and it will be extraordinarily shocking if I’m seen walking out of your door. Particularly looking like this.” His hand swept down.
She followed his gesture. His sleeves were rolled to his elbow, showing a shocking, delicious amount of skin. His trousers were wrinkled—which only made them mold to his thighs all the more. Without a coat, the linen of his shirt clung to his shoulders—and if she remembered the gossip correctly, hadn’t he done some rowing at Cambridge? He looked like he had.
And she could see precisely what he meant. No shoes; no coat. It would be shocking indeed.
“Oh, dear.” Rose found herself drifting down the stairs toward him. “Oh, dear. I see what you mean. If you go out like that, you’ll start a veritable riot.”
He blinked once…and then ever so slowly, he began to smile.
“You can’t leave without letting me thank you.”
“Ah, Rose. There’s no need for that.”
She descended the staircase. “There’s every need. After what I told you yesterday—”
A sharp rap sounded on the door. Rose frowned—and then realized that Mrs. Josephs was assisting her sister upstairs and Mr. Josephs had not yet returned. She was the only one who could answer the door, and Stephen was standing right here, in a shocking state of undress. Not that she was doing much better; her gown was stained. It wasn’t just wrinkled; it looked as if it had spent the last year wadded up in the back of the wardrobe.
“Go to the back room,” she said to Stephen. “Quickly.”
He winked at her and disappeared.
Rose smoothed her hands over her gown, which did nothing at all. The cause was hopeless, and so she gave up on it and opened the door anyway.
She really ought not to have been surprised at the man who stood there. He had, after all, promised to come in the morning. But at the sight of Doctor Chillingsworth, all the emotion she’d hidden over the course of the night bubbled to the surface—all her fear, her despair. Every last ounce of impossible worry that she had swallowed came back in one blinding rush.
“Doctor Chillingsworth,” she said in a cold voice.
He looked down his nose at her. “I am here as promised.”
“You are too late,” she heard herself say. “Patricia gave birth an hour ago.”