The next morning Sophie didn’t feel any better. In fact, the sluggish feeling had spread throughout her body. She managed to get out of bed, but only as far as a chair. Perhaps she would feel like this for the next two months. The very idea gave her a headache.

Slowly, slowly, a niggling worry was growing in her mind. She felt lethargic, hot, and headachy. But why was the baby so listless? Anxiously she clutched her stomach but she couldn’t feel any fluttering movements.

A minute later Sophie snapped out of her hazy languor and yanked on the bell cord. When Simone appeared, she said, “Send a message to Dr. Lambeth, please. I need to see him immediately. The messenger can wait and bring him back in our carriage.”

Simone curtsied. Sophie heard her running down the corridor toward the stairs. Then she sat, hand on her stomach, willing a movement, a ripple, something … There was nothing. Her stomach arched before her, heavy, inert. The baby is sleeping, Sophie told herself. I am becoming ill, and so he feels tired.

When Dr. Lambeth entered her room, half an hour later, she looked up at him with terrified eyes.

“I apologize for insisting that you come immediately, Doctor.”

“Nonsense,” Lambeth snapped, walking over to her chair. He reached down and spread his wide, clean hands on her stomach. After a second he straightened.

“I have to ask you to unbutton your nightdress, Your Grace,” he said gently.

Simone was hovering behind the doctor, and as he discreetly walked to the window and looked out, Simone helped Sophie unbutton her nightdress and pull it forward so that her stomach was free.

Sophie watched the rusty red hair on the doctor’s head as he bent over her body.

As the hands kept moving and pressing, and the doctor said nothing, a heavy truth settled in Sophie’s heart.

“Why don’t you get dressed, Your Grace?” In Lambeth’s experience, people were a good deal calmer when they were fully clothed.

Sophie looked at the doctor mutely, then nodded to Simone. Dr. Lambeth retired and stood in the hallway. He stared at the wall. Remembering the stern face of Foakes’s lawyer as he questioned his medical record, Dr. Lambeth had no doubt but that the husband would make a good deal of fuss about his child’s death. He sighed. Sometimes he wondered why he spent so much time with aristocratic patients. Money, he reminded himself.

Simone opened the door and summoned him back into the master bedroom. Sophie was seated on the chair again. When Dr. Lambeth met his patient’s eyes, he saw no fear. Terror had been replaced by despair.

“I am indeed sorry,” he said gently. “I think it is likely that your babe has not survived, for some reason. All we can say in these cases is that it is the will of God.”

“He’s dead,” she said dully.