“Miscarriage … You’re quite sure that she will lose the baby?” Patrick’s heart felt as if someone had thrust a dagger into it.

“Yes.” The doctor didn’t bother to say anything further, and when Patrick opened his mouth to ask a question he just raised a finger condescendingly. Patrick realized that he was holding Sophie’s limp wrist and counting her pulse. Finally the doctor raised Sophie’s head and poured a hefty dose of laudanum down her throat.

Then he shot Patrick a glance. “I must request that you leave the room now, Your Grace.”

Patrick just looked back at him. Privately, Lambeth thought that although most husbands acted like the very devil when this sort of thing happened—an unfortunate business, losing the heir—this husband really looked like the devil. And he didn’t like the story of the young duchess falling down the stairs. Not that it would have made any difference.

When Patrick stood up, towering over him, his black eyes burning furiously into his, Lambeth thought again, Foakes looks like the devil and acts like him too.

Patrick’s voice was measured but the fury about to erupt in it was clear.

“I will stay here.” He backed up one step.

The doctor shrugged. Briskly he pulled down Sophie’s sheets and hauled up her nightdress, ignoring the barely suppressed movement of the husband. What did he think doctors did when they examined their female patients? Looked at them from across the room? He did a brief examination. Good: It looked as if her waters had already broken. Shouldn’t be long now.

He turned around, girding himself to deal with the husband, whose face had gone dead white, Lambeth noted dispassionately. Really, men didn’t belong in a birthing room. And he couldn’t think why this one was refusing to leave. The man looked as if he might faint, although there was only a small show of blood. Lambeth turned about and pulled up his patient’s sheet.

“I must insist that you leave,” Dr. Lambeth said as firmly as he could, instilling his voice with every drop of authority he had in his body.

Patrick shifted burning eyes to the doctor’s face.

“Why?”

“Your presence makes me uneasy,” Lambeth said bluntly. “I need all my wits about me to deliver a stillborn child when his mother is in a raging fever and half unconscious. I can’t have you standing about and almost giving me a facer every time I conduct a routine examination.”

Patrick met the doctor’s unsympathetic eyes. “Couldn’t the babe live? It’s … he’s seven months old.”

“No.” The doctor’s tone was final. “The child is not alive.”

“I won’t do anything. I will remain here.” Patrick pointed to the wall.

“No.”

Patrick looked at him and knew that he couldn’t intimidate Lambeth. The doctor had far too much sense of his own consequence.