“Is my wife in any danger?”

“I doubt it,” Lambeth said calmly, not even looking back at his patient, who was sleeping restlessly. “It’s probably better that Her Grace does not fully experience the birth. Not that it will be very painful, given that the child is not yet full-grown.”

Patrick swallowed, hard. He started to walk to the door. He stopped, wheeled about.

“I want to see the baby. When it’s born.” His voice grated, hardly disguising the blunt agony raging in his heart.

Oh for God’s sake, Lambeth thought to himself.

“I can inform you whether you would have had an heir,” he said, his voice rigidly disapproving.

Patrick’s eyes blazed from a bone-white face. “What the devil does the sex matter? I want to see the baby, Doctor. In case Sophie doesn’t wake up in time, she would want to know what her baby looked like.”

Dr. Lambeth allowed his patient’s husband a small smile. Now that was the kind of response he was pleased to hear.

“I shall call you at the appropriate moment, Your Grace,” he said primly, ushering Patrick to the door. “I would prefer that you went downstairs, perhaps to your library, and I shall ring the bell when I wish to have you summoned.”

Patrick numbly allowed himself to be pushed out into the hallway. He walked down the stairs like a ghost, his hand trailing over the places where Sophie’s hand had been, a short two hours ago. He walked down the stairs and stood at the bottom as if he’d been turned to salt, moving to the side only when a nurse gowned in white was ushered in the front door and started up the stairs accompanied by Clemens.

If only he hadn’t shouted at her. If only he had realized that she had a fever and wasn’t feeling well. Why, why did he shout at her and make her fall down the stairs? Not knowing what to do, Patrick walked into the library and poured himself a brandy, but set it down, untouched, twenty minutes later.

For an hour, two hours, he walked up and down the same strip of rug, beginning just in front of the oak bookcases and walking precisely to his father’s book stand, then wheeling about and walking back. And the only things he could think of came from that burning hole in his heart, the same questions rising again and again. Why didn’t he control his temper? Why didn’t he realize his wife had a fever? He knew she never wore rouge!