“She looked cold in the sheet they put her in. So I brought her up here and I wrapped her in one of my winter cravats, a cashmere one.” He looked down at his wife, who was still crying.

Sophie lifted a trembling hand and tugged at Patrick’s shoulder until he carefully bent forward, swinging up his legs so that he was lying by her side. With a sigh she buried her face against his shoulder.

“Where is she?”

“She’s buried in the family plot,” Patrick said quietly. “I didn’t want to leave you, so Alex and Charlotte took her to Downes. She’s next to my mother … my mother loved babies.” He rubbed his cheek against his wife’s soft hair.

Sophie buried her face deeper in his shoulder. When she finally spoke, it was so softly that he could barely hear her voice.

“Did you give her a name?”

Patrick shook his head, then realized that she couldn’t see him. “I thought we could do that together.”

He didn’t want to explain that priests couldn’t baptize children who had died before being born. Or that their family priest wasn’t the family priest anymore because he had refused to bury their child in consecrated ground. Alex had dismissed him on the spot and ridden all the way back up to London to fetch David Marlowe.

“Alex sent a letter, and there’s also a letter from Charlotte to you. They’re coming to London tomorrow. David said a service for the baby—you remember David, don’t you?”

Sophie nodded. Of course she remembered David, the sweet, brown-eyed curate who been friends with Braddon and Patrick since their school days.

Then Sophie started crying so hard that her whole body shook, and Patrick couldn’t do anything other than hold her and murmur tender, loving words.

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

For the next few days Sophie lay in bed, listlessly eating a bite or two of Floret’s lovingly prepared invalid food. Patrick sat with her for long hours, reading aloud her favorite novels, the gossip sheets from The Morning Post, and the international news from The Times. Sophie didn’t really listen. She would follow a story for a few minutes, then her mind would drift back to the present. Sometimes tears would start silently running down her face, and Patrick would put down his book and wipe her cheeks and pull her against his shoulder, and sometimes she just stared at the wall, feeling a roaring emptiness descend on her mind.

Her mother visited every day, making bracing pronouncements about future pregnancies. Once, her father tiptoed in and stood silently by her bed.

“I wish we’d had another child,” he finally said. “Then you might have a sister to help you through this.”

Sophie just looked at him, her eyes bone dry. “It wouldn’t matter, Papa.”