She looked at him with eyes that held every fear she had carried since the letter arrived in London, and she nodded.
He rode hard. The nearest town was four miles, and he covered it in minutes that felt like hours. He found a physician, a Dr. Helmsworth, whose credentials he verified on the spot, and offered him three times his fee to come at once. The doctor did not hesitate.
They arrived back at Morland Hall to find Elinor at her father’s bedside, a cloth pressed to his forehead, her other hand gripping his. Newton had returned to his position at Lord Morland’s hip, purring with a steadiness that seemed to pulse in time with the older man’s breathing.
Dr. Helmsworth examined him for twenty minutes. Lucien stood in the corner, watching Elinor watch the doctor, her body rigid with her face composed by sheer force of will.
“His condition is serious,” the physician told them in the corridor. “The heart is weakened and he has a high fever. He must get through the night. If his body can rest, there is hope, but the next twelve hours are critical.” He looked between them. “Keep him calm. We can only pray his fever breaks. I will return at first light.”
The doctor left, and the house settled into the silence.
Lucien found cloths and a basin of cool water. Elinor laid them on her father’s brow, changing them as they warmed. He kept the fire steady, brought tea she did not drink, and sat beside her silently, when silence was needed, speaking when she could not bear her own thoughts.
They worked as they had at Lyra House, in quiet accord, each anticipating the other.
Near midnight, Lord Morland’s breathing eased. A trace of color returned; his hand unclenched.
Elinor sagged, the will that had sustained her finally spent.
“Come,” he said. “The hallway. Just for a moment. He is sleeping.”
She followed him into the corridor. The door stayed open. Newton remained on the bed, his purring a steady pulse in the quiet room.
Elinor looked at Lucien. Her spectacles were smudged, her hair escaping its arrangement, her face drawn with exhaustion and fear. She opened her mouth as if to speak, and what came out instead was a sound that broke him.
He drew her against him. Her hands knotted in his shirt as she buried her face and wept, not with restraint, but with the raw, shaking grief of a daughter who feared losing the man who had taught her the stars.
Lucien held her, his lips against her hair, his arms firm, his hand steady at her nape.
“Your father has a good heart,” he said against her hair. “Strong, like yours. He raised a woman who sneaks out of her house to teach orphans about constellations and argues with earls about their orreries. A man who builds that does not give up. He will push through, Elinor. He will.”
She shook against him. Her fingers twisted tighter in his shirt.
“You came,” she whispered. “I did not ask you to come, and you came.”
“Of course I did.”
She lifted her face, cheeks wet, eyes red, lips trembling. Gone was the composed lady the ton saw. This was the woman who taught children wonder, who had told him to stop pretending, who had trusted him beneath the jasmine because she had already given him her heart.
He lowered his mouth to hers.
This kiss was different. Not fierce or possessive or desperate, but slow and careful, his lips barely brushing hers, as though she might break and he could hold her together with gentleness alone.
Elinor’s hand rose to his jaw, her fingers resting against his beard as she kissed him back with quiet, exhausted trust.
When they parted, she did not move far. Her forehead rested against his chin, her breathing at last beginning to steady.
“Thank you,” she said. “For the doctor. For being here.”
“There is nowhere else I would be.”
She closed her eyes. He held her in the corridor of her father’s house, and the night stretched long and uncertain around them.
For the first time since a certain letter had arrived eleven years ago, Lucien did not want to be anywhere other than exactly where he was.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“The fever has broken,” Dr. Helmsworth spoke the words at half past seven in the morning, his stethoscope still pressed to her father’s chest.