“I am so sorry to wake you, sir.” She looked and sounded distressed.
“What is it?” He felt a touch alarmed.
“Caroline.” That one word made his heart drop into his stomach. “She’s ill. Feverish and . . . she’s asking for you.”
They took the stairs two at a time. Not until later did Layton stop to wonder how she, being shorter than himself, had managed to keep up with him. Candles burned in Caroline’s room, illuminating her flushed face, pale beneath the spots of color on her overheated cheeks. The moment they reached the bedside, Miss Wood began dabbing at Caroline’s forehead, face, and neck with a damp cloth.
Layton took Caroline’s hand. Even it felt warm. “Darling?” He brushed a damp curl from her face when Miss Wood stopped dabbing in order to rewet her cloth.
Caroline’s eyes fluttered open. Layton’s heart beat harder. Her eyes were dim from the fever, almost unseeing.
“Papa?” she asked tentatively, her voice gruff and quiet.
“I’m here, dearest.” Layton squeezed her hand.
Caroline’s eyes drifted closed again. Layton looked up at Miss Wood. She watched the tiny child, looking near tears.
“Should I have sent for the doctor, sir?” Miss Wood did not take her eyes off Caroline. “I wasn’t sure.”
Layton looked back at Caroline. She was definitely feverish but not restless. She seemed to be resting relatively well. “Children get fevers, Layton,” Mater had said once when he’d fretted over a brief illness of Caroline’s. “Rest and water. That’s what she needs.”
He leaned closer to his daughter. “Caroline?” he whispered. Her eyes opened perhaps a quarter of an inch. “Have some water, dear. It will help you feel better.”
Miss Wood pressed a glass of water into Layton’s hand in the very next moment, as if anticipating the request he had been about to make. He managed to get two mouthfuls of water past Caroline’s lips before she drifted to sleep again.
Miss Wood pressed the cool, wet cloth to Caroline’s forehead, and they both watched her sleep for several long minutes without a word between them. Layton had grown so accustomed to a chipper, chatty Miss Wood that her pensive silence unnerved him.
“If she does not seem better by morning, I will send for the doctor,” Layton said, attempting to reassure her.
Miss Wood looked across the bed at him, and to Layton’s surprise, tears coursed down her cheeks. “I didn’t know what to do.” She sobbed and buried her face in the damp cloth she held in her hands.
Layton kissed Caroline’s hand, slipped it under her blanket, and walked around to where Miss Wood sat crying on the edge of his daughter’s bed. Her concern for his daughter seemed to surpass even his own. He couldn’t imagine a mother being more distraught over an illness afflicting her own child. Caroline’s own mother hadn’t shown so much concern for her.
“Miss Wood.” He laid his hand softly on her shoulder. That same tingle he’d felt when he’d touched her down at the river coursed through him again. “Caroline will be fine, I assure you. The fever will most certainly pass.”
“I could never forgive myself if anything were to happen to her.” She pulled just far enough away from the cloth for her words to be distinguishable. “To be so useless again.”
Her voice broke on the last word. Her anguish was almost palpable. Layton closed his eyes for a moment, trying to block it out, being too strongly reminded of another time when the house had been filled with heart-wrenching sobs. He’d been such a failure then. The memory froze him to his core.
Miss Wood continued to cry. He couldn’t bear it. Layton shifted his hand from her shoulder to her chin, tilting her face so he could see her. She tried to smile through her tears. With a jolt, he realized he was well on his way to falling helplessly in love with her, this ball of energy and chaos that ran rampant through his house and encouraged his daughter to steal cake and laugh. His heart wrenched to see her crying.
“What did you mean?” he asked. “‘Useless again’?”
And her smile slipped away completely. “My mother . . .” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “She had a f-f-fever . . .”
A surge of sympathy swept through him.
“I tried so hard to help her, but I didn’t know what to do!”
Layton wasn’t sure how it happened, but the next moment, he was holding Miss Wood in his arms, rubbing her back and whispering what he hoped were soothing words. He expected her to pull away—Bridget always had when he’d tried to comfort her; she’d rejected even her husband’s support. But Miss Wood remained, leaning her head against him, her tears soaking through the fine linen of his shirt.