In Favour |Clara Walseworth|

Prince in peril ~ Chapter 17

Germany, 1818.

It had been three days since William collapsed in the drawing room just mere hours after his brother had left.

Word spread quickly, though details were scarce. The official line from the palace was that the youngest prince had taken ill—a sudden fever, they called it. Nothing more. The physicians were summoned in hushed tones, and none dared speak of the way his skin had gone pale as wax, or how his body had convulsed like something poisoned from the inside out.

Now, William lay beneath layers of linen and silk in one of the palace's private guest chambers—far from his own rooms, and even farther from prying eyes. The curtains were drawn tightly against the sunlight, and the air hung heavy with the scent of damp cloth and herbal tinctures.

He had barely stirred in days. His once-sharp features were gaunt, his lips cracked, his skin clammy. He drifted in and out of a restless, sweating sleep, sometimes muttering incoherently, other times too still. The attending physician, a quiet man with a permanent frown and ink-stained fingers, had muttered something about a rare fever of unknown origin.

The room was dim, lit only by the softened glow of morning pressing through heavy curtains. The air was thick with stillness, the kind that came not from peace, but from waiting. From dread.

Clara sat in a carved chair pulled close to the bedside, her hands folded tightly in her lap. Her gown was simple, creased from hours spent unmoving. She hadn't left the room since the second night—not since the fever had worsened, and William had begun muttering her name in broken fragments. Sometimes with laughter. Sometimes with something like apology. Other times with nothing but heat-thick delirium.

Now he lay beneath the weight of fine linens soaked through with sweat, his once-golden skin waxy and pale, his eyes fluttering in some fevered place between dreaming and death. His chest rose and fell, but too shallowly, as though even breathing had become something his body was reluctant to do.

Clara sat motionless, expression unreadable. Her eyes didn't leave him. She didn't reach for him, didn't brush his damp hair from his brow, though the thought had crossed her mind more than once. Her hands remained where they were, clenched tightly, as though to stop them from remembering tenderness.

She should've left.

She'd told herself that a dozen times. She had no obligation to be here, no reason to keep vigil for a man who had caused her pain and held her heart like a weapon. But still, she sat. Perhaps out of duty. Perhaps out of something more complicated.

The physicians came and went. None dared question her presence. A maid had brought a tray that still sat untouched on the far table, tea now long gone cold. No one lingered. The palace had grown too used to shadows lately.

His lips, parted as though about to speak, fell slack once more. The rasp of his breath returned—shallow, damp, and rhythmic in its fragility. His chest rose, fell. Rose again. A slow, uncertain struggle and Clara didn't move.

She hadn't since she sat down that morning, hours ago. The room had shifted around her: servants came and went, cloths were changed, the fire was banked to keep the chill from touching him. Still, she remained as she was—quiet, composed, untouched.

The fever clung to him like a second skin. His dark hair, once so perfectly kept, was now matted to his forehead, damp and dark with sweat. The strong, reckless mouth that had once taunted her so easily now hung slack, wordless. His body, once restless with idle energy, now lay still beneath the fine linens, stripped of bravado and Clara's eyes never strayed.

There was no softness in her face, but there was no cruelty either. Only a calm, distant composure. Her posture was precise, spine straight, hands folded neatly, gown carefully arranged—almost as if she were attending a formal gathering, not keeping vigil at a sickbed. There was something frighteningly serene about it.