The London season came to an end, and Richard prepared, with more happiness than usual, for his return home to Albroke at the end of it. Anything more than an hour or two in a coach was sure to make his bad leg ache with stiffness, and riding was even worse, so the full day's journey was tiring, painful, and generally put him in a bad mood for a week, but there was something about the idea of taking the journey with Laura by his side that made him somehow look forward to it. Then there were the further pleasures he anticipated, of showing her once more around Albroke and letting her see what he'd done since he'd inherited the vast estate from his father, of the novel pleasurableness of company in what was often an echoing, empty manor, even of the possibility of nostalgia: she'd spend some time in Albroke as a child, and though he hadn't particularly cared about her then, he rather thought those memories would now have greater importance to him.

His happiness, however, was disappointed when at the last minute a sudden business matter delayed him in town three more days, and, as most of the rooms of his townhouse were already closed up and most of his servants already sent home, he decided that it was best for Laura to go on ahead without him, while he stayed in a hotel for two nights. They were two long nights and three long days. It was the first time he'd been apart from Laura in several months, and he missed her more than he had expected. Then, for the long and painful journey home, over dry, dusty roads, he had only the consolation that at the end of it, Laura would be waiting to greet him home.

As his carriage rolled up the sweep under a blazing afternoon sun, he looked hopefully out for her on the steps to the manor, but when the front doors opened they revealed only the butler, and as he went, limping rather more than usual for his leg was cramping, into the hall he could tell there was something wrong. It was too silent. Then there was a footstep on the mezzanine, and he looked up to see Laura standing at the head of the stairs. There was something grim about the twist of her mouth and she was making no move to descend. Richard's first thought was that she was in one of her moods. But before he could take the stairs to greet her, there was another footstep from the drawing room, and he turned, confused, to see Elizabeth stepping out of it, her youngest child in her arms.

There were servants in the hall still, so Richard could not say the words which rose to his lips. Instead, he turned, rather surprised, back to Laura, and saw her shake her head.

"Richie," Elizabeth said, before he could say anything. "How lovely to see you."

"And what a surprise to see you." He stared at the infant. "And — Margaret, is it?"

"Catherine," his sister said reproachfully. "Margaret is my second daughter."

All of his sister's children were well behaved, and Catherine only stared silently at him from incurious blue eyes as he carefully took her from his sister and joggled her in his arms. She was not quite two, but getting to be leggy, and would probably be as tall as his sister.

"Give your uncle a kiss, Catherine," her mother ordered, and Catherine politely, dutifully, kissed Richard on the cheek, much the same way, Richard thought, as she would have kissed the king, or a sweep, or a marble bust. Not that Neil's children weren't more trouble but it was a trouble that was somehow endearing.

"Thank you, Catherine dear," Richard said. He glanced upwards and saw that Laura had disappeared from the mezzanine. In a way, that made it easier. "Let's go into the drawing room. Hup. You hold my cravat, Cate, because I must use my stick."

"Catherine," Elizabeth corrected, leading the way.

In the drawing room, they sat, Catherine very properly beside Richard with her legs straight across the couch and her hands in her lap. Doll-like, she glanced up at him occasionally, but said not a word nor made a motion.

Now that they were out of earshot of the servants, Richard could speak freely.

"What on earth are you doing here?" he asked. "You didn't tell me you were coming at all!"

"No," Elizabeth said. "I thought you might refuse. You can be so mean about things. After all, this is the house of my birth."

"I wouldn't refuse," Richard said, exasperated. "But really, a word of warning would have been appreciated! Did Laura turn up to find you here?"

"I didn't think you'd have her in the house," Elizabeth said reprovingly. "The dowager cottage is empty, after all."

"As are all of the bedrooms here, bar mine." Richard narrowed his eyes. "Where are you and Catherine sleeping?"

"The nursery is shut up, so I put Catherine next to me, in the red room."

Which meant that Elizabeth had commandeered the two nicest bedrooms in the place, one of which he had meant for Laura.

"I hope you haven't relegated Laura to the attic," Richard said sharply.

"Of course not!" Elizabeth sniffed. "She refused to go to the dower house, as it happened. She has set herself up in the blue suite."

Richard smiled. The blue suite had once upon a time been Richard's mother's, as Laura must have known. Even if it wasn't as richly furnished as the two state rooms Elizabeth had taken for herself, it certainly sent a message.

"The arrangement will have to stand then. How long will you be here?"

"It sounds as if you want me to leave!"

"Not at all. But I'll need to alter my plans for the summer now." The worm of an idea came to him. "Are your other children not here? Perhaps I should ask Neil and Verity to come with theirs and entertain Catherine."

"I do not think that is necessary. As it happens, I have isolated Catherine from a sort of pox that my other children have caught. I would prefer her not exposed to potential contagions in the form of" —her nose twitched— "Rodger and Anne."

"You would not rather nurse your others?" Richard asked, surprised and almost angered. "Surely a nanny can take care of Catherine. I will happily engage to keep her here until it's safe for her to go home."

Elizabeth's pale cheeks reddened. "I cannot leave Catherine alone in a house with your... woman. Do not be silly. And as for nursing my others, no. I simply cannot risk Catherine getting any sort of contagion. She is so delicate."

Richard looked at Catherine, who was as plump, pink-cheeked, and sturdy looking as any child ought to be. She blinked up at him.

"I'll do whatever I can to help," Richard said at last. "But I do wish you had only given me some notice. I would not have refused."

"Well." Elizabeth folded her hands in her lap. "You have been so intractable lately. About other matters."

"I'm afraid, Sister, that I have been intractable all my life," Richard said drily. "A family trait, I do believe. Now. If you will both excuse me, I must talk to The Woman." He stood, and paused at the door. "Will I see you at dinner?"

"Naturally," Elizabeth said. "Though Catherine eats with her nurse."

Limping upstairs, Richard found Laura in the blue suite, sitting at what had been his mother's dressing table and examining the effect of the slender gold chain and amber bauble he had bought her in London. In a pale primrose dress with gold trim, she looked like a princess out of a fairytale. She turned as he came in and let the bauble, unclasped, fall to her lap.

"Has she been very cruel?" he asked.

She shrugged. "My consolation is that so have I. She has trained the poor baby to scream every time I enter the room. She says Cate has delicate sensibilities."

There was something more broken-hearted than bitter in her voice. Wordlessly, Richard went over and bent down to kiss her.

"I missed you," he said, "and I'm sorry about Elizabeth."

Laura wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her head against his ribs. "I missed you too."

There was a sudden warmth within Richard that had nothing to do with kissing alone, but seemed to demand more of it. He kissed her again, tangling his fingers in her hair, and wondered if he could persuade her to get undressed before dinner. Even as he was wondering, the gong rang downstairs, and Richard drew back in surprise. By his watch, it was only half past five.

"Dinner at six? I normally take it at seven in the country."

"Elizabeth has been managing the household," Laura said with a sigh, turning back to the mirror and correcting her hair. "I was woken up by breakfast in bed the other day. I can't stand eating in bed. And the chambermaid was blushing to speak with me."

"I'll have a talk with the servants."

"Don't," Laura warned, picking up the amber necklace and fixing it around her neck. "This is a woman's war, Richard. A man on the field will only become a casualty."

He laughed, and managed to get a reluctant smile from her.

* * *

Richard was late to dinner, having had to wash the dust of the road from his face and hands and change his suit, and came down to see the dining table laid for three at one end, and Elizabeth, not to his surprise, sitting at the head of the table.

He wasn't one to argue on that account and sat down next to her, opposite Laura. What she had said about being a woman's war might be true, for Elizabeth was dressed in puritan propriety, her dark hair hidden under a cap, her dress white and thick and very high at the neck, and closed off there by a discreet pearl necklace. Laura, on the other hand, was almost glittering under the candlelight, and there was rouge on her cheeks, which she rarely otherwise bothered with.

The meal was emasculating. There was not a single fowl, joint, or fish to carve. Here, Richard saw Elizabeth's touch. But if she had intended to prevent him serving, she was outmanoeuvred.

"Let us not stand on ceremony," Laura said, waving away the footman. "We can serve ourselves, Thomas."

"Very good, m'lady." The footman retreated backwards, and they were left alone in the dining room. Laura dug a spoon into the curry.

"Richard and I often serve ourselves," she explained to Elizabeth. "It's so much more intimate."

Elizabeth's lips twitched. "Humph." She manoeuvred the tongs for some kippers. "This is why Catherine cannot join us."

"Because she can't use the tongs? But we could do that for her, and cut up her food."

"Because you make no disguise of your indecency."

"Indecency undisguised is so not so terrible as indecency disguised, is it not?"

"Better there be none at all!"

"But there isn't none, is there?" Laura nibbled on asparagus. "Not amongst us? For as Richard and I certainly have our... situation. You, well." She looked doubtful.

"What, about me?" Elizabeth asked dangerously. "I have always conducted myself according to propriety. I raise my children the same way."

"And I had a proper upbringing too," Laura said, her voice growing cold. "I was taught to say please and thank you and do as I was told. I was taught that every feeling must be hidden away behind a smile and a pleasant word — but not too pleasant, lest we look too warm. And when I was eight years old, I had the flu and my nurse and the doctor hid all my feelings away behind the baize door of my nursery, and I thought I would die. I cried for my mother, who was dead, and my father, who did not come. How very proper it is of you to raise your children to hide their illness from you. How perfectly proper. How incredibly indecent."

There was a fixed smile on Laura's face by the time she had finished speaking. Her voice could have been no more pleasant had she been enquiring after Elizabeth's health.

"You know nothing of my children's health," Elizabeth said. "Nothing of Catherine."

"I know that it's wrong to coddle one perfectly healthy child while your others suffer at a distance."

"I am doing the best I can!"

"I know. That's why it's so much more of a tragedy that it's not good enough."

Richard, bewildered, watched them, sipping his wine and wondering if he should intervene. But Laura seemed to be the one in control; her eyes glittered with angry amusement and not fear or sorrow. Meanwhile, Elizabeth's, pale and only pecking at her food, seemed at the very least uncertain. She had always been good at hiding her emotions, and Richard suspected her to be a great deal more upset than she was letting on.

"But what is wrong with Catherine?" Laura asked, still in that pleasant, vicious tone. "Is she unhappy? I think she must be. I've never seen her smile."

"You don't make me smile either."

"I shouldn't," Laura said. "My object is to make your brother smile and the methods by which I do that can only make you frown— see, you are frowning right now."

In fact, Elizabeth looked on the verge of drawing back her chair and leaving the table, but she stiffened herself and took a sip of water.

"But really," Laura continued lightly, "it's a mother's duty to make her child smile, and you've never done that. I don't think the child is very unhappy, but I doubt she even knows what happiness is. It may not be a polite emotion, but it is rather a good one."

Elizabeth turned over the salad on her plate with a fork, digging and turning, like a crow hunting for a worm in a pile of leaf litter. The hard lines around her mouth and forehead were deeply evident.

"Even if I am a bad mother," she said at last, in a quiet, dangerous voice, "at the very least, I am a mother."

Laura, who had been about to drink, dropped her wine glass on the table. Red liquid flooded the white cloth and the glass rolled, whistling, to the edge of the table, where it dropped off, shattering on the floor.

The colour drained from Laura's face and she looked, eyes huge and disbelieving at Elizabeth, her lips half-open, some unspoken word frozen on them.

For a moment, Richard doubted Elizabeth had meant what Laura had clearly taken her to mean, but he looked to Elizabeth and was shocked to see the angry gleam of triumph in her eyes.

Laura stumbled to her feet and drifted from the room. She ran into the doorway as she left, with a bang that must have hurt. Richard was on his feet and half-way after her when Elizabeth stopped him.

"Shouldn't you call someone to clean up that glass?"

He stopped and turned. Elizabeth was still sitting complacently at the table, but she had laid down her fork. She'd found the worm she was looking for.

Richard strode back over and put his hands either side of her chair to look down into her eyes.

"You disgust me," he said, his voice curling. "You are a lucky, lucky woman to have never lost a child, never once miscarried, never once mourned. Holding that over a woman who lost her only one — you are beyond cruel. You are beyond wrong."

Doubt warped her features for a moment. She turned her head away. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Yes," Richard said. "You did."

Her mouth trembled. "I'm sorry."

"And you'll tell her that. Tomorrow, not tonight. Not now." He pushed himself away from her and limped savagely back to the door, his stick crunching through a shard of shattered glass. "And I hope you'll mean it."

When he reached Laura's room, he found the door locked.

He knocked softly. "Laura?"

He thought he heard a sound from inside. But after several minutes, there was no answer even though he called again, so he slipped away and, finding a chambermaid in a corridor, had a quiet word with her. A moment later, the housekeeper came, bringing with her the ring of keys, and Richard went back to Laura's door.

"Laura?" he called again.

Still, no motion or sound. He slid the key silently in the lock, twisted it, and slid inside.

Her room was on the east side of the house and dim at this time of evening, but he could make out the lump of pale yellow she made on the bed and went over to her. She was lying on her belly, her face buried in a pillow.

"Laura?" He touched her shoulder. She made neither motion nor sound. "Talk to me. Let me... let me help you."

She jerked away from him. "Go away."

There was a venom in her voice that shocked him, and he drew back.

"Go away. Just go. I don't want your pity. I don't want your advice. I don't want anything from you, Richard." She turned around at last, and sat up and glared at him, her eyes dry, her face ugly with anger. "Don't you know where you're not wanted?"

She spoke to hurt him, and he knew it, and it hurt anyway. He stood there in silence a moment, and then, his pain dulling down to a sort of stunned realization, decided it was best to leave her alone, and did so.