The past was better not thought of, not at all, but that night, Laura spent many waking, fretful minutes thinking of it. She was angered more than she was saddened, until the moment when she was so crushed by sadness she could hardly breathe, and all that could lift her out of it was the burning anger inside her once more.

She would never have a child. She would never marry again. All she had was that poor dead thing that had come out of her, and the ghost of the husband who had turned upon her for it. That a woman like Elizabeth existed in the world — a woman who had children and could leave them, ill and hurting, without a backward glance — hurt her. It wasn't fair. That Richard, a man who would surely have been a good father, could not have children, that he could not give her a child, hurt her more. In the depths of her grief, she wished for all that could not be. And after dropping into a restless sleep shortly before dawn, woke to the double mortification of blood on her sheets and between her legs.

The fit was over by then, however. Laura was now less angry and hurt than embarrassed. She had allowed Elizabeth to get the best of her, and worse, had been unjust and cruel to Richard, who was everything good and never deserved it.

She cleaned herself up and went for a long walk around the garden to avoid seeing either of them that morning, but when she returned and slipped late into the breakfast parlour, she was dismayed to find that they were both still there. It seemed they were waiting for her: Richard still drank coffee, but the cold remains of their meals lay on the plates in front of them. As she came in, Richard stood for her and held out her chair. There was something stiff and hurt about his expression. Laura's smile of thanks wilted beneath it.

"Elizabeth," Richard said warningly as he sat down again.

Elizabeth looked briefly up from the egg-shells on her plate but said nothing. Richard's mouth tightened, and Laura had the faint relief of realizing that at least some of his disappointment was not for her alone. She got herself some cold, dry toast and spread butter on it mechanically. Richard resumed his coffee. Then Elizabeth said abruptly,

"I'm sorry for what I said last night."

Laura stared at her toast. The pain came dully back to her and she felt momentarily sick with sorrow. Then she realized, by Elizabeth's jerking, nervous movements further down the table that she was supposed to reply, and said, with effort,

"I'm sorry too." Laura didn't think she really was, but she wanted nothing more than for this moment to be over. "I said some things that were... wrong."

Perhaps neither of them really meant it, but Laura wearily hoped it signified a truce. Sparring with Elizabeth alone she might savagely enjoy, but bringing Richard into it was only going to hurt his feelings — they'd been hurt enough already.

Elizabeth seemed to think it was over at least. She collected her cutlery neatly on her plate and stood up. But at the door she stopped and turned back.

"There's something I must say. To both of you."

Richard sighed over his coffee. "Then please do."

Elizabeth straightened her skirts. "I am praying," she said severely, "praying every night that there will be no child out of this. You've no right, either of you, to bring a child into this mess. That's all."

A hot flush spread over Laura's cheeks. Richard's mouth opened and then shut.

"That's not something you need to worry about," he said at last.

"It's for you two to worry," Elizabeth said, sweeping from the room.

The door shut behind her, and the room was momentarily silent.

"Elizabeth doesn't know that you can't have children?" Laura asked after a moment.

"No," Richard said flatly.

They fell into silence again. Laura managed to chew half a piece of cold toast before giving it up. She drank lukewarm coffee instead, which wasn't much better. She was still embarrassed about last night, even ashamed. She knew quite well that Richard had meant to be kind in coming to see if she was alright. It wasn't his fault that in her pain she wished for nothing more than to be alone.

She dropped her toast on her plate and reached to take his hand resting on the table. He started at her sudden touch and then relaxed.

"I'm sorry," she said. "What I said last night — I didn't mean it."

"I know."

There was something strangely, frighteningly cold in his tone still. He pushed his plate away and leaned his elbows on the table, looking down.

"I know when you're hurting," he said. "I know when you're biting out because something's biting you inside. Like last night. But that... doesn't make it hurt me less. And I'm not the one— I hope I'm not the one hurting you."

"Never you." She got up and wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind, burying her face in his neck and kissing it. "I'm sorry, Richard." She kissed him again, trying to make ingress between his hands which still covered his face, but he wouldn't turn to her, and when she said again she was sorry and again tried to kiss him, he slid out of her hold and stood up to face her.

She shrank back against the dark expression on his face. "I'm sorry, Richard."

"I know very well that you are. But kisses and apologies — or crawling into my bed — doesn't fix anything. And this keeps happening — you keep losing your temper with me and then seducing me after as though that's making up."

He broke off suddenly, just as his voice was getting uncomfortably loud and sharp, and shook his head helplessly. She stood paralyzed before him, unsure of what he wanted or what she should do to make it right. She dared not reach out and touch him again, and knew no other way of regaining his good favour. Instead, she stood motionless and watched him pace back and forth, stick thumping, as he slowly regained his composure. Eventually, he came to a stop in front of her, resting both hands on his stick.

"I know you only hurt me because you're hurting," he said gently, "but I don't know why you hurt. Maybe if I understand better, I can help you. Will you tell me about it? Will it make you feel better if you tell me about it?"

Her heart, which had slowed, suddenly started racing again.

"You lost a husband," Richard continued. "A baby. I know that much. And you're still grieving, aren't you? You never stopped."

The memory came flashing back to her of the day of the birth — the fatigue, lying drained in her damp bed, listless, careless — the sudden flaring, panicked realization that the room was silent— silent for all but adult whispers — then Maidstone's figure looming over her, his voice like thunder in the still room — what did you do?

What had she done? Maybe she had done something. No. No, she'd done nothing, she was sure. Not then.

"Laura?" Richard touched her hand.

"I— I can't, Richard." She took a deep breath, almost a sob. "No. I can't."

For a moment, he was silent. "Then you can't."

That Richard misjudged her marriage shouldn't have surprised her, but it did. And it was impossible to explain it to him — even if he could understand —and he could, she thought— she could not talk of it. There was too much pain there. Too much pain, better left in the past.

Instead, she savagely blamed Elizabeth for so provoking her, for bringing up the event in such a cruel way. In the two days they'd been alone in the house together, they'd sparred many times, but it was the first time Elizabeth had sunk to such lows. Laura could only determine that she would not let Elizabeth get between her and Richard. Her reasoning for coming to Albroke was so tenuous that Laura flatly disbelieved it, and Laura could not forget her warning in the museum. Very well. If Elizabeth was determined to break them up, the least that Laura could do would be to restrain her own hurt and not bite back at Richard — who had never hurt her.

She tentatively turned into him and buried her head in his shoulder, not for kisses this time but comfort. His arms came around her, his stick dropping to the floor.

"I'm going to try," she said into his collar. "I am trying. But sometimes... sometimes I need to be alone. So that all my... hurting only hurts me."

"I don't want you to hurt at all."

"It's too late for that."

His arms tightened around her. Her fear and sorrow drained away to an uneasy, exhausted calm. Then the door opened suddenly and a chambermaid shrieked. They broke apart in some confusion, while the chambermaid made her blushing excuses and backed away.

Richard swore under his breath. "We weren't even kissing. Country servants. I did wonder about putting you in the dower cottage..." He looked at her consideringly a moment. "But I want you here with me."

It was a matter of fact statement. There was nothing romantic about it. Nothing that should have made Laura feel suddenly strangely fluttery inside.

"We'd better leave and let them clean the breakfast things," she said, to cover her confusion. And then abruptly, as she went to the door, "I want to be here with you."

She did not turn back to see how Richard reacted. She was too embarrassed and ill-at-ease to dare. And perhaps that was best, for his sudden warm smile would probably only have made her more confused and fluttery inside.

* * *

After his argument with Elizabeth, Richard half-expected her to give up and return home immediately. It was that, he thought, or she would double down on her efforts to persuade him to abandon Laura. When in following days she made no move to leave, he prepared for the worst, and was confused and surprised when it didn't happen. Instead, Elizabeth appeared content with ignoring Laura's existence and distancing herself from Richard as much as was possible while living in the same house with him.

At meals, where she could not avoid either of them, she remained silent and looked disapproving. During the day, she avoided their favoured rooms and walks, and sat doing her work or teaching her daughter in the less-used and less-comfortable state rooms. She was not entirely inofficious; one evening she called on the parson and had a long, earnest talk with him. As the parson was Richard's old friend Charmers, present in the living through Richard's generosity, this had very little effect other than to remind him to stroll over to Richard's house and consume a bottle of port and the high notes of London gossip with him. As he was leaving, he did pause at the door, and add, in his usual, uncertain voice,

"Oh yes, er, um, Lanny, old boy, if you ever do decide to get riveted to the Brock Girl, you will think of me, won't you?"

Richard, a little tipsy, laughed. "Charm, you're the only man I'd ever ask for the job."

Later, when he was sober, it made Richard laugh again to think that Charmers had offered the exact opposite of what Elizabeth wanted. He told her that, one morning, finding her lying on the couch in the drawing room, to tease her. She looked up at him, frowning.

"I don't see how you can find it at all funny," she said, in a thin, tired voice. "It's not funny at all."

"I think it's hilarious. If you wish to split Laura and me up, you'll have to find someone better for the job than Charmers."

"Richard," she said painfully, "do go away."

He stared down at her, perplexed. He noticed now she was rather pale. And she was not the type of woman who enjoyed being idle. "Are you alright, Liz?"

"I have a headache."

"Do you need the doctor?"

"I need you to go away."

And he did go away, annoyed that Elizabeth was not to be teased today.

In fact, where he had feared at first that she would be trying to bully him out of keeping Laura, he soon began to feel a little disappointed that she was not giving him any sparring opportunities at all. Her strict avoidance of them, apart from at meal times and Sunday church, which she could hardly avoid and which Richard could hardly spoil by bickering with her, meant that he never saw or spoke to her except upon polite terms.

But even that didn't mean that Richard was free of censure. He had hoped that with Elizabeth and Catherine staying with him, Neil might reconsider his decision and bring Verity and the children down with him for the summer. With that in mind, he'd written to Neil and asked him down. After the cold way they'd parted in March, Richard had been eager to see him again and make up. However, the refusal he received was curt and direct, a mere repetition of Neil's earlier sentiments towards Laura. What was worse was the longer, more delicate letter Richard received from Verity a few days later. Her opinion was weighted the other way: where Neil wished for Richard to send Laura away and set her up in the country somewhere, Verity instead urged him to marry her.

...if you have any affection for her at all, then you must marry her. If you are without affection, send her away — but I cannot believe that you are doing what you are doing without affection for the lady — and in that case, marrying her is not only what is right for both of you, but I believe must also be what is best for your happiness. You are worth taking a wife who is fond of you — Neil will give me no virtues of which I can blindly accuse her, but I must be sure of that at least — if she were not fond of you she would never be your mistress, but insist on being your wife — and if such is the case, what stops you from marrying her? I cannot understand it.

It hurt to read it. Richard sensed behind her kind words a judgement and a criticism that she was too soft-hearted to voice. Criticism of his arrangement with Laura, and criticism too of his silent, unrequited adoration for Verity herself. 'Go and marry,' she was saying; 'go and marry and forget you ever loved me.'

He took several days over his reply. Letters to Verity were always difficult, and this one was of a more delicate subject matter than most. Eventually, there were little more than a handful of sentences he dared risk on the subject, and those not entirely candid:

I do not deny that I hold my lady in affectionate regard, but I am unsure that that is enough to make for a good marriage. You do not know her virtues, and so I will give you one: she is, I believe, fond of me. And what stops me from marrying her — fondness is all we have. No commonality of spirit unites us, no possibility of children or family, no similar goals, nor even, very often, compatible temperaments. I am fond of her despite what she is, and she is fond of me, I believe, despite all I am.

To which Verity wrote, in a post-script of the next letter of Neil's:

Darling Rich,

I am very cross and I take back my words. If fondness despite isn't enough for you, you never deserve to marry.

He could not tell if she was serious or not, but he had the uneasy suspicion that she was right. Either way, he thought, it did not matter: as long as Laura was unwilling to marry him, his own feelings on the matter could be of no import.