Neil's house was smaller than Laura had expected, a very prim and proper country manor of red-brick with two windows to each side of the entry door and five windows on the floor above, and then a set of leering little garrets in the roof. Once they were inside, she found that it was bigger than it looked, running deceptively deep rather than wide. They weren't standing in the hall more than a moment when there came the sound of footsteps pounding on the mezzanine above and someone — very small — came half-running half-tumbling down the stairs.

"Oof!" grunted Richard, as he caught the child in his arms and swung her up high. "You've gotten so big, Annie!"

"Uncle Wichard," she said coyly, clutching his shoulders. "I'm going to be six foot tall."

Laura laughed, and Annie turned inquisitive green eyes towards her.

"Who's she?" she asked.

"This is my wife, your Auntie Laura," Richard said, repositioning her a little. "You're too heavy to carry, darling. Can I put you down?"

"I'm going to be tenty stone," Annie said, sliding down his leg and landing with a thump on the floor. She looked up at Laura. "Hello. How many stone are you?"

"I'm not sure," Laura said, leaning down and holding out her hand. "What's your name?"

"Annie," she said, shaking Laura's hand with pompous self-sureness. "It's nice to meet you too. Mama told me you were coming. Why did you make Papa so mad?"

"I didn't make him mad." Laura felt a twinge of guilt. "We're very good friends."

"Then why does his face go—" Annie screwed up her lips tight and frowned "—when Mama talks about you?"

"Now, Annie dear," Richard said gently, but a sharp voice from the landing above interrupted him.

"Annie! Get back here!"

Then Neil came running down the stairs, and Annie, casting one glance at him, waddled hastily off the other way. She ducked between the legs of a groom who was carrying in a trunk and out the open front door. Neil completely ignored Richard and Laura in his pursuit of her. He burst through the front door, almost running into another groom. Laura turned, bemused, as the sound of a childish scream and then sobs came from outside. A moment later, Neil marched back in, Annie prostrate and wailing in his arms.

"You have this to look forward to," he said savagely to Richard as he marched past them.

Annie only screamed louder. Neil marched onwards, up the stairs, and disappeared somewhere over the landing. The screaming faded away.

Laura turned to Richard, bewildered. He looked back at her and shrugged.

"I'll go see if I can find Verity. Neil seems preoccupied."

Richard disappeared through a door. Laura sighed and sat down on a bench. Around her, the menservants continued to move their trunks into the hall and up the stairs. After several minutes, Richard didn't return, and the hall cleared of servants. The front doors shut. All was still. Laura looked around rather uneasily, feeling suddenly out of place and unbelonging. She got up again and set off up the stairs, thinking that a more likely place to find people than wherever Richard had gone. Above, a long hallway stretched dimly down towards a distant window, with doors on each side. Laura heard voices coming from further along and followed them. Going through a door, she found Neil sitting at a dressing table hugging a tear-stained Annie.

"I told you it would be alright," he said, his earlier impatience vanished. "It doesn't hurt."

"But I want them to grow," she sobbed. "I want to be a tiger."

"You can't be a tiger, darling. You're a girl."

Laura coughed. Neil looked up.

"Oh." He looked back down at Annie. "Sorry. I had to cut her nails. Nurse refuses because she struggles so much."

Annie hiccupped in his arms. He patted her gently. "Wait here," he said to Laura, getting up with Annie still in his arms and carrying her through another door. From beyond he had words with someone — female. Laura crept to the door curiously, thinking it was his wife, but the women in the room beyond was a broad-figured servant in an apron, a nurse by the look of the two cribs in the room. She took Annie from Neil and sat her down on a chair at a low table, where a tea-tray was set out. Neil turned away and came back to Laura, shutting the door softly behind him. For a moment he stood there, still holding the door-handle, looking at her with a hint of perhaps embarrassment about his expression.

"You look very well," he said eventually.

"Thank you. Richard went off to look for your wife."

"She's in the garden. I suppose he'll find her. Let's go downstairs and wait for them."

They went downstairs without uttering a word between them. Neil took her through one of the doors into a comfortable drawing room, looking out over the sweep one side and with bay windows over a garden the other. In the garden, Richard was coming slowly up the path with a dark-haired woman by his side, carrying a basket of flowers.

"There they are," Neil said, with evident relief. "Um." He looked at Laura. "Sorry about earlier. Annie's a terror these days. You'll understand soon enough."

"I think I understand just meeting her. How old is she?"

"She just turned five."

The conversation faltered. Laura looked to the window, where Richard and Verity had now disappeared from view.

"How have you been?" Neil asked.

"Well," Laura said. "Tired, I mean, but quite well."

"Good." Neil breathed out shortly. Voices came from the next room over, and footsteps. Then the door opened and Richard and Verity came in. There was a broad smile on Richard's face, and Verity looked quietly amused — like, Laura thought, the cat that got the cream. And then she tried to bury that thought, because it wasn't a nice one, but the impression of it still lingered over the next few days.

"—for the best," Richard was saying. "And I won't have you teasing me about it."

"I wasn't teasing. I was ruminating. You know I never tease." Verity dropped her basket of flowers on a couch and came forward, rather shyly, to stand in front of Laura. She was taller than Laura had expected, very slender, and very, very pretty. She didn't hold out her hand, but merely looked rather curiously at Laura. Her gaze went down to Laura's waist and then back up to her eyes.

"You're probably hungry," she said. "Do you want something to eat?"

"Thank you, that would be lovely."

"I'll send for tea and sandwiches." She went to the door and rang a bell, and a moment later was giving orders to a servant. Laura sat down on a couch while Neil and Richard looked at each other. Then Neil hesitantly hugged Richard.

"Thanks for coming," he said. "Can you forgive me?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" Richard said gruffly. "I've seen Annie already. How's Podge?"

"Not so great right now."

"Sorry to hear it. You've seen Cavendish?"

"He's coming up in a few days, with the surgeons."

They sat down, Richard next to Laura and Neil on the couch opposite. A moment later, Verity joined them. She smiled at Laura and then turned her attention to Richard.

"I forgot to tell you — my cousin Sarah married — her cousin, James. You had it right, two years ago when you said they would. But they're not happy."

"Of course they're not happy," Richard said flatly; "she has no temper, and he no wit."

"Then how on earth did you know they would marry?"

"She was too jealous of him to let anyone else marry him, and there's only one sure way to prevent that. And he was too foolish to recognize her scheming."

"Well, I didn't see it coming. I just hope they don't become another unhappy family — there's going to be a baby too, a little early of course... My grandmother is very annoyed about that."

"Less annoyed than if they hadn't married, I imagine," Neil said drily, and Richard laughed.

From there, the conversation flowed thick and fast. Laura sat back, rather bewildered. Names and information flowed past her. Richard leaned forward over his knees, talking eagerly with Verity. Neil, not so eager, occasionally threw in a dry word of his own. Verity seemed to laugh a lot, but never very loud, and always pressing her lips tightly closed after. When the sandwiches came, there was a reprieve. Laura ate, feeling rather self-conscious of the fact that nobody else was doing much more than sipping at tea. Afterwards, she sat back, and the conversation continued fast around her. She felt more out of place and unbelonging than before; Richard had a past here that she simply wasn't part of, could not be part of. Occasionally, someone charitably directed a bit of conversation at her, but she could do little more than agree with it; all the talk was about people she had never met, nor even heard of. Eventually, she grew tired and rather irritable, and knew that if she didn't leave she would embarrass Richard by snapping the next time someone spoke to her. She stood up rather abruptly. Everyone fell silent.

"If it's alright, I think I'll go to bed now," she said. "I'm sorry. I'm so tired."

Richard was instantly on his feet too. "Are you alright?"

"I just need to rest a little."

"I'll take you to your room," Verity said, getting up. "You stay here, Rich."

She touched his arm, making him start, but he nodded, his eyes on Laura, his expression faintly guilty.

"I'm just tired, really," she said.

"I know." He touched her hand. "Go and rest."

Verity led her up the stairs again, down the long hall, and into a room on the left, large and richly furnished.

"We thought you and Richard would prefer to share a bedroom," Verity said. "But through that little door is a dressing room, and if you're more comfortable sleeping alone, we can have a bed made up for Richard in there."

"More comfortable alone?"

"I mean, in your condition. When I was with Podge, I kept kicking Neil to the floor in the middle of the night." A smile hovered on Verity's lips for a moment before she suppressed it, her lips tight and the corners of her mouth quivering. "I think since Richard's got his leg that might be a little cruel on him."

"No. I mean, so far, thank you, I'm quite comfortable with him." Laura sat down on the bed with her hands in her lap. "I didn't know you and Richard were such good friends — I'm sorry. I ruined last Christmas, didn't I?"

Verity looked at her a moment then came forward and patted her shoulder. "It wasn't you."

Laura gave her a faint smile of thanks.

She stepped away. "Is there anything you need?"

"No thank you. I just want to lie down for a little while."

"We normally dine at eight in summer, but if you don't want to come down, we'll send something up."

"I think those sandwiches were enough for me."

Verity looked skeptically at her. "I'll send something up."

"Thank you."

Then she was gone, shutting the door quietly behind her. Laura kicked off her slippers and rolled onto the bed. She lay there, feeling very much un-at-home and out-of-place. Neil was trying to be nice, she could see. It was not his fault he wasn't very good at it. And Verity was nice, in a rather distant, collected way. Richard was very fond of her too. That ought to make Laura happy, but for some reason, it only made her feel uneasy.

In the stillness and silence of the bedroom, she felt, for the first time, a flutter of movement inside her. She sat up with a gasp and waited for it to come again. There. Ever so faintly, low in her belly. Her heart started to race, and she almost called for Richard then — but it was too faint to be felt by her hand yet. Too faint to be felt except inside her.

She kept her hand on the spot anyway until she fell asleep.