While the women were gone, Richard and Neil eddied around in the cool shallows of polite conversation. After their argument, some of the old awkwardness between them had returned. Richard suspected that it was partially his fault but, even if he had known how, he wasn't going to apologise for it. Part of him was still angry about the things Neil had said about Laura. It was a relief when Verity returned.

"Is she really alright?" Richard asked.

"She's probably asleep by now," Verity said calmly, sitting down. "Best leave her to it."

"She looks very well," Neil said. "She looks much better than when I last saw her. And she never was the delicate type."

"She seemed no more than tired to me, which is only natural in her condition," Verity said. "You don't need to worry about her, Rich."

"But of course I worry." Richard rubbed his bad knee, grimacing. "Can you expect me not to?"

Neil shrugged. "Worrying won't do any good."

Verity raised her eyebrows. "As I told you two years ago," she said pointedly.

"And I'm wiser for the experience." A smile twitched on Neil's lips and he reached out and rubbed Verity's hand. Once, Richard might have felt a faint sting at witnessing such a gesture, but now it only made him wish he'd gone upstairs with Laura. He rubbed his bad knee again, stiff after the long days in the coach.

"Did you know she had a stillbirth before?" he said quietly. "When she was married to Maidstone. I'm scared — she won't recover easily if it happens again."

A brief silence fell over the room. Verity gave a sad frown. Neil looked worried.

"I'm not asking for sympathy," Richard said. "I'm just... explaining."

Or not even that. It was a relief just to speak of it. There was no support that could be offered, nor help that could be found, but naming his fear made him feel less powerless in the face of it.

"We'll look after her," Verity said. "Really, Richard."

"I know." Richard forced his jaw to relax. "Of course you will."

There was another brief silence. Verity said timidly, "Is she always so quiet?"

"Not normally," Richard said.

"She's always quiet with me," Neil pointed out. "It might be my—"

But he broke off, because the door opened and Annie came sidling into the room.

"She can reach doorknobs now," Neil said with a groan, getting up. "Come on, Annie, it's past seven o'clock. You should be in bed."

"But I want to talk to Uncle Wichard," she said beguilingly.

"Tomorrow," Richard said, holding out his arms so he could give her a hug. "I'll take you — what do you want to do?"

"Pond," Annie said instantly. "Pirates."

"You'd better wear old clothes," Neil said, slinging her into his arms. "Hup. Come on, Anne. To bed. No arguments, now."

He paused by Verity, so she could kiss Annie goodnight, and then left. Alone, Verity gave Richard a small smile that tugged on his heart in a way he was beginning to wish it didn't.

"You'll have that soon," she said. "You're so... lucky."

He smiled back and then stretched out with his arm over the couch back. "Do you like her?"

"I don't know. She's not what I expected."

"What did you expect then?"

"From what Neil said I thought she'd be... more charming. He called her a flirt, you know, and I thought that might be what that meant, but she seems almost shy."

"She can be — a flirt, that is. As for shy..." Richard paused, remembering the first night Laura had come to his bed, and the intriguing mix of uncertainty and boldness in her manner then. "...she's not shy with me. But I think Neil does make her... well, quiet."

"Afraid to offend." Verity bit her lip. "I did have words with Neil about it you know. He promised me he'll try to be nice."

"He tries very hard." Richard could not help the steel of anger creeping into his voice. "But she's not what Neil thinks. I want him to know that."

"He'll learn it." There was a hint of steel to Verity's voice too. "That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"Right." Richard softened his tone. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't put it on you to solve our squabbles. But he said things about her that made me so angry. And I think I still haven't quite forgiven him."

"Because you care about her."

Richard's throat closed over. Care about her? He loved her, more than he'd known he was capable of loving anyone. But somehow it was impossible to say that when Verity was looking at him with her green eyes shadowed over with worry.

"I do," he said, swallowing.

"What's wrong?" Verity asked.

He didn't know.

"She's good to you?"

"Yes. Very. She's really very sweet to me. I couldn't have asked for a better wife." That was easier. That was plain cold fact. But somehow it felt, well, like Richard would look fickle if he told Verity now that he was madly in love with Laura, when only a few years ago he'd told her he was in love with her.

And the trouble was, he thought he still might be. Even now, he was painfully aware of her prettiness, and wishing he were not. He'd thought it might have faded, now that he had Laura, now he loved her, but at the first sight of Verity in the garden his heart had started racing and a sudden flush of happiness had come over him. He felt guilty for it.

"You do... love her?" Verity asked, frowning. "I thought, well, when you married her I thought you must love her."

"I married her because it was right. And because I felt for her things that..." That he couldn't say in front of Verity. He swallowed. "She makes me so happy. I've never been happier in my life. But I am scared, about the baby, about her. I don't want anything to happen to hurt them. I'd die, rather than have them hurt."

The confusion in Verity's eyes became sudden understanding. She leaned forward and gripped Richard's hand.

"I'm happy for you," she said.

Richard thought he understood what that meant, but knew he wouldn't be able to ask. Verity released him and sat back again, the worry cleared from her eyes.

"Do you really not regret it?" she asked, bringing up the conversation they'd been having in the garden. "Spending all those years thinking that you couldn't have children?"

"I don't. To discover that I was wrong, to discover it through such proof, makes all of those years seem utterly insignificant."

"You would have married her ten years ago. Had children already. Your fathers would have been very happy. Neil would have been free to marry me." Verity's lips twitched. "I regret that."

"But I wasn't me ten years ago. And she wasn't who she is now. We wouldn't have been happy. She'd never have loved me if..."

"If she hadn't been hurt by a man like Maidstone?" Verity's eyes grew hard. "I can't believe that, Richard."

"If I hadn't learned how to love." Richard had the sense that they were on the edge of what they had never dared speak of. He got up and went to the window so that he could have an excuse not to meet Verity's green eyes. "I wish she'd never met Maidstone, but I don't wish I'd married her years ago. I wasn't good enough for her then."

Verity was silent for a long time. Then she said, quietly, "Richard, you don't—"

He thought he knew what she was going to say, but she didn't finish it.

"I have to change for dinner," Verity said, getting up and going to the door. "But I'm very glad you've come— glad to have met her. I hope we'll be friends."

"I hope so too."

She left the room, and Richard sat down again and took up a paper. He didn't read it though. It occurred to him for the first time that perhaps Verity and Laura would not be friends. They were two very different women, and neither was the type to make friends easily. Verity could be cold and reserved, Richard reflected, while Laura was prickly and hot-tempered. And while Verity would no doubt be polite, and Laura would no doubt control her temper, Richard did not think that good manners were much of a foundation for friendship.

The door opened again, and Neil returned. He glanced down at Richard's paper contemptuously.

"Local poison press, that."

"Is it?" Richard glanced at it and saw the first article was about a noisy ball in a private house. "Seems rather tame."

"Oh, it does." Neil sat down and crossed his legs. "But it's a wonder how much trouble tame can be in the country. The owner's a local — grocer who made a fortune out of potted vegetables, calls himself a radical. Makes a point of ferreting out complaints about the local gentry, chiefly from their servants, and publishes them every Wednesday as a sort of condemnation of the upper classes."

Richard snorted. "I take it he'll not be happy I'm here."

"Hardly." Neil sighed. "I admit, I find it amusing to read what he's written about my in-laws, but it hasn't been so pleasant the few times his pen has been directed at me. You might want to hide it from Laura."

"On the contrary," Richard said, his eye trailing down to a cheerfully savage description of the haste of the marriage of Sarah and James Duvalle, "I think she'll find it rather amusing."

* * *

Giles didn't approach Albroke Manor directly. He knew that even if he managed to get in and find Albroke or his wife, there would be too many servants around — some of them strong footmen — for him to manage anything but to get himself arrested. Instead, he went into the shabbiest inn on the edge of the village where he ordered luncheon and ale. When the barwoman came to give him his steak, he stopped her with a word.

"The man what owns this land," Giles said, trying to modulate his voice to sound like a labourer, "I heard he might have a job for me?"

"The manor's always hiring," the woman said without much interest. "It's Mr Spenser you ought be talking to. He's the steward for the Big Wig."

Giles was not interested in Albroke's steward. "Is he good to work for?" he asked.

The woman shrugged. "He ain't as bad as some I'm sure, but I never worked for him."

"What if I wanted to speak to him?" Giles said. "Find out what he's like before I saw about that job?"

The woman laughed. "What? Just march right into the hall with your boots on? That'd be a sight!"

"Well he ain't spending all his time in that house, is he?"

"Well I don't know. He don't come down to the village much anyway." The woman raised her eyebrows. "This really about a job?"

"Maybe I knew his wife once. Though she might help an old friend out."

At that, the woman gave a full-bodied snort. Giles felt a flicker of anger within him.

"You finish your meal and be off," she said. "Go to the big house if you want, but it won't do you much good. They're not here."

"What do you mean they're not here?"

"I mean they're gone off," the woman said, walking away. "They ain't here."

"Where've they gone?"

"If I knew I wouldn't tell you," the woman said. "And I don't know."

Angered, but not defeated, Giles turned his attention to his steak and ale. After all, there would be someone in the village who knew where Albroke and his wife had gone, and if neither of them was here, then he was safe from the threat that one of them would recognize him and stop him from exacting his revenge. He still wasn't quite sure what that revenge would be yet, but the letters in his pocket gave him hope, and his dull mind ticked slowly, steadily over the possibilities.