Perhaps Laura fainted. It seemed that one moment she was lying on the cold floor of the cellar with her head spinning, and the next Neil was patting at her cheeks, speaking to her. The sounds resolved into words. He was swearing. She moved, and he spoke again.

"Where are you hurt? Is it bad?"

Her head ached. She wished Neil would go away.

"Talk to me," Neil said. "Laura, say something."

"Go away."

He did not go away. He fumbled his way down to her wrists to feel her pulse. "Are you bleeding? Are you hurt?"

"I don't know." Wincing, she tried to sit up. Neil had to help her. Her head pounded and spun. She took shallow, hesitant breaths of air through aching lungs.

"What are you doing here?" she rasped.

"I heard you scream," Neil said. "Followed you into the woods and saw that man with the knife. I didn't dare come closer while he was close enough to hurt you, so I followed from a distance, but I lost you at the clearing, or I would have stopped him sooner."

There was a shadow of guilt to his voice. Laura wondered if Neil realized if he'd been a few minutes later, she would probably be dead. Another time, perhaps, she would tell him that. Right now, her throat hurt to speak, and her heart hurt to think of it.

"Are you hurt anywhere?" Neil asked.

"Everywhere," Laura said. "Let me stand up."

Her legs were weak, so Neil half-lifted her to her feet. Her head was still dizzy and throbbing. Her chest was tight where Fordham had stood on her, and she was bruised on her side where she'd fallen down the stairs. Her neck ached where he'd strangled her, and there was a sticky, stinging spot at one side where he had cut her. But there was no ache inside, no pain in the belly or between her legs, and Laura felt, with relief, a little flutter of movement low on her left side. Perhaps the baby was protesting at its treatment.

"I think I'm alright," she said.

"We'll get you home and to a doctor," Neil said, letting her go and limping stiffly up the stairs. He stopped before the rim of light coming through around the edges of the door and pushed. The door did not move. He pushed again, harder. Flakes of dirt fell from the ceiling. Then he stopped. "I'm afraid we're locked in."

Laura gave a choking little laugh. Neil came back down the short flight of stairs and stopped before her. He was still limping.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"I'm just fine."

"You're limping."

"Bastard kicked me in the knee. You're the one I'm worried about. What did he do to you?"

"Strangled me, mostly." Laura shuddered and her ribs protested. "Then he stopped. I think he had second thoughts. But he wants to kill me."

Her voice quavered. Neil put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed gently.

"I won't let him hurt you."

What happened next was later rather embarrassing to Laura, and probably very embarrassing to Neil too. She clung to him. He was very much taller than her and very lean, so it was not very comfortable. Her hands were a bony lump between them, and one of the buttons of his coat pressed hard against her eyebrow. Nor was she crying, which might have excused it. She was simply clinging. Neil made no attempt to remove her, but his arms dangled by his sides for a long moment before it seemed to occur to him to wrap them around Laura. That was better. That gave Laura the strength to, after a moment, break away from him, swallowing hard. Then Neil slipped out of his coat and held it out for her.

"Here. Put this on."

Laura wasn't cold, but she slipped into the coat anyway, its silk lining soft against her skin.

"He'll come back," she said. "Can we get out before he does?"

"I'm not sure." Neil went back to the door and ran his hands around the edges. "I don't think I can break through. It's solid oak by the feel. And the walls are stone."

Laura shivered. "Will someone find us?"

"Richard is bound to start a search for you before long," Neil said, coming back down the stairs and rooting around in the shadowy corners of the cellar. "Here, we can sit on these."

They were sacks of some kind, but they were more comfortable than the hard-packed dirt floor. Laura sat down against the wall with Neil. His shoulder rested warmly against her own and she was grateful for it. Now that her first shock had passed, she discovered she was very frightened indeed. She was trembling all over.

"Who was that man?" Neil asked.

"Giles Fordham." Laura shivered. "He- he wants to hurt Richard." She tried to remember what he said. "He was going to kill me. Said Richard would be blamed. I don't understand it. He must be quite mad."

"I see," Neil said slowly, and then fell into silence. Laura's eyes were adjusting to the dim light in the cellar now, and she could just make out a bruise darkening on Neil's jaw. He rubbed at it absently. At last he said, rather stiffly, "I think I owe you an apology."

"What on earth for?"

"For quite a lot, really." Neil looked at her, squinting in the dim light. "For one thing, I ought to have accepted it when Richard first married you. I'm sorry I didn't. It wasn't fair."

Laura shifted uncomfortably. "Maybe it's Richard you ought to apologise to."

"I did. Or tried, anyway." Neil sighed. "It doesn't matter. I did you wrong too. I blamed you for what Fordham did to him last year. I didn't even try to like you. I didn't want you to mean what you do to Richard."

Laura's gut twisted unpleasantly. She didn't know what she meant to Richard after his confession earlier. He said he loved her and she didn't think he was lying, but it hurt, very much, to wonder how he had fallen in love with Verity, and how deep those feelings ran.

"Laura?"

"Fordham might come back," she said to distract him. "What do we do then?"

Neil was silent, then got up and moved around the cellar, a vague shadow against vaguer shadows, kicking at bits of debris on the floor. He picked up a long something and rapped it hard against the wall.

"If he comes back, I'll distract him with this," he said, coming back over and sitting back down, laying the thing against him. Laura saw it was a stout wooden pole, probably from a shovel or pitchfork. "While I'm doing that, you get out of here and go straight back to the house. If I can hold him fifteen minutes, you'll have time to get home. You can walk, can't you?"

"I think so." Laura got to her feet and walked around the cellar. She was still dizzy and achy, and her ankle hurt, but she wasn't, she thought, greatly damaged. "Yes, I can."

She sat back down again, shifting closer to Neil and leaning against him. "Can you really fight with Fordham? You were limping earlier. And he's big - bigger than you."

"Sixteen stone pure muscle, I imagine," Neil said calmly. "No, it will be fine. I fear Richard much more than Fordham, as it happens. If I let anything happen to you, Richard will absolutely kill me."

Laura gave a shaky laugh and wrapped her arms around her knees. Richard would recover, she thought. He had lost his heart to a woman before and survived. And you couldn't lose a heart twice anyway.

The thought made tears come to her eyes again, and she sniffed and blinked them back.

"What's wrong?" Neil asked.

"He- he's not in love with me."

"Bullshit."

The certainty in Neil's voice startled her.

"My apologies," Neil said. "But a man who is not in love with his wife does not throw a crystal tumbler of his best French brandy into the fireplace when she is insulted."

"He did that?"

"Yes. And I rather fancy he only narrowly prevented himself throwing it at me."

Laura was slightly awed by this new information. But she didn't see that it made a difference. Richard was in love with Verity, and that hurt Laura, like she was being split in two from the inside. She couldn't tell Neil that. She had an instinct that he knew nothing of Richard's feelings for Verity, and telling him would only hurt everybody involved.

It was hard to tell how much time was passing, down in the cold cellar. They fell into silence. Laura felt some aches settle into her joints, and others fade. Her head stopped spinning. Despite Neil's coat, she became chilled, and eventually she began to grow hungry too. She pressed on her stomach to try and lessen the sensation. Neil noticed.

"Something wrong?"

"I'm just hungry."

Neil patted her knee. "It can't be much longer before Richard starts looking for you. He might have started already."

Laura tried to figure out what time it must be. Into the afternoon, at least. The light coming through the cracks around the door and in narrow shafts through pin-prick holes in the roof had swelled some time ago, and was now subsiding. It was almost black in here now, but the woods would block much of the sun.

It grew blacker still. Eventually, there was almost no light at all seeping into the cellar. Laura's hunger settled down to a dull ache inside her. She felt weak and tired.

Then there was the sound of the yard-gate creaking open, and Neil stiffened next to her. He helped her to her feet and brought her over to the darkest corner of the hut, near the stairs.

"Don't speak," he said in a low voice, and left her side again to pick up his makeshift weapon and take his position on the other side of the stairs. Outside, there were footsteps now - not Richard's uneven step either, but a brisker, heavier step. The orange glow of an oil-lamp pushed through the cracks around the door. Neil's dark shadow stiffened and he raised the shovel. Laura's heart pounded.

There came the grating sound of the latch being pulled back, then the door was flung open and Laura was momentarily blinded by the light. She could see nothing but a vague dark silhouette through the glow. Neil shouted something and must have swung his shovel, for the silhouette yelled in pain and dropped both his lamp and the thing he held in his other hand. The lamplight died, and Laura's vision cleared to see Fordham fumbling with one hand for the thing he'd dropped, and grappling with Neil's shovel with the other. A pistol. That was what Fordham had dropped, lying glinting on the top steps. His fingers grazed it and he groped.

Laura screamed and shoved at him, hard enough that he lost his balance and tumbled off the stairs the other side, towards Neil.

"Get out," Neil shouted. "Laura, go!"

She scrambled for the stairs and climbed them on her hands and knees. Smoke was curling up from the ground, and she coughed. The lantern had set some of the potato sacks smouldering. A flicker of flame alerted Laura that the smoke was becoming a fire.

"Neil!" she shouted.

"Get out!" he yelled back.

Laura had reached the top of the stairs. Her hand brushed against a cold, metallic thing, and she stopped. Fordham's pistol, black and sleek. She picked it up, so that Fordham couldn't, and got carefully to her feet, clutching the door-frame. Damp, cold air from outside rushed in and her head and lungs cleared. She turned around and looked back.

Fordham was struggling with Neil. They were gripping each other by their clothes and exchanging punches, very close. Neil seemed to be getting the worst of it, but he wouldn't let go of Fordham's collar. Then Fordham pulled something from his belt, and punched Neil again, who gave a grunt that was half a scream. He staggered back until he hit a wall and sank down against it, landing amongst the smouldering sacks. Fordham came in close and raised the thing again, and Laura realized it was a knife. He was going to kill Neil. Then her. She didn't have time to run. He'd catch her, and kill her too.

She raised the pistol, fumbled back the hammer, and pulled the trigger.