At first, Neil had thought he was alone in the room, but slowly he became aware of someone's presence near him, of soft breathing, of the movement of fabric. He reached out and groped across the bedsheets for Verity's hand, his muscles aching with the effort.

"Are you awake? Do you need something?"

It was not the voice he expected. He opened his eyes and groaned.

"Oh God, it's you."

"Yes. It's me." Irritation crossed Richard's face. "No, for God's sake, don't sit up."

He pressed Neil's shoulders firmly down as he tried to move.

"You're not to sit up."

Neil couldn't sit anyway. His muscles quivered with the effort. He sighed and let himself fall back on the pillow.

"Where's Verity? She was here before, wasn't she?" He vaguely remembered her whispered prayers between kisses. "Is she alright?"

"Cavendish sent her to bed at dawn. Should I wake her? Do you need her?"

"I don't know. Am I dying?"

Richard looked pained. "No," he said. "You're not going to die. But you need to rest. And so does Verity. She was up with you all night, and later today she'll have to watch Podge through his surgery."

Neil swore.

"Charming," Richard said drily. "When I see her, I'll tell her you're doing well."

"No. I mean it's not fair. Podge being sick, and now me, and her having to worry about us both." Neil hesitated. "I'm really not dying, am I?"

"There was a lot of blood, but the wound wasn't deep. The only danger now is infection, which is why you're not to move."

"Right." Neil sighed and slumped back further back on his pillow. Memories of last night returned to him, in the reverse order, and rather hazily. Verity crying into his shoulder while the surgeons stitched him up. The long, painful journey home carried on a plank of wood. Richard trying to talk cheerfully to him while he tried to stem the flow of blood, waiting for the others to come for them. Crawling up the cellar stairs on his hands and knees, coughing in the smoke. Fordham begging for help behind him, unable to crawl. Laura, standing at the top of the stairs, a feather of pistol smoke dissipating in front of her, then turning and running away.

"How's Laura? Was she hurt?"

For a moment, Richard was silent. Neil felt a flicker of alarm.

"How is she?" he repeated, trying to get up on his elbows.

"No, stay down!" Richard pushed him down again. "You'll open the wound again, you fool! She's... well, you saved her life." Richard gave a funny sort of dry hiccup and got up abruptly, going to the window and looking out. "You saved her life," he repeated more steadily. "Fordham was going to kill her."

"I think she saved mine too." Neil rested his hand on the aching spot by his waist. "How is she now? She was in pain, I could tell yesterday."

"Cavendish has put her on bed rest and told her she's not allowed to talk unless absolutely necessary. He's mostly worried she's damaged her voice permanently. But all her other wounds are minor, and she seems to have recovered from the shock."

"She's in bed, and you're with me?"

Richard turned back with a soft laugh. "She sent me out an hour ago in a fit of bad temper. She does not like bed rest, and she does not like being told to keep quiet."

Then she had to be alright. Relief washed over Neil.

"And the baby? "

"Cavendish says that there's no sign of trouble, but there still might be a danger if she doesn't rest. And she is resting, even if she doesn't like it."

"Good." Neil gave a heavy sigh. "I think I'm beginning to get quite fond of her, you know."

"Are you?" Richard gave a dry smile. "It's about time."

Neil tried to return the smile, but failed. "I'm sorry I was such an idiot about her."

"I know. I'm sorry too. I'm sorry I wouldn't believe you last time you said so."

"I don't blame you. I said something stupid things." Neil hesitated, tugging at the bed covers. "Are we friends again?"

"Friends." Richard gripped his shoulder and shook it gently. "Of course."

* * *

There were formalities to be dealt with, of course. The inquest into Fordham's death was held that evening, not at a local inn as normal but in Neil's drawing room. The coroner had insisted on the jury being able to ask Laura and Neil questions, and Cavendish had insisted that they both remain in bed. The compromise was that Laura and Neil were carried downstairs and laid up on couches while the jury peered at Fordham's body, laid out on a table, and asked, in Richard's view, wholly unnecessary questions.

Thankfully, it was Neil who took the burden of answering most of them; Laura could hardly speak above a whisper, and as Neil pointed out, there was little she could tell that he could not. However, just as Richard was beginning to feel relieved that the jury were winding down their questions, one man turned to Mr French:

"But I don't understand, sir, can you explain it to me clearly, why it was that you came to help with the search?"

Mr French cleared his throat and Richard tightened his grip on Laura's hand. Laura looked at him in confusion. She didn't know about the letters, he realized. He'd forgotten to tell her, in the panic of all else that had happened. Now, the letters were lying locked in a drawer not fifty feet from where they sat.

"I happened to encounter Mr Fordham at the back gate of this property yesterday morning," Mr French began. "It must have been only a short while before Mr Fordham kidnapped Lady Laura."

"Yes," the juror said impatiently. "We know that already. But why did you return to Mr Armiger's house later that evening?"

A bead of sweat swelled on Mr French's brow. His eyes met Richard's and then he looked away.

"Mr Fordham gave me some... stolen property of Lady Laura's," Mr French said miserably. "I came here to return it that evening, upon which point I was inveigled into the search for her."

The coroner, using Verity's sewing table for a desk, raised his head. "What property was this, Mr French?"

"Letters," Mr French admitted.

Laura's hand, in Richard's, suddenly tightened. He stroked the back of her palm with his thumb.

"What kind of letters?" one of the jurors asked curiously.

"I— I do not think it right to divulge another person's correspondence in public."

The juror turned to Laura. "Perhaps you will allow us, then, to see these letters?"

"I— I don't know of them—" Laura's voice was weak. She coughed and Cavendish came closer, but she waved him away. "It's the first I've heard of any letters."

"Where are they now?" the juror continued. "I think we must be allowed to judge their relevance to the matter at hand, if the dead man took such trouble to bring them."

A pregnant silence hung over the room. By the tightness of Laura's hand in his, Richard knew she suspected which letters they were. And it was nothing, he thought with a surge of anger, but impish curiosity on the part of the juror to ask for them.

"Where are the letters?" the coroner repeated, when no one answered.

From across the room, Verity met Richard's eyes.

"I burned them," she said loudly. "After my brother and Mr French went out to search, I burned them. They were of a malicious nature, and I thought them best destroyed."

The juror looked irritated. "Then we are not to conclude our inquest?"

"I think you have the relevant facts," the coroner said, returning his gaze to his sheets of paper. "If you will give me your verdict, gentlemen?"

There was a buzz of talk around the room. For one moment, Richard wondered dizzily if anyone could be cruel enough to call Fordham's death murder. A jury of Laura's peers would never convict her of course, but the mere stress and scandal of a trial would do damage enough. He put his arm around her shoulders.

"We say, sir," one of the jurors said, "that he brung it upon himself."

"Death by misadventure," the coroner murmured.

"Aye," the juror agreed. "That's a pretty way of saying it."

* * *

On the way back upstairs, Laura asked Richard which letters they were, already half-knowing the answer.

"Letters between Percival and you," Richard said. "I don't know how Fordham got them, but he planned to get them printed in French's newspaper, to ruin your reputation. Thankfully, French came to us instead."

"Then Mr French saw them — and Verity, she too?"

"I'm afraid so, but they won't tell. And they're burnt now anyway." Richard rubbed Laura's waist. "It's over now, darling. It's all over. Don't worry about it anymore."

But it wasn't over. That night, while Richard was downstairs having dinner with Cavendish and the surgeons, there was a soft knock on Laura's door and Verity came in. Laura, who had been drifting asleep, sat up groggily.

"What is it?"

"I just wanted to talk to you."

Verity came closer and sat down on the edge on the bed. In the dim light, Laura noticed she had deep shadows below her eyes. It was impossible not to feel for her, with a little sick baby and a wounded husband. But even then, her mere presence made Laura feel a twist of resentment. An unfair twist; it wasn't Verity's fault Richard had fallen in love with her.

"How's Podge?" Laura asked, clearing her throat. "Doctor Cavendish said the first surgery went well."

"He was in a great deal of pain, and he didn't understand why we were doing it to him." Verity's eyes glittered by the light of the single candle by the bed and her face took on a strange sneer. "But I suppose, from a doctor's point of view, it went well."

"I'm sorry."

"I know. It's alright. I'm only taking it out on you because I daren't take it out on Cavendish." Verity gave her a hesitant smile. "That's not what I came here for though. Here. You ought to have these."

She drew a thin bundle of papers from the sleeve of her gown and held them out to Laura. The moment Laura took them, she recognized them. She opened the first one with trembling fingers. It was from Percival to her. She remembered the urgent phrases so well she hardly needed to run her eyes over it:

...My feelings for you, so long repressed, overwhelm my senses. I cannot sleep. I do not eat...

...We must marry, my love. It is the only way for us to absolve ourselves...

Laura crumpled the letter up, her heart pounding. "You said you'd burned them."

"They weren't mine to burn."

"You lied in an inquest!"

Verity shrugged.

Laura looked back down at the other letters — two more of them. She didn't need or want to read them. She knew what they showed: Percival's ardency, and her cunning. She shuddered at the idea that thirteen strange men could have read them in public. She had been saved — first by the obnoxious Mr French's sense of propriety, and secondly by Verity's catlike inscrutability. It ought to make her like them both more, but instead, she only felt angry with herself.

"Thank you," she said stiffly.

"Don't mention it."

"Did you read them?"

Verity inclined her head. "I saw enough to understand."

Laura's humiliation was complete. She unfolded the first letter and held it out towards the candle until it caught fire. Verity watched her, the burst of flame lighting up her cheeks and making the dark shadows beneath her eyes even deeper.

"I want to thank you," Verity said, when Laura was burning the second letter. "But I don't know if you'll like it."

"Thank me? For what?"

"For shooting Fordham." Verity's voice faltered. "Neil said that if you hadn't done it when you did, he would be dead."

The flame licked too close to Laura's fingers and she dropped the fragment of paper. She hadn't thought of it that way.

"You don't blame me, for getting Neil hurt?"

"You're not the one who stabbed him." Verity hesitantly laid her hand over Laura's. "I can't imagine what you're feeling after all that's happened, but I want you to know that you saved me and my children, as well as Neil, when you shot Fordham. So if you doubt or regret—"

"—I regret nothing."

Laura toyed with the last letter, seeing instead the vision of Richard, bruised and battered after Fordham had attacked him, of her unborn child, who Fordham would have murdered along with herself, of Fordham's hateful, cold blue eyes.

"Going outside that day, I regret that. Fighting with Richard that morning. Writing these stupid letters. That I regret. Pulling that trigger? Thank God I didn't miss."

The tears that came to Laura's eyes as she spoke made her voice catch, and she coughed. Verity rubbed her hand and then, rather uncertainly, hugged her, an action that made Laura stiffen at first.

"I feel the same way," Verity said. "Thank you." Then Verity released her and sat back. "I really ought to let you rest now. Unless there's anything you need?"

Laura shook her head and held the last letter out to the flame, watching it flare alight. "This was all, thank you."

Verity left the room and the last letter disintegrated to ashes in Laura's fingers. She watched them blacken and cool on the base of the candle-holder. She could not like Verity yet, but she thought that with time they might be friends.

At the very least, they were certainly allies.