Laura missed Richard more than she had expected, but not so much she couldn't enjoy the anticipation of his return. On the third day of his absence, there was a letter for her at breakfast. It was an effort of extreme control not to open it immediately, but to drink her coffee and eat her bread and jam, and hold onto that pleasant shiver of intrigue within. A pleasant shiver that quickly became chill disappointment when on opening it she saw, instead of Richard's rather stocky and angular hand, Elizabeth's long, elegant one.

She tossed it away in disgust without reading it, drank more coffee, ate more toast, amused herself with sundry chores, forgot all about it, and then remembered it suddenly in the late afternoon, when, bored and restless, she decided she might as well read it as not.

She found it on the dining room table where she had left it and took it with her to a couch. It was briefer than she expected, little more than a few lines.

My Dear Lady Laura,

I write from London where I stop overnight. I hope you will forgive the impertinence of my interference, but I find it necessary to speak my mind. My brother informed me earlier today that his purpose in London is to settle the situation between you and him. He is not an unjust man, and I have no fear that he will fail to account properly for your future well-being, but I have sympathy for the woman who finds herself at the disposal of a man, and I wish, though I may be heaping coals of fire upon your head, to give you warning of what lies ahead upon his return, that you may be prepared to meet him with a guarded heart and a controlled mind.

Regards, Lady Farthingdale

Laura, at first, thought it was some cruel trick of Elizabeth's, to hurt her. But she read it once more, and knew that Elizabeth was not the type for mean tricks. And it made sense. Richard had been strange since he had learned of what really happened in her marriage with Maidstone. Distant, worried. Then the reality of it all was too much for him. Or perhaps he could not forgive her for what she had done, at the end. Perhaps he was simply not willing to be part of a life with a woman who was so broken and broken-edged.

The first day after receiving the letter, Laura was filled with anger towards Richard, a sense of betrayal. She had done as he asked. She had made herself vulnerable to him. And for that, he was leaving her. Angry too at Elizabeth, who thought she could heap coals of fire on Laura, who had no reason to be grateful to her at all. Interfering, ignorant Elizabeth, who had never met a person without misunderstanding them and never tried to be kind without doing hurt.

But the next day, after reading the letter again many times and seeking for hidden meanings in it, Laura remembered her vow to be kind to Richard and realized Elizabeth's unconscious wisdom in warning her. It gave her the chance not to guard her own heart, but his. He had done her nothing but kindness these past six months, and he owed her nothing. No, it was she who was in his debt. Perhaps this, of all things, she could do for him: not fight. When he came home, she thought, she would make it easy for him. He deserved that much. Besides, she knew the toll she had taken on him, socially and politically, even personally. It was too much to ask a man to share her sordid past. It was better to leave and let him be whole, and perhaps —her heart trembled— perhaps one day he would marry someone else with whom he would be happy.

It was a bitter resolution, but it was resolution enough that when he returned two days later, she was still determined to make it as easy as possible for him. However she could not bring herself to go down and greet him as she had promised, so she waited in her room by the empty fireplace, her hands folded in her lap, a strange sense of dread upon her. Not long after the front doorbell had sounded, she heard his uneven step in the passage, and he came in, still dressed in his travelling coat and boots, his hat and gloves in one hand.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"No. Nothing." She was determined not to let on that she had been warned.

"But you're sitting here in the dark! And you didn't come down to meet me — I was looking forward to it."

His mood, half-anxious, half-energetic, confirmed Elizabeth's letter. Laura suppressed the quiver of anxiety within her.

"I'm sorry. I forgot." The effort to control the anxiety in her voice made her tone listless.

"You? Forget?" He came closer and put a hand to her forehead. "You're not ill are you?"

"I'm quite well." She could not help the frigidity of her voice and cursed herself for it. He stood back and frowned at her.

"Are you? Because I've been thinking we ought to talk." He breathed out slowly. "And I don't think you're going to like this."

If she had had any doubt to give her hope, it died then. She backed away, almost tripping on the hearthstone.

"Elizabeth sent me a letter," she said, her voice wavering, "and I know what you're going to say."

"Did she?" Irritation sparked in his eyes. "Interfering old witch."

"She means to be kind. And so do I." Laura clenched her fists in her skirts. "And if you want to end this then... then I won't give you any trouble."

He dropped his hat and gloves to the floor and looked at her steadily. Then he closed his arms around her and kissed her with such suddenness and hunger that it hurt. The marble of the mantelpiece pressed into her back and one of her arms was pinched between them.

"God damn Elizabeth," he said when he withdrew, and went to kiss her again. She pushed him away.

"Was she wrong?" she begged.

"No. She's not wrong." He kissed her again, more urgently still. "I want to end this. You being my mistress. I want to marry you."

* * *

It was out. Richard kissed her one last time, with the urgency that came from knowing it might be the last kiss, and then let her push him away entirely, so she could stare at him with horrified eyes.

"Richard— no. Please. I won't."

"Hear me out," he said. "Listen to everything I have to say before you refuse me for the — is it the fourth time now?" He winced. "It is the last, I promise you that."

She shifted on her feet, watching him warily, then sunk down into the chair again, her hands around her knees. "I'll listen."

In six months, he had that from her. That tiny concession. He breathed out, thinking perhaps it would be possible, one day. He had to believe it was possible, or he was tying himself to a lost cause.

"I'm not the sort of man who ever kept a mistress," he explained. "I tried, several years back, when it seemed no wife would have me, and I found I did not like it. I knew that when you asked me. I'm hidebound. A prude, if you will. But I agreed, even though this situation grated upon my conscience every day. I thought if I didn't accept, you would refuse to accept my protection and — and do something stupid."

She bit her thumb. "Rich... If you want to guilt me into marriage..."

"Oh, there is worse coming, Laura." He looked around him for another chair, and, not seeing one, stood in front of her, leaning on his cane. "I won't kneel. We both know it would be a farce. I took you as my mistress to protect you from yourself. Well. I was wrong. There's no one who can do that to any other person. I shouldn't have tried." He hesitated, honesty compelling him to add, "It's not as though I didn't also... enjoy it. There was... lust there. But the arrangement weighs uneasily on my conscience, more uneasily now that I know I cannot change who you are. I can't unbreak your heart."

She blinked away tears and he knew what she would say before she said it.

"I won't do it, Rich."

"You're not listening." He took her chin in his and lifted it so she would meet his eyes. "Either we marry, or we part ways."

Her eyes widened and she shook her head wordlessly.

"I'll protect you either way. Refuse me, and you may name anywhere in the world, and I will buy you a house there and settle a yearly allowance that allows you to live in perfect comfort. Accept me, and you will receive every protection of wealth, comfort, and position that you know being my wife would offer." He wanted to add that he would like to see her in those sapphires again, but he thought, if anything, that would make her say no. "But I cannot continue as we are. You know as well as I do what people have been saying. You perhaps don't know the insinuations I've received in private. The ribald comments I've had to endure about you. The queries people have made as to my rightness to be deciding a point in the Lords. At very best, I have gained the reputation of an eccentric. Which perhaps I can't even deny. But it isn't worth damning myself if I cannot save you." He cupped her face in his hands and his voice shook when he spoke. "And I can't."

"Richard..." She pressed her hand over his. "Please."

"No." He tried to smile. "I know I have all the power, and you nothing but supplication. Well, I always had all the power between us, and you will have to accept it. And I will not be pleaded out of my decision. You are no longer my mistress, Laura."

Her expression faltered. "Let me... think."

"You have time for that." He slipped his hand into his pocket and removed the folded sheet of paper he'd gone specially to London to get. "A marriage license, signed and ready. If you don't want to use it, rip it up. If you do, tell me within a week."

She took it from him and stared numbly at it. Then, as though to check it was real, she unfolded it, ran her eyes from their names at the top to the signature at the bottom, and then let it drop to her lap. She bit her lip.

"Did you hate it, that much?"

"The word mistress leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. But you — you made it bittersweet."

Her cheeks coloured. "I did not think it was so bad." She touched the license, then dropped it again as though it burned. "I'll have to think," she repeated.

"You have until next Wednesday."

"And if I can't decide?"

She was testing him, seeing if there was any chance for her supplication to work. He had expected that.

"Then we part ways."

She drew in a slow breath. "I see."

He wondered if he should kiss her. He wanted to. But he had a feeling that if he did, somehow, it would be the last kiss, so he only walked away and asked at the door,

"Will I see you at dinner?"

She shook her head. "Not tonight."

"Should I tell them to send a tray for you?"

"I'm not hungry."

But he told them to send it anyway, even though his own meal tasted like ashes in his mouth.