A week passed and Richard sent no letter to Verity. Instead, in the mornings he would write a few lines, and in the evenings he would scribble them out. At last one afternoon, while Laura was trying to prompt him to finish it, he swore, crumpled the paper into a ball, and threw it into a corner of the room.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But I just can't do it. It's not right to ask her to solve our squabbles like we're children and she's our nanny!"

"Then are you going to write to Neil?" Laura asked.

"No." Richard flung his pen down with a sigh of exasperation. "I'm going to go to my club. Lady Roynor has an Opinion about the import of champagne, and we are all going to drink brandy and weep about it."

And he did, leaving Laura alone in the house and the letter crumpled in a corner of the study.

Laura, a few minutes after he had left, came back into the study and cautiously, guiltily uncrumpled the letter. She sat down in a chair and read it through. Despite Richard's many crossings-out and rewritings, it was a competent, plainspoken letter, asking Verity to clear any clouded air between Richard and Neil by acting as intermediary between them. Laura didn't think it was wrong for Richard to send it.

It would, however, be very wrong if Laura sent it for him.

She sat there and considered it very, very carefully. She still wasn't feeling quite well — it wasn't anything more than that. A tendency for her stomach to make queer little leaps for no reason, and a general fatigue. No point thinking too much of it, she told herself. Too many rich dinners, too many late nights.

But if she was — sick, she told herself, then Richard would need his brother's — friendship.

Her stomach continuing its now familiar gymnastics, she read the letter again, trying to make up her mind. Then, decided, she sat down stealthily at Richard's desk and made a fine copy of it in her own hand, with a post-script to clear her conscience, admitting that she was sending it without his permission. Then she copied the address, franked the letter with Richard's franking stamp, and hurried to the front door to go to the post office and send it.

And as she opened the front door, she ran straight into Neil, his hand poised to reach for the knocker.

Laura stared.

Neil stared back.

He was pale, his eyes shadowed, his mouth tight and weary. Her gaze drifted down his suit, crumpled and dirty. She had never before known Neil to be anything but overdressed. Something was clearly wrong.

"Can I come in?" he asked, and Laura realized she was blocking the doorway. But she no longer needed to go out to send the letter anyway. Confused, she stepped back, hiding the letter in her sleeve, and she and Neil went into the hall. In the street outside, Neil's groom started to unload the trunks from the top of the coach.

"Where's Richard?" Neil asked, before Laura could think of what to say to him.

"He'll be back later this evening."

"I need to talk to him."

"Urgently? I can send a servant to find him — I think he's with Lord Roynor at his club."

"No. No, not urgently." Neil kicked his boots against the wainscoting, scattering flakes of mud over the polished floor. Laura bit back her irritation. "But I need him."

"Can I help?" she asked.

"No." He shook his head and paced the floor, grinding mud into the rug. "Not you."

If Neil hadn't looked absolutely defeated, if she didn't want Richard to be friends with him again, Laura would have snapped at him already for his poor manners. Instead, she stood there and wondered why he had come — alone, uninvited, and poorly dressed.

"Is something wrong?" she asked at last, when the groom had taken the last of the trunks upstairs and the front door had been shut again.

Neil shook his head but said nothing.

"Are you sure I shouldn't send for Richard?"

Again, he shook his head. He looked as though he planned to stand there in the hall until Richard returned. Like a dog waiting for his master to come home, Laura thought with a twist of humour and pity.

Determined to be nice to him for Richard's sake, Laura laid her hand on his arm to guide him into the study.

He jerked away from her, jolting the entry table and upsetting the bowl of cards on it, sending them scattering to the floor.

"I'm sorry," Neil said, bending to pick up the bowl and set it on the table. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean— my son is ill. That's why I'm here. To find a doctor."

Laura, who had been ready to lose her temper, felt a bolt of horror slide down her spine. She reached out to touch Neil's arm again, then thought the better of it and drew back.

"Why don't we go into the study," she said. "Would you like some tea?"

"No. No tea."

But he did follow her into the study, where he sunk down into an armchair. After a moment he looked up at her.

"Can I have a drink — a real drink?"

"What would you like?"

"Anything strong."

Laura had doubts about men's recourse to strong drink in times of crisis, but she dutifully went to the decanter on the shelf and poured a generous measure into a glass. The smell of the alcohol made her stomach start leaping violently. When she'd given it to Neil, she sat carefully down in one of the other chairs, her hand over her stomach. For a moment, she thought she really might be sick. Then she noticed Neil was staring at her over his glass and dropped her hand to her waist. He looked away again, and Laura breathed slowly and deeply until the feeling passed.

They sat in silence while Neil sipped his drink. Laura dared not ask him about his son and could think of no other topic of conversation. Nor could she leave him. He looked lost and hurt.

"How long will you stay?" she asked at last. Then, realizing it sounded ungracious, "Not that I want you to leave but it will affect my housekeeping."

"I don't know. A week, perhaps. I'm here to look for a surgeon." The port seemed to be doing something after all; Neil was speaking more firmly now. "Once I've found one, I'll be going straight back home."

There was another long silence. Laura wondered what the surgeon was for. Had the little boy broken a bone? But that could surely be set by a village doctor. Was it something more delicate? A tumour? Laura tensed at the thought.

Over another long silence, Laura's mind returned to practical matters.

"Um. We're going out to dinner tonight," she said. "Should I ask the servants to prepare something for you?"

He shook his head. "I'm not hungry."

Laura marked that down as a yes. A man not hungry at five pm might be starving at six. They fell into silence again. Laura watched the clock tick. She could think of nothing more to say to Neil, except for the burning question of what was wrong with his son, and that she dared not ask.

At last, the front door opened, and Laura got to her feet, calling out Richard's name. He came into the study, holding his arms out for her, then stopped as he saw Neil.

"What on earth—"

"Rich. Hello." Neil raised his half-empty glass in greeting. "Sorry. I didn't have time to send word."

Richard's eyes travelled to Laura. "What's going on?"

"I don't really know," she said, moving to the door. "I have to get changed. Neil can tell you about it."

But Richard caught her around the waist and pulled her closer. "When did he get here? Why is he here?"

"Ask him." She made to kiss him, remembered Neil was there, stopped, and then kissed him anyway. "Remember to get dressed in time for dinner."

Laura shut the door behind her and went upstairs to dress. The coquelicot gown that Richard liked so much was pinching at the arms and bust. Laura tugged at it while her maid did her hair. Too many rich dinners, she told herself.

As she went back downstairs, she found herself suddenly needing to sit down, which she did on a sofa on the landing. Her fingers trembled where they rested on the couch-seat. It was definitely getting worse — how long had it been now? Two weeks? Three? Surely not a month?

She was still puzzling it out when the study door opened below and the two men came out. They came up the stairs. Neil passed her without even a glance or a nod. Laura felt hurt and irritated by it, but she tried not to let it show on her face as Richard stopped in front of her.

"This one," he said, looking down at her dress with approval.

"Well it's only Lady Harriet," she said with a smile. "You won't need your wits about you tonight."

"No." He ran his finger lightly over her collar bones, then down over the swell of her breast to the neck of the gown. "Darling, did the dress get smaller, or did these get bigger?"

"You'd better get dressed," Laura said, to cover her confusion. "We'll be late."

"Just one moment." Richard stooped and kissed her, careful not to disturb her dress or hair. "There. I'll go now. And we'll only be a little late."

She went down into the hall to wait for him. Her heart was beating rather fast, and she was trying very hard not to connect the pinching of her dress to the sick feeling in her stomach. You're imagining it, she told herself sternly, you're imagining it because you wish it were true, and you know it's not.

But if it's true—

She shuttered the thought, and instead focused on picking up the visiting cards that had fallen to the floor. Lady Roynor — good for Richard's career even if she always managed to cause offense. Lord Duvalle — a distant relative of Neil's by marriage, not very important. Miss Dalrymple — not a card but a scrap of greasy brown paper with her name scribbled on it. Mr Jonathan Percival — the sick feeling in Laura's stomach intensified. What was he doing calling on Richard again? Yesterday morning too. Laura stared at the card, then, as she heard Richard's footstep from the hall above, buried it underneath the others.

In the carriage on the way to Lady Harriet's, Richard explained to Laura what was wrong with Neil's son.

"It's the same problem we had as children," he said. "Something with the bones in the knees. There's an operation that can be done, but of course that brings dangers too."

Laura looked down at Richard's right leg, held as always when he was sitting straight out in front of him at an awkward angle. She knew too well how it hurt him — a constant pain.

"Will he be like Neil, or like you?"

"It depends on the operation. Neil's operation was successful, mine, not so much. But it was breaking my leg that really did me in."

"That poor little boy," Laura said, running her hand down Richard's thigh and gently massaging his knee. "What's Neil doing down here then?"

"Trying to find a reliable surgeon, and probably another doctor. Theirs has no idea what to do. He's not even sure if it's best to give Podge the surgery or not."

"They'd not fix it?"

"There are dangers with surgery — and it might not cure his pain."

Laura was silent for some time, her heart aching. She kept up her steady, soft stroking of Richard's bad knee.

"How about Annie?" she asked at last. "There's no problem with her?"

"No. She's fine. That's why it was such a shock. He was walking just fine until a few weeks ago, and then he stopped. Went back to crawling, started crying..." Richard trailed off. "It's only the boys, it seems. Neil and I, Podge, my uncles on my mother's side. It must be hereditary."

"Hereditary?" Laura felt a quickening of alarm. "So, if you had a son— could have a son?"

Richard nodded. "But it was Neil's next I was thinking of. Every time, he'll have to wonder. Have to worry."

"Is there going to be a next?" Everybody seemed to be having babies. Not me, Laura told herself. Not us.

"Well not yet. At least, Neil didn't say so and I don't have any reason to think there will be. But Verity's still young. She's only just turned twenty-five. One day, there will be more."

He stared thoughtfully out the window. "Were you serious, when you talked about adoption, Laura? I've been thinking about it. And I've come to believe... well it's our only chance, isn't it? And I'd rather like to be a father."

Laura's heart stammered in her chest. "I haven't thought about it much since then."

"Neil and Verity would never consider it, but Elizabeth might be open to such an arrangement — perhaps for Catherine."

"I don't know." Laura's stomach gave another wobble. "I— I think I'd rather not talk about this now, Richard."

He looked carefully at her. "We wouldn't have to jump into it all at once. We could borrow one or two of her daughters for the summer, perhaps, keep them at Albroke with us. A kind of trial."

Over the summer. Well by then she'd know if— Laura shut the thought down. She did know. Richard could not have children.

But all the same, she said, "I'd rather not talk about this yet — not, now."