When the first letter from Neil came, Richard read it with many snorts and then tossed it straight into the fireplace. It contained a great deal of neatly worded phrases, such as "the rashness of my conduct notwithstanding" and "not to dwell on past mistakes when present concerns demand forgiveness". The second letter was more to the point and contained several carefully blotted out expletives. Richard ignored that too. The third letter, coming at the start of July, as Richard and Laura were about to leave London for the year, was not from Neil but from his wife. Richard read this one more slowly. It ended on the lines,

This is a personal request, from me to you, Richard. Will you please come and visit us this summer with your wife while she can still travel? Neil knows he did wrong and regrets it deeply. And I miss you, my children miss you, and I want to get to know Lady Laura before the baby comes and changes everything. Let's be family again.

With love, Verity

It was impossible for him to throw that on the fire. He looked across the breakfast table to where Laura was eating her way steadily through two boiled eggs, three pieces of toast with jam, and a pile of ham; her appetite had come back with a vengeance now her sickness was fading.

"How do you feel about travelling?" he asked.

She looked up, licking jam from her bottom lip. "Where are we going?"

"Only if you're well enough."

"I think I am. I'm not often sick anymore, and only in the mornings before I've eaten." She looked curiously at the letter. "Neil?"

"Verity." Richard tapped the letter thoughtfully on the table. "She wants us to come up and visit them."

Laura chewed on her toast then swallowed. "So Neil asked her to extend the olive branch. I never thought him a coward."

Richard hesitated. "No... Neil sent two letters already. I didn't reply to them."

Laura raised her eyebrows.

"I'm still angry," Richard admitted.

"I know." Laura began to shell an egg. "It's very charming, really, how long you can hold a grudge on my behalf."

She did not sound charmed. Richard sighed inwardly.

"Do you want to go then?" he asked.

"I think so. I'm curious about Neil's wife." Laura sliced the egg and spread it across one of her jammy pieces of toast.

Richard winced. "Laura, that's a vile combination."

She took a big bite and chewed curiously. "It is, rather."

That didn't stop her eating it. Richard sipped his coffee and thought about the invitation. He'd rather hoped Laura wouldn't want to accept it. If Verity was asking, he couldn't say no. The compulsion to agree, to make her happy, was too strong for him. Whatever piece of his heart or soul she had caught so long ago, she still had it.

He looked across at Laura and felt guilty for thinking it. He never had any trouble telling Laura no.

"Are you sure you'll be able to travel?" he asked. "It's three or four days by road — not very good road, the last two days — and the weather will probably be hot."

"We'll take it in easy stages," Laura replied sanguinely. "As long as we're back before the end of September there'll be no risk at all."

Richard put the letter down with a sigh. "Right then."

"It's settled. Good." Laura finished her toast and egg and got up. In the full skirts of her morning dress, she looked more plump than pregnant yet, but it had been a few weeks now since her belly had started to round. That had shaken the last, silent doubts from Richard's mind that perhaps Laura might be mistaken after all. It still bewildered him, however, to think about the fact that, not many months from now, he was going to be a father.

She came over to him on her way to the door and he pulled her down for a kiss.

"Are you sure you can travel?" he asked.

"Yes." She pushed him gently away. "I'm not made of glass, Richard."

He knew that. Now her illness had passed, her usual strength of body and spirit had returned. But knowing she was carrying his child made him panickily aware of the danger that lay all around her. If she had a shock. If she were overtired. If she were taken ill. If she were in a street accident. There was no end to the dangers.

And last time, he knew, it had gone badly for her. The baby had been born dead. Early, and dead. She'd told him that much, and just now he didn't dare ask more.

She rubbed his forehead between his eyebrows. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't get that worried look on your face." She stood back. "There. Better."

He laughed, despite himself.

"I can travel," she said. "And I want to meet her — Verity. And I still think I can make a friend of Neil, if I just have the chance to talk to him."

Neil had said something similar in his letters. Richard frowned, and Laura prodded his forehead again.

"Don't do that," she said.

"Fine." He forced himself to smile. "Where are you going?"

"A walk in the square."

"It's damp today."

"I'll wear a shawl." Laura looked skeptically down at him. "Richard, really, I don't like this."

"I know." He could tell that she found his worrying about her confining. It was too much a reminder, he suspected, of the way Maidstone had treated her. He kissed her hand. "Go on then. I've got a letter to write."

She stopped at the door. "I promise I'll be careful."

He gave her a smile. "I know."

When she had left, he went into his study to write a letter to Verity. Part of him still wanted to refuse her offer, but after what Laura had just said he realized it wasn't fair to Laura to say no. She wanted to be friends with Neil. And Richard had to let her have that chance, rather than protect her from a danger that — if he was truly honest — probably didn't exist.

Probably.

* * *

On her second turn around the square, Laura was hailed by a voice behind her, and turned to see Elizabeth, striding along with her two eldest children in tow.

Laura sighed. Elizabeth had been very trying since she'd discovered Laura was pregnant. She was full of well-meaning advice, which came out as direct orders. Laura had taken to avoiding her by saying she was feeling ill and retreating to her bedroom, but today she was cornered.

"You're looking very well," Elizabeth said, scrutinizing her and directing the children to walk ahead. "You're starting to show. It's early for that, a good sign."

"About the right time," Laura argued, pulling her shawl closer to hide her figure. She didn't like Elizabeth's commendation any more than she liked her criticism.

"Perhaps," Elizabeth conceded. "You've a small figure, so it can't be as easy to carry as someone like me."

Elizabeth made it sound like being tall was a virtue. Laura was ruffled.

"If I'd had as much practice with it as you have, no doubt I'd find it easy too," Laura said archly.

That, unfortunately, only served to remind Elizabeth of another conversation. She lowered her voice. "Farthingdale's started it up again."

Laura glanced ahead at Elizabeth's children and hoped they were far enough ahead to be out of earshot. They were walking sedately, arm-in-arm, in their little white frock and little red sailor-suit, not even watching for the squirrels that were darting amongst the trees.

"I've been putting a drop of laudanum in his port," Elizabeth continued in a whisper. "It makes him too sleepy to know what we've done exactly."

"You can't do that!"

Elizabeth's eldest son stiffened for a moment and then continued walking. Laura had the sudden suspicion that he was listening. And the little girl's ears were pink. She took Elizabeth's arm and dragged her further back.

"You can't do that," she repeated in a low voice. "He'll become ill!"

"And if he does I'll be safe from his fumbling—" Elizabeth broke off sharply. "It's not all I'm doing anyway. My maid introduced me to a woman of ill-repute, and I've got a method now. As long as I have a few minutes in private to prepare, I'm safe. And he hasn't noticed a thing, so far."

"You need to talk to him about this," Laura said. "You need to tell him that you don't want more children. You can't lie to him for the next six, seven, eight years."

"Why not?" Elizabeth said. "Most wives lie to their husbands for all of their married lives. I'm sure you have things you're not telling Richard."

"I don't have secrets from him." Even as she said it, Laura blushed. That wasn't quite true. Richard did not know about Mr Percival. She had meant to tell him, after Percival had visited, but with all the fuss of Richard learning about the baby and then his fight with Neil, somehow, it hadn't happened. And now it would be so awkward to bring it up.

Elizabeth looked skeptically at her. "Once, I loved Farthingdale, you know."

Laura jumped. "What?"

"It's true. When I was first married — I was only seventeen and he had hair then — I thought him quite handsome. And of course he adored me. It's easy to believe you love someone when they adore you. But it didn't last long. Not more than a year, I should think. It rarely does."

A light rain struck up and Laura shivered, though she wasn't cold.

"It's not like that with me and Richard."

"You've not been married a year, and already you're keeping secrets from him — I saw you blush. What is it? Not a flirtation, I hope."

"Of course not!" Laura snapped.

"Then you do have a secret." Elizabeth looked smug.

"It's not a secret. It's just something he doesn't know." Laura pulled her shawl closer around herself. "I don't have secrets from Richard, and he doesn't have secrets from me."

"I guarantee you, he does. Farthingdale thinks he has secrets from me, of course, but I know them all." Elizabeth gave an unpleasant smile. "He goes to the theatre only to watch the actresses. He thinks I don't know that, but I do."

It was, Laura thought, a rather mild and insignificant secret.

"And he eats crab at his club, though it gives him indigestion and I have forbidden him from it."

Laura tried to look shocked.

"And," Elizabeth said, in a voice so soft it could barely be heard, "if I am not around to make him, sometimes on Sundays he doesn't go to church. His valet told me."

"Goodness," Laura said at last.

"I tell you now, a valet's pocket is the key to your husband's heart," Elizabeth said. "I don't know what I'd do without Williams. He tells me everything about Farthingdale."

"But does Farthingdale have your maid's pocket?" Laura asked absently.

She was surprised to see a dull blush spread over Elizabeth's features. The idea that Farthingdale was using her servants to spy on her seemed never to have occurred to Elizabeth before. She was silent for a long time. Laura wondered what other secrets she was keeping from her husband — probably very silly secrets, Laura thought, probably nothing any sensible person would bother hiding, but secrets that would embarrass her all the same. It seemed suddenly more sad than amusing.

The rain grew heavier, and Laura looked to the sky. "I think we ought get inside," she said. "Would you and your children like to come in until the rain stops?"

"No thank you," Elizabeth said, raising her hand to a distant groom waiting in front of a carriage. "I think we'll be getting home now."

They left, but rather than go inside, Laura sheltered under a tree and thought for a little while. She didn't want herself and Richard to end up like Elizabeth and Farthingdale. Elizabeth might not seem unhappy, but there was something ugly and uncomfortable about her relationship with her husband. They were both closed off from each other. Both hiding themselves.

Laura's thoughts circled back to Percival. He hadn't been back, and she had heard nothing of him. She supposed he'd left the country as he'd said he would. Then that passage of her life was at a close. But she still had to tell Richard about it. She didn't want any secrets between them, not even trivial ones, not especially one so heavy and dark.