Neil knocked on the door of Verity's cabin shortly before seven o'clock. After a moment, she answered sleepily, "Yes?"

"It's me. Can I come in?"

"Oh – yes, come."

He entered, and she was sitting up in her bed, tugging the neckline of her nightdress higher over her bust. Her hair was loose over her shoulders, and her face looked thinner and paler within its masses. He sat down at the edge of her mattress, as the only chair was occupied by a tray of cold tea and stale toast. The mattress sunk under his weight, and his thigh came to rest against hers. She shifted away slightly, but not uneasily; it was the normal British desire to maintain a polite distance. Not normal, between husband and wife, perhaps, but then nor were their circumstances. Still, it bit him.

He had hoped that the isolation and strangeness of the ship would allow some measure of intimacy to develop between him and his wife. It had been impossible during their courtship. There had always been somebody just around the corner, or behind the door – a servant polishing brass, or a maid shuttling a tray. On one occasion, when he had kissed Verity on the lips on parting in the hall, he had distinctly heard a whispered "Oh! He never!" from the top of the stairs. He suspected Lady Duvalle had put them up to it, for Lady Duvalle herself was always cheerfully content to let the young lovers, as she called them, alone – too cheerfully content for Armiger's cynical appraisal of her character to believe. But whatever the cause, his constant audience had made him self-conscious, and he had been too polite, and talked too much of the weather, and kept his hands almost entirely to himself.

But it was equally impossible, of course, to attempt intimacy with a woman who had her head buried in a bucket. And her illness had made her embarrassed, and she had refused to let him nurse her, and spent most of her time locked away alone in her cabin.

Casually, deliberately, he laid a hand on her leg, just above her knee, reclaiming the space she had taken. He wanted to see what she would do, but the idea had only come to him to test her reaction by his awareness of his own impulse to take the action in the first place.

She looked down at his hand, and then up at him, her eyebrows raised slightly, questioningly. The non-reaction was almost more disappointing to him than rejection. He squeezed slightly, to indulge his impulse, and then let his hand rest there.

"How do you feel?"

"I'm not so bad as I was." She was certainly no longer green, but she was still very white.

"Well enough to come to the dining hall with me tonight?"

"I...you could eat here with me, couldn't you?"

"I could. But I learned an old friend of mine is on the boat. She asked me to bring you to dinner with her. But you don't look well still."

Verity frowned. "I thought you didn't have friends."

"A few, but I've been out of the country for eight years. My relationships have waned. In fact, I haven't seen her for thirteen years."

The memory came to him, suddenly, of the very last time he had seen Jane. She,  running in her bare feet down the steps of his father's manor, nightdress pulled up above her knees, continuing at a breakneck speed down the drive, until she was suddenly, irretrievably, gone. Her father and his, shouting after her from the front door, calling her name over and over, until she disappeared. He and his brother, leaning out the library window, their tutor pretending to haul them back, as a pretext to watch the scene himself. What a summer that had been.

"We were both children, then," he added wistfully.

Verity's frown disappeared. She slid her legs up to her chest, out of the blanket and his grasp. He appreciated the sudden view of her white ankles and calves as she scooted around to plant her feet flat on the floor. Slowly she stood up, balancing herself with one hand on the wall. He rose with her, seeing how unsteady her legs were, but she refused his arm, and cautiously paced around the narrow cabin.

"I might leave early. Is that alright?"

"Then you'll come? But are you sure you're well enough?"

"No. But I am very curious to meet your old friend. I'll leave, if I get to feeling poorly."

"Hmm." He picked up a piece of stale toast on her tray, and then dropped it again. "Well, if you come, you must eat something. I insist on it. Here, or in the dining hall, you must eat."

"I'll try."

"Try? Look at you! You're skin and bone." He smiled, to take the edge off his words. "I've only just married you and already you're threatening to leave me a widower again. No. Don't smile at me like that. It's not funny."

But she was smiling, a strange little grin that he'd never seen on her face before. It gave him another kind of impulse, and he obeyed it, crossing the cabin floor in two steps to take her face in his hands and kiss her on the mouth.

When he released her, she wasn't smiling anymore, but she wasn't frowning either. She was staring at him with wide open eyes, and pink cheeks. His gaze went unbidden down the contours of her body, undisguised by her lack of corsets and the thinness of her nightgown. He came back to meet her eyes, still wide, still surprised.

Testing the waters, he took a step closer again, raised his hand to run up her bare arm, and then hover, barely touching, at her shoulder. For a moment, she froze, then, almost imperceptibly, she leaned towards him.

He breathed out slowly. It was the first sign she'd given him that she might have wantingness buried deep somewhere within her, and not just apathetic willingness. So he kissed her once more, more lingeringly this time, allowing his hands the indulgence to creep up behind her head and tangle with her hair, and then drew back.

She stood before him in her nightgown, cheeks flushed, eyes bright. Her hands moved towards him unconsciously, but she caught the movement, and drew them back to her breast.

"You will eat."

"Yes." Her lips were trembling. He forcibly stopped himself from closing the distance between them again; it would be too much, too soon. Instead, he went to the door.

"Very well. You should get dressed. I'll be back in half an hour."

***

Verity entered the dining room of the ship for the first time she had boarded, her husband by her side. It was not grand, for the ship did not take long journeys or many passengers, but it was decked out very well in burgundy drapes and pale cream wall paper. A band was playing in one corner, and Armiger brought her to a table at which two women were already seated.

The younger one, about thirty, but still full of animated youth, stood up immediately to take Armiger's hands, and then Verity's, a move which also showed off the attractive line of her figure, and the ostentatious spleandour of her blood-red silk skirts.

"Mrs Jane Walthrope," Armiger said. "My wife, Verity."

Jane Waltrhope's eyes were so very blue, and her hair so very gold, and her manner so very charming and welcoming as she cooed her greetings that Verity hardly noticed the other woman at the table until she sat down.

This one was older, between forty and fifty, and looked it, with her hair graying and faded, and her eyes under their sagging lids, and the weary, drooping lines around her mouth and cheeks. She smiled sweetly at Verity, however.

"Your companion?" Armiger suggested to Mrs Walthrope, who was chattering to him about the menu.

"Oh! Of course!" Mrs Walthrope sat down, her skirts spreading like a peacock's tail. "I was carried away by myself! My sister-in-law, Elise Walthrope. Elise, this is my dear friend Mr Armiger, and his new wife, Mrs Armiger."

More greetings were murmured. A footman appeared and offered a wheeled tray of food. The food was arranged on plates, wine was poured. There was no wine for Verity, but she felt a rising tide of nausea even from the scent of Armiger's glass next to her, and turned away to breathe.

When she was recovered, Mrs Walthrope was saying between sips of wine and bird-like pecks at her bread:

"We're going to Paris, of course. Miss Walthrope has never been and I thought that was a great tragedy and we must remedy it."

"Paris will be so lovely, I am sure," Miss Walthrope added wistfully. "Have you ever been, Mrs Armiger?"

"No." Verity didn't want to admit, in front of the cultured and beautiful and confident Mrs Walthrope that she had never before left the country, never left her home shire of Houglen.

"Oh, but you must go!" Mrs Walthrope insisted. "Do take her, Neil. You must take her!"

Neil, Verity thought in surprise. She hadn't called her husband by his name yet. And here this woman, who hadn't seen him for thirteen years, did it so naturally.

"I'm not sure we'll have the time," Armiger said. "And Paris is not so fair this time of year anyway. We're staying with Mr Prothero near Brest – have you met him?"

"I was at his wedding! Four years, no five, it is. Such a lovely little wife he found, and children, too, now, I believe. It's a wonder you didn't go."

"I was in Florence. The invitation got there in a round-about-way, about six months after the fact. There's things you miss out, living away from England."

"And many things more, I gather, that you weren't upset to miss," Mrs Walthrope hinted.

At least, Verity thought it was a hint, because there was a sudden devilish glint in the woman's angelic face, but if it was, Armiger ignored it, and only ate his sirloin. Between a bite, he turned to Verity.

"Do eat."

She nibbled at a chicken wing, cautiously waiting for any sense of motion in her stomach. For a moment, the conversation ceased. They all ate, even Verity, whose appetite was beginning to awaken after several days of barely eating, and to whom the chicken seemed to hold no danger. She took also some slices of bread, but didn't dare attack the richer items on the table. The butter on the bread was not so kind to Verity, however, and with a faint clamping in her throat, she put it back on her plate.

Instead, she attempted to gain Mrs Walthrope's attention, which was less on the food than the company. She had to eat lightly, Verity supposed, to maintain her figure, which was fashionably slim, except for the few places women were allowed some plumpness.

"Mr Armiger said you were children together?" Verity began, when the other's eyes met hers.

"Oh we're old friends, yes – we were quite children when we last met. But we must have known each other nearly since we were born. My father was his father's lawyer, and his father didn't object to keeping the servants around, and their appendages, so we grew to be quite friends."

"There was nothing to object to," Armiger protested, "You were very pleasant company. I have many fond memories of our adventures."

Verity smiled, and forked again some chicken. "Do tell me something about them," she said, to both Armiger and Mrs Walthrope, before taking a bite.

"Well," Mrs Walthrope said consideringly, while Verity chewed. "Old Lord Armiger – Neil's father, the Earl – he-"

"Let's not talk of the earl," Armiger said. He didn't speak quickly, and he didn't speak loudly, but the statement was undoubtedly an order, not a suggestion. There was an ugliness to his tone that sent a shiver down Verity's spine.

Mrs Walthrope did not flush, or stutter, or start. She said, lazily, "Oh, I suppose that's not so amusing after all. For the most part, we had the usual childish adventures – tree climbing, apple stealing, horse riding, and all that. Young, innocent criminals we were, like all children. I think your story is more interesting than ours. How did the two of you meet? Such a sudden affair, I believe?"

That wasn't the direction Verity wanted the conversation to go in. His family's absence from their wedding, coupled now with her husband's flat refusal to allow talk of them, had piqued her usually incurious soul to a sudden hungry interest in the man she had married. The kiss she had experienced earlier may also have had some influence: her heart was still beating a little fast, and the left side of her body, to which Armiger sat, was strangely sensitive to the touch of the air that lay between them.

"He moved into a house in my shire, not six miles from my own," she said, watching Armiger from beneath her lashes. "What kind of-"

"But I have neighbors two miles from me who I have never talked to! How did you find each other?" Mrs Walthrope interrupted her.

"Houglen is a small shire. It's almost impossible not to know one's neighbors there. When you-"

"But I'm a sucker for romance," Mrs Walthrope gushed unhearingly. "Tell me your story – your love story – do you think him very handsome?"

"Of course," Verity said impatiently. "B-"

"You do?" Mrs Walthrope pressed. "I used to fancy him a little as a child, myself, but he's grown much handsomer than I ever expected, and I must say, if I didn't get him, I can't spare you any jealousy over it, because you're so pretty too. I couldn't bear it if he'd married a homely woman."

"It's I who would have to bear it, Jane, not you," Armiger said, with a trace of amusement in his voice. "Though I'm pleased to know you approve my wife."

"Her looks, at the very least," Mrs Walthrope said complacently. "But, Verity – you don't mind I call you Verity? – you still haven't told me how you met – the first time. Was it a ball? He is a fantastic dancer. No? A picnic?"

In her own determined pursuit for information, Verity had lost some of her usual guarded reserve, and answered the stranger's questions unthinkingly. But now she suddenly realised that Mrs Walthrope's careless, unceasing prattle was not so careless after all. The innocently lowered lashes and the light, airy voice were not the signs of a careless blatherer, but a practiced, and cunning, gossip. Mrs Walthrope, too, was pursuing information, and with more success than Verity.

"It was my father's house, actually, in his parlour. No party or dinner, either. Mr Armiger visited on my father that day, and I happened to be home too." Her voice was steady as steel.

"So casual a meeting? Such a great thing to come out of so humble one."

"They often do." Verity tried again at some buttered bread. With her stomach half-full now, it was not so bad, and she managed to get it down.

"From the way he talked of you," Mrs Walthrope said, "I thought you would be very different."

"Perhaps he doesn't know me as well he thinks," Verity suggested. "Or more likely, you don't know me as well you think. We have only just met, after all. Would it surprise you to be wrong about a woman?"

"Yes," Mrs Walthrope said decisively. "Greatly."

"It only takes Mrs Walthrope a minute or two to get hold of someone," the quiet Miss Walthrope agreed, "And when she does, she's got hold of them for life. An amazing, feminine intuition she has."

The corner of Verity's mouth curled unattractively upwards, but she said nothing. Mrs Walthrope, who hadn't missed the expression, gave Verity a calculating sort of leer, and returned to her plate.

It was Armiger who resuscitated the conversation.

"But Miss Walthrope, your wine has gone, and I fear you are not interested in a stranger's staid love affair. Let's talk of Paris. The shopping, I'm sure, but you must find it in you to visit the north bank of the Seine. Do you like art?"

Miss Walthrope, with the attention of a handsome and proper young man upon her, proved to be a fairer conversant than she looked. She loved art. She was fond of painting herself. She hoped she might buy something for her parlour at home – a view of the Seine, perhaps. Mrs Walthrope tried to persuade her that there were no truly nice views of the Seine, that it was very ugly, all of Paris was ugly at heart, but Miss Walthrope persisted, saying that even in ugliness there could be interest, and that held a higher worth to her than beauty.

But Verity had finished eating, the conversation had no place for her input now, and the smell of the wine on her full belly was decidedly making her feel ill again. She leaned in to Armiger.

"Might I go?"

"Of course. Do you feel bad? No? I'll come and see you after dinner if you're awake."

She rose, and excused herself. Mrs Walthrope gushed about how pleased she was to meet her, and to see that Neil was happy again. Verity did not smile at her as she left, because Verity was not the type to smile, unless she meant it.

***

Neil twisted in his chair to watch Verity leave the room. He wondered if he should have walked her back to her cabin. She was walking rather unsteadily. But she reached the door, and a servant opened it for her, and she was gone. He turned back to his fellow diners. Jane leaned over the table towards him.

"Ice!" she said meaningfully. "Ice, ice!"

"She's just shy, poor child," Miss Walthrope chided. "I was once a shy young girl too, I remember..."

Neil looked uncomfortably at Jane.

"When she falls," Jane warned, pointing a spoonful of blancmange fiercely at him, "she will fall hard." The blancmange wobbled on her spoon, and slid off and splatted back on her plate. She patted a napkin to her breast composedly, where some had splashed. "Just like that," she added.

This is a long chapter! It's also the first one with a real kiss scene. But only a very short one, lol. I had to rewrite it half a dozen times before I thought it was okay.