Time was a series of moments, which became hours, which became weeks. They were mostly quiet, comfortable moments. The pain had faded away, so gently that Verity hardly noticed when it left. But there was still that friendly new distance between her and Neil, an ocean of smiles and hand-touches and cheek-kisses between friendliness and love.

They reached the end of it one night, without her even noticing the moment they touched the shore. She was sitting on the couch, Annie asleep against her chest, while he read aloud from a novel. She had her eyes on their daughter, and only looked up when she realized he had fallen silent, long ago.

He had dropped the book unfinished on his lap, and was watching her with an unfathomable emotion in his eyes. She could not look away from it, and dared not name it.

Nobody moved. No words were spoken. Silence, warm and welcoming, filled the room. But everything, in that long moment, changed.

It ended, unmarked, and she found she could speak.

"Let's take her bed," Verity said. "I'll carry her. She's already asleep."

"Yes. I suppose it's getting late."

He came with her, and they put the baby to bed, as usual, and Verity followed him to the door to say goodnight, as usual, and he leaned in close to kiss her on the cheek, as usual. Only, it was not as usual, for he did not kiss her. He paused, instead, his lips a bare inch from her skin, and gazed consideringly at her. The thing she dared not name was still in his eyes, and again, she could not look away from it. Finally, he dropped the kiss, this time, not on her cheeks, but on her lips.

"Come with me," he said softly.

She seemed to float after him, his hand still at her sleeve. Softly, he closed the door on the sleeping baby, and a moment later, pulled her into his arms.

She was dizzy with happiness. Her knees were weak. His arms around her might have been the only thing holding her up.

"Oh," she said, when he broke away at last. "Neil."

He seemed to be beyond words. But his eyes spoke volumes. His hands came up to delicately brush her hair back from her face.

He kissed her again. There was something in his kisses, some exploration, as though he was finding away across new territory. But it was becoming more familiar to him all the time. She tangled her fingers in his hair and let him explore.

There was another interregnum while he held her close and only looked at her. This time it was not her eyes. His gaze traced its way down her neck, lingered anticipatively at her bust, and then followed the line of her waist and hips. One of his hands traced the line of her spine, sending dizzying stars in its wake, before settling on that hip. Finally his eyes met hers again.

"My god you're beautiful."

In answer, she kissed him with a passion inflamed by months of loneliness. She pulled him coaxingly to the bed, but he stopped her by kissing her hands.

"Wait." He stepped away a moment, and began to undo his jacket. "I find myself so devilishly constrained."

"Here." She laughed. "It is normally that I help." She took the task over, and helped him out of his jacket, taking the chance to caress his shoulders and arms. With little regard for his tailor, she tossed the jacket on the sofa. He took the moment to kick off his shoes.

"Normally?" He swooped to kiss her again. "Verity, my dear, I confess I have forgotten most of this too."

"Oh." She began to untie his cravat. "Let me remind you." She pulled off his cravat, and parted the neck of his shirt, and kissed his collar bone. Her fingers worked away at the buttons of his vest, between a staccato barrage of kisses. At last that could be discarded too, but she paused at his shirt, running her hands up and down over the silk, feeling the warmth of his flesh radiating tantalizingly beneath it. His muscles shifted under her palms. She squeezed his waist greedily, and pressed herself against him as she kissed him.

"Take it slowly," he warned, through heaving breath some minutes later. "I've forgotten, you see."

He might have forgotten, but his touch seemed to remember what his mind did not. They discarded their clothing piece by piece, exploring the new inches of skin revealed each time thoroughly, before finding the next impediment and conquering it. She kissed every new scar on his flesh twice, as though blessing it.

* * *

Verity awoke the next morning to find him playing with a curl of her hair, and watching her with the same, unnameable thing in his eyes. She smiled, a little shy, somehow, and he kissed her bare shoulder.

"Why now?" she asked curiously, rolling forward so that she could press against his heat under the blankets. "Why, after all this time, so suddenly?"

"There's a very good reason," he murmured, kissing her neck. "It wasn't sudden. All these months, I've been waiting, waiting..."

His kisses were trending south, which had a silencing effect on the conversation, and a distracting effect on her thoughts. She gasped, and decided she was quite willing to be distracted. It was what she had waited for, after all.

Before she could received either satisfactory distraction or answer, however, a baby's shrill cries pierced the early morning silence.

Verity was out of bed in a moment. She took his dressing gown from the chair, too large for her, and slipped it over her shoulders. "I'll be back."

She was back in a few minutes, with Annie clutching determinedly to her right breast. Neil was in his dressing gown, and just shutting the door of his japanned cabinet. He looked over his shoulder at them both.

"I hope you won't be offended," he said carefully, "But I do wish I could remember what it was like before the Little Interruption."

She laughed. "It was very good." She stroked Annie's hair, while the baby fed. "When she can walk and talk, we can leave her in the nursery. It will be a little more peaceful." She sat down on the sofa, adjusting Annie carefully. A moment later, Neil sat next to her, and put his arm along the backrest, just behind her shoulders.

"The problem," mused Verity, "Is that what the Little Interruptions interrupt, is precisely what leads to more of them."

"It's a wretched curse," Neil said seriously, "But they have some merits, I am sure." And then, hesitatingly: "It frightened me a lot at first, but I don't think I ever told you how happy it makes me that we do have Annie – and that she's healthy, and strong... and that you are too."

"I could tell. The way you hold her, and talk to her. I could tell." Annie was growing bored of feeding, and Verity shifted her a little. "Are you done? Done already?" she teased. She jogged her a little, and Annie garbled softly. "Look. She's going to sleep again. Lazy little sod," she said affectionately.

Already, the baby was dopily closing her eyes.

"Put her back to bed for a bit," said Neil. "I want to talk with you about something – and I think it's best if she's not here."

Curious, but not concerned – not after last night – Verity went back and rocked the crib until the baby fell into a doze again. When she returned, Neil stood up, and fumbled something out of the pocket of his dressing gown, and held out towards her.

"What is it?" she asked curiously, taking it from him. "Oh – it's in Italian. This book." She looked up at him, a sudden shiver of horror running over her. "You were reading it the day you left for France – the day before the ship."

"Yes," Neil said slowly. "I imagine I sent Georges to give it to you."

"Yes." She turned it over. "Why?"

He took it back from her. "I don't remember all of it, but I imagine it went like this. I was riding to Portsmouth. I took this book with me, but I don't think I read it. I had a letter to write. We had argued the night before. I remember that, very confusedly."

"It was the morning." Verity found her hands were shaking. "We argued just that morning. And the letter..."

"The letter. I must have written it to you in the carriage. I vaguely remember it. Because of the argument. I don't think you could have read it."

She shook her head. "What letter? I never got a letter."

"It was stuck in the pages of this book when I found it." He hesitated. "Months ago. It wasn't right that you should read it then. But I think now, it will be tolerable."

With stumbling fingers, he flipped through the book, extracted a loose, crinkling sheet of paper, and handed it to her. She began to read. After a moment, her legs went weak, and she sat down suddenly on the couch. He sat down next to her, but said nothing, and did not touch her. When she reached the end, she returned to the beginning, and read it again, more carefully.

At last she could bear to look at Neil again, but he was blurry-edged, from the tears in her eyes.

"Why now?" she begged. "Why not when you found it? If I had known..."

There were tears in his eyes too. She could see him trying to blink them away. He reached out, found her hand, held it.

"I thought it would hurt," he said brokenly. "I thought it would hurt too much, if you knew all that you had lost."

"Then why?" she begged, half-knowing, and not daring to believe, as she had seen and not dared to name the expression in his eyes. "Why now?"

"Because I was waiting," he answered, at last, "I was waiting for it to be true again."

Her tears were in danger of blurring the precious letter. She dropped it to the side table, and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of his dressing gown.

"It is true," he said gently. "It came true again. I fell in love with you."

Her efforts failed, and she burst into tears, and fell, clinging, towards him. His arms came around her, and pulled her closer. He kissed her, again, and again, and again, muttering with each kiss:

"I love you."

~~

A/N: yes, that is the end. Well, there will be an epilogue, tomorrow.