Over the first weeks of Verity's return, Neil tried his best to play the part of a husband. He breakfasted with Verity; he attended church with her; he spent the mornings with her. It was no more than playing a part – for the both of them. They spoke as though actors on a stage – only he felt as though an understudy, forced into a role for which he was not ready, whose lines he could repeat, but not fully understand.

He was not yet very well. Though his mind was now clear, his body was still weak. At night he still sometimes suffered fevers. At the end of the day, his knees trembled from the effort of walking. He dared not ride his horse, nor drive his carriage. His weekly visits to church tired him, and he could stand to be spoken to for only the barest of minutes before leaving, confirming the villagers' opinions that he was a snobbish, uppity sort of man.

Mostly, he had come to Houglen because he was afraid. He had sought memories, and thought he might discover them here, but they were elusive to him, and he still did not dare ask Verity for the truth about him. Sometimes he wondered if it mattered. No doubt the truth between them had changed. Perhaps it was best if he allowed himself to forget, to try to love her, and to love their child.

With Verity at home, it was not long before Lady Duvalle called upon them, and, upon learning that Neil was not going out except for church, invited herself to tea. She gave her approval to the baby, frowned when she heard about the hasty convent marriage, and sallied that at the very least the marriage should be publicized in the newspapers – months late but better than nothing.

"There shall be another baby before long, of course," she said, wiping a speck of butter from her gloves with a frown. "A boy is vital."

Neil looked at his wife, who was pink-cheeked as she bounced Anne on her knee. There had been no kisses, no embraces, no love making between them. It angered him to think that he had to have a son – a son, when he barely had a family.

"It is too early to think of such things." He nibbled a slice of sandwich, but put it back on his plate, barely tasted. "I should like to recover more of my health first, and Anne is hardly three months old yet."

Verity nodded her head in agreement. "Neither Neil nor myself are very well right now. To simply live quietly here, with Anne, is much better for all of us. We cannot even think of having another child yet. Let alone, persisting for a boy."

When Lady Duvalle had left, and Verity was putting the sleeping baby to bed, Neil cornered her.

"You're not well?" he accused.

She looked up at him from creased and shadowed eyes. "I'm not ill. But it takes a lot out of one, to have a baby. And she is so often awake at night. It is more accurate to say that I am tired."

"Should I hire a nurse?"

"No!" She put a hand to his arm. "Please – I like taking care of her."

"And me? You are up with me some nights too."

"I should be up with you if there was a nurse or not." She hesitated. "Unless you do not want me to be there."

He did not answer that. He went over and played idly with the sleeping baby's toes.

"If you don't want me to attend you when you are ill – or at any other time." She approached behind him. "Neil. You need only tell me. I would understand."

"No you wouldn't. You would uncomprehendingly do as I bade and pretend it did not pain you."

"Well," she said, offended, "Sometimes you are so incomprehensible that that is the best I can do with my intelligence."

She had raised her voice, and the baby was stirring a little. Neil rocked the crib gently. "Ssh. We mustn't argue in here."

"No." Her voice softened. "I will do as you wish."

"I don't wish to see you so tired. That's the only reason I suggest it."

"But when you are ill, if there was a nurse, I would lie awake fretting all night anyway. I worry too much, I know, but it is easier when I am by your side."

"Then stay." He watched the baby drift off again. "I don't like it when we argue in front of her – I have an idea, that we have argued here before. I remember it, something about it. Through the door, you told me that you did not want to talk. I have some idea about..." When he turned to Verity, her face was white. "Did we argue often?"

"Not often." She sat down on her bed rather suddenly. "If only you could remember the times we did not – that was when you left, that day. We had fought – the night before. I don't want to remember it. I don't want you to remember it."

Her voice was raw. He wanted to know the truth about that night, but she looked so forlorn that he couldn't bare to ask her.

The next day, still suffering a headache, but driven by his desire to understand his past, he had his carriage take him alone to Lady Duvalle's house. He had not visited since the accident, but on entering, he felt one of those strange, senseless deja vus that had been assaulting him so often in the village. The butler sent him through to the library, where Lady Duvalle was writing letters.

"A little early for a visit from a man who is not yet in society," she said archly, setting her quill down. "Is there a problem?"

"Yes." He sat down on the sofa. "Lady Duvalle, I am sure you have heard the gossip about my – health."

Her lips moved in and out consideringly. "Are you here to confess that you are dying? It would be a pity. My granddaughter, my great granddaughter, both need you."

"I don't think I shall die." He plucked at the gilded trim on the cushion. "I am a lot healthier than I was. But I have – forgotten – most of what has passed for the past eight years. Back in this town, I have begun to remember, but not all of it. Particularly, how I came to meet Verity in the first place. I can't ask Verity to explain it to me. But you must know."

The old woman pursed her lips. "You are asking me a difficult question, Mr Armiger. The truth never takes the same form twice between two different people's eyes."

"Tell me how I came to marry her- the first time." Sick of her prevaricating, Neil threw down all his cards: "I have remembered some of it – I as much as bought her, from her father, for one night – what happened, that night?"

"Only you and she know," Lady Duvalle said. "She told me nothing untoward occurred. You told me yourself that she left your house that morning still a virgin. And I suppose you would know. You were the only two there. If you ask her about it, she will not lie to you, I am sure." Lady Duvalle's cheek twitched. "Of course it ruined her reputation, regardless of the truth. The village learned of it and assumed she was a whore. Her father was a drunkard – do you remember that? You do? A drunkard, and a gambler. He was in debt to some very bad sorts. And of course people were reluctant to help Verity after what they thought she had done. Her father attempted the same kind of sale to another of his debtors – only this one attempted to collect."

Neil's stomach seemed to turn over inside him. His hands began to shake.

"Attempted," Lady Duvalle repeated. "He tried to rape her. He failed. It wasn't your fault. Don't look so horrified. She stabbed him, and ran away. It was winter, and snowing. She was injured, and fainted in the snow. You were the one who rescued her."

"I?" He stood, and paced madly in front of the fire. He was burning with horrified anger, mostly, at himself. She had told him nothing of it. Of course she hadn't. How would you even begin such a conversation? "I rescued her?"

"Indeed," Lady Duvalle said drily. "I had tried before then to get you to marry her. You had refused. But I think you must have cared for her – quite deeply - for it was you who hunted for her that night, and brought her to my house, in your arms. That night, while she sweated in her sickbed, we arranged that you should marry her. I won't say you weren't still reluctant. I won't say you were in love. But you agreed to marry, of your own free will, both of you."

Again, Neil remembered how fragile she had looked on the bed after she had given birth, and how it had made him remember... something. Sudden, the something came back to him: her white face, listless, on white pillows. Oh, alright. Let us get married.

"Did we ever love each other?" he asked violently. "I know that I loved my first wife – I do not even know if I can love Verity."

Lady Duvalle was silent. Neil steadied himself on the mantelpiece. His knees were beginning to tremble.

"Did we?"

"Only you and she know. And only you can answer for your own heart. Perhaps, Mr Armiger, you should abandon your quest for the past. Look to the future: Can you love her there?"

He shut his eyes. Perhaps that was what scared him. The future was so much less ambiguous than the past. It was merely an extension of the now.

And in the now, he did not love her.

When he got home from Lady Duvalle's, his headache was a throbbing weight in his skull, and his cheeks burned. The woman he did not love took one look at him, and sent him to bed, where she nursed him all night long.

~~

A/N: Poor Neil. Just needs a great big hug. And probably a full course of anti-biotics.