A/N: I went through and edited the entire story a few days ago, fixing some plot inconsistencies. Two important ones:

Lord Armiger, Neil's father, is now given a more realistic title, XXX Armiger, Lord Albroke, and referred to as Lord Albroke.

Richard now has the title Richard Armiger, Lord Landon, but he'll be called Richard from now on anyway.

Neil was a youngest son and youngest sons, thankfully, don't get titles, so his name is unchanged.

~~~~~

"Wake up – Wake up, Neil. He's bleeding so much."

"Head wounds always bleed. He's waking. Here."

Neil opened his eyes. Mrs Roper was kneeling over him. Richard was standing behind her, cheek red and swollen, hair on end.

"Can you hear us?"

"Mmph." It took him a moment to remember how to speak. "Yes." Words returned to him, in chaotic, unutterable fragments. "Giulia died – I remember how she died. If you'd met her..." He struggled to sit up, his head swimming. "How long have I been down?"

"Not even half a minute." Mrs Roper pressed the bloody towel to his head. "We're going to send you to bed."

"That would be nice." His head ached, but the world felt clearer, emptier somehow. "Did he hurt you, Richard?"

"Not much." Richard passed a hand gingerly over his cheek. "He only hit me once."

From down the hallway, there came the faint sound of a baby crying.

"She's a loud one," Mrs Roper said. "You can see her later. I'll bring her in to you. Can you stand? Come on."

Somehow, she got him to his feet. She helped him to his room, where he fell thankfully upon the bed. The old nurse appeared. His head was washed and dressed, and he leaned hazily against the piled pillows and let it ache. Richard restored order to his collar and hair in the mirror, and sat down in the chair next to the bed.

"You have a daughter." He smiled a little. "I have a niece."

"I know." Neil fell back on the pillows and shut his eyes. "You had a nephew. He died. Did you know?"

For a moment, nothing. Then, softly, "Yes. I didn't want to shock you. It seemed that you had forgotten he ever existed."

"I did. And just now, I remembered," Neil said wonderingly. "I knew he was going. We all had the fever. I could not bear it, to watch him suffer, day after day. She would sing this lullaby. Italian. I loved that little boy, and when he was dying, I loved him just a little less, every day. I'm a coward, like that. But I didn't even think to fear that she would die, until she was, and by then it was too late. I felt it completely. It broke me."

"You remembered all that?"

"Unless I dreamed it." He shook his head, and winced. "I didn't. It is true."

"I'm sorry."

Neil lay on the bed, staring into space and thinking. He was relieved by one thing: Verity had never been his mistress, but his wife, and that was when he had got her with child. He had no reason to doubt Richard and Jane's tale there. But the memory – that awful memory that had returned to him, of how he had tried to buy her, and how she had accepted - followed swiftly on the heels of his relief.

She could have told me about it, he thought savagely. She should have. I thought I had loved her. And he decided to demand the truth from her – all of it, from the beginning. Including, he thought with revulsion, if he really had ever kissed Jane, if there had been any nascent affair between them.

Some hours later, they brought the baby in to see him. She had been washed of blood, and wrapped in white muslin. Verity, he was told, was still recovering. He could see her later, when he got up again. She would be in bed for several days.

He held the baby, so impossibly tiny, and so impossibly innocent, and tried to feel something. There was nothing but the fear that he would break her. There was no flash of love. But he was conscious that it was, of all things, not her fault. There was a wisp of damp dark hair on her head, and she was sleeping.

"You had better take her back to her mother," he said. "Tell her that she did well."

His voice displayed no animosity or reluctance. If it was somewhat unenthusiastic, the servants and his brother and Mrs Roper put it down to the blow he had received on the head.

* * *

Verity lay in bed in her room. The curtains had been drawn. A light fire had been lit, despite the warmth of the day. The baby slept in a cradle at the end of her bed. She worried that it was too warm for the baby. Her own limbs were heavy and slick with sweat, though they had washed her after the birth, and dressed her in clean linen. She was too tired to push back her blanket. She was too tired to be happy, and too tired to sleep, and too tired to move. When the door opened, she could hardly turn her head towards it.

"Neil?" She wanted to see him. She had wanted him all through the hours of labour, wanted him when the baby came at last, wanted him when she collapsed into bed afterwards. And all she had were hired women and the accoucheur, and Mrs Roper.

It was not Neil. It was Lord Albroke.

He walked slowly into the room, and looked down at the baby sleeping in the basket. He contemplated her for some time, but did not touch her, and his expression did not soften. Verity tried to sit up, but couldn't.

"I could have forgiven you if it was a boy," Lord Albroke said softly. He was not looking at her.

She did not have the energy to reply, and did not know what to say. She did not know what she was to be forgiven for. Ponderously, Lord Albroke went on:

"Neil told me that he married you in the convent. What a farce."

She was not too tired to feel afraid. Finally, Lord Albroke met her eyes.

"That paper that you made me sign. That was very, very cunning. I don't suppose you'd to care to burn it? No. And I thought I was getting the hard bargain out of you." He gave a short, cold bark of laughter. "I've never been outfoxed before. A lesser man might quit the game, at this point."

Finally, she found her voice, and rasped, "A greater man – would never – have started."

Lord Albroke ignored her. "And it looks as though he's not going to die. Do you know that? I was so sure he would die. But he won't, not for years. Which means that you are his wife, and this is his daughter." He came back around the bed, and stood over her. She struggled. She wanted to shout for the nurse, but could barely speak.

"Sir..."

He put his hands casually around her throat and squeezed lightly. "If he was a widower, I might be able to tolerate it a little more. I can always hope that death takes you first. But I'm not much of one for impotent hoping." His hands squeezed tighter. Dark spots began to bloom in Verity's vision. She looked up at him and wondered, wondered – if he really could do what he threatened. If he really was doing it. His brow knotted together in fury, and the whites showed around the edges of his eyes.

Then, without warning, he let her go, and she fell back on her pillows, vision dancing, gasping.

"You win." Lord Albroke looked down upon her, cold loathing written on every muscle of his face. "You may have my son. I wash my hands of him."

As he left the room, Verity shut her eyes, and gently fainted.

* * *

When Neil woke from his slumber, it was past midnight. The room was still lit, and a meal was waiting for him on the table. He got out of bed, and sat down, and ate with a ravenous hunger. It had been years, it seemed, since he had been hungry. Half-way through his meal, he put down his sandwich, and stopped, and listened.

Silence.

"They're gone," he said to himself.

It was true. The voices in his head, the competing Italian lullaby and English plea, had disappeared. For good, he believed. His head felt clear for the first time in months. Yes, he had a headache, but it was an ordinary sort of headache, from hitting his head. He felt as though the stream of conflicting voices in his head had solidified into the one clear voice he knew as his own.

He finished his meal, and as he did so, began to remember. Not much, it was true. But the spaces and times around that statement 'Would you send your beloved daughter to me for a night?' began to solidify.

He could see the little shabby cottage – what an awful place – and remembered the odious Mr Baker. Trembling hands. Blood-shot eyes. An alcoholic. Sold his daughter. His daughter who had agreed to be sold. He remembered the flash of challenge in her eyes as she had said she would accept. Yes. He had offered to buy her – in half-jest – and she had agreed to be sold. And that sordid transaction had escalated, and become a marriage, somehow. He didn't know how. He could remember no further than Miss Baker – Mrs Armiger appearing at his front door, haloed by a setting sun, bitter anger in her eyes.

He did not know if he would remember more. The blow to his head seemed to have knocked some things loose. But the rest of the matter was as obscure as ever. But she knew. And had told him nothing.

He made his way down the black corridor to her room. The fire was still dimly burning in the grate, and it was stiflingly warm. She stirred on the bed as he stood over her.

"Neil."

He had meant to challenge her. He had meant to demand the truth. But there was the faintest sheen of joy on her face, which even in the dim light was deathly pale. He could say nothing to break it.

"Did you see her?" she said, in a voice as thin as paper. "Did you see her?"

"Yes."

She slumped back a little. There was no energy to spare for a smile.

There was nothing in the movement, nor in the sight of her listless face, that should have made him feel guilty, or sorrowful, or full of agony. Nothing he knew. But he did, most powerfully, for a moment, feel all of those things.

No. He could not press her. His anger washed away in a flood of inexplicable pity. He could not ask her. Not tonight. Not until she was better.

She tried to smile at him, and again it collapsed. A moment later, she closed her eyes, and drifted into sleep. He stood over the bed watching her, and wondered how much of what she told him had been lies. It seemed that everybody had lied to him. Jane had lied to him, he realized; Richard had lied; his father had lied; Verity had lied.

She moved a little in her sleep, and again the motion elicited some aching emotion from him. Memory, he realized. I've watched her sleep like this before.

It came to him, then, that he didn't have to ask anybody. He was nearly well enough to travel. He would return to the places where the memories had been made, and look for them there.

~~~

A/N: This is the end of part four of the novel. What's left is only the concluding part and epilogue :) Nearly done!