Neil Armiger followed Lady Duvalle to her library, irritated by her imperious manner, and irritated further still that she intimidated him.

"It is very late," he fumbled, "and perhaps now that you have your granddaughter and the physician here, I should leave. I have played my part."

"You have not finished it." Duvalle gave him a very cold, calculating smile. She stood by her globe, idly spinning it. "Tell me, Mr Armiger, did my servants stable your horse when you arrived?"

The change of topic caught him off guard, and he answered automatically.

"I did not ride here. I walked."

"Oh?" Lady Duvalle raised her fine black brows and left the globe to crook aside the curtains. "Carrying Verity in your arms, I suppose, and on a night like this too."

Too late, Neil saw the trap she had set for him. He shrugged, and tried to back out of it.

"I could not leave her lying there."

"But nor were you bound to go looking in the first place." Lady Duvalle let the curtain fall and returned to the globe, hardly bothering to glance at him. "Mr Armiger, it seems to me that you care very greatly for my granddaughter. More than a stranger should."

"I have met her three times in my life. Two of those times, we hardly said more than a handful of words to each other. It would not be right to say I care for her."

"But you do, or you would not have tramped through the snow to find her, and then carried her here, in your arms."

"Any good man would have done so."

"You are not a good man."

Exhausted, and chilled to the bone, despite the warm fire, Neil had neither the energy nor the patience to match wits with Lady Duvalle tonight. He flushed, abandoned diplomacy, and snapped:

"Lady Duvalle, I have told you before that I shall not be blackmailed into marrying your granddaughter. Do not try it! Frankly, I resent that you see your granddaughter as nothing more than the bait to tie my name and wealth to your family. Nothing more than that. What a callous woman you are."

"You resent that, and not that I see you as nothing more than wealth and a name?" Duvalle smiled ironically. "You do care for her, I can see that."

"I pity her. I pity her because she's a good woman, and she's surrounded by bad people."

Duvalle's face fell slightly. "I'm not the monster you imagine, Mr Armiger."

"The trouble is that you can't see what kind of a monster you are." His moment of anger passed quickly, and he was back to his usual cold manner. He door a deep breath, and turned the fire. "A monster like you thinks it's only my idea of marriage that matters. A monster like you wouldn't consider that Verity, too, has to agree to a marriage, and that she will not. She does not love me."

"She needs you." The words were harsh, the voice rasping. Lady Duvalle's mask was also slipping – or she was pretending it was. "Even if this Mr Harlan survives his injuries, even if he admits to raping her, she will forever be a murderess in the eyes of the village. And what honour do they think she was defending? You've already taken that, Mr Armiger. You could have spent the night reading bible verses to each other, but in the eyes of the village that girl was a whore the moment she walked into your house that night. Whores have no honour to defend. She will be shunned, abandoned. I doubt even her father will care to defend her. I could house her, but under my roof she would die a bitter spinster, a social leper, her honour still tarred. You took her honour from her, Mr Armiger, and you are the only person who can return it."

"By marrying her." Neil laughed bitterly. Her words had made concrete all the uneasy, nameless emotions he had felt ever since he'd met Verity. Oh yes, he had feelings for her. He admired her, for refusing to be the woman he had asked her to be. He hated her, for reminding him of the kind of man he was capable of being.

His flash of anger faded as quickly as it had come. As readily perceptive of his own faults, as other people's, he knew that was not fair. It was not Verity who deserved hatred for his cruelty and callousness.

But it was not in his nature to hate himself either. With a snarl of frustration, he wheeled away from the fire, and threw himself onto a settee. He leaned over his knees and put his head in his hands. After a moment, he heard the creak of the mattress, felt the balance of the couch shift. Lady Duvalle had sat down beside him. She said nothing.

Several minutes later, he sat up and opened his eyes and looked at her. "Will it make that much of a difference, in their eyes?"

"Yes." Lady Duvalle's thin, bony hands were clasped earnestly in her lap. "By marrying the man she gave herself to, she redeems her honour. A woman with honour is right to defend it. The village will see it as a love match and forgive her impetuosity in love. I doubt very much Mr Harlan will die from his injuries, and it is he who will leave the village a pariah when he recovers. A man who tries to make an honest woman dishonest is as shameful as a dishonest woman."

That was not true, Neil knew, for he had tried to make Verity dishonest and no one had censured him for it. But the rest of it might be. If he married her, the village would no longer shun her for her perceived indiscretion with him, and her raised position in society would be armour against the accusations of even a gentleman, which Neil was sure Mr Harlan was not.

He stared into the fire, thinking of Italy, and the sun, and his wife. When Giulia had died, he had found his heart – gone. Not broken, just not there anymore. There was no longer his old anger, his old grudges; no longer his newfound love, his newfound kindness. There was nothing left to him but his human shell, and the petty, bodily wants associated with it. He would never be able to love again. He had nothing more to lose.

Did Verity?

He could not answer that. He sighed, and turned back to Lady Duvalle, who was waiting with a curious and unusual patience.

"Ask her," he said faintly. "Ask her, and if she wishes, fine, I will marry her. God knows I have done her wrong, and if she believes marriage will make it right, I will do it."

Lady Duvalle smiled coldly at him. "I shall hold you to that."

---

Verity woke the next morning with a headache, feeling cold inside, and achey outside. She tested the plushness of her blankets, and the softness of her mattress with quiet wonder. Outside her window, the grounds were blanketed in white. It looked very much like how the inside of her head felt. Empty, and cold.

The door opened, and a maid bearing a tray and her grandmother entered. Her grandmother had a peculiar smile on her face, which made Verity feel somehow even colder.

"Mr Layton instructed you to stay in bed today. So you shall stay here."

"Thank you, Maman," Verity said quietly, unused to the strange kindness in her grandmother's tone, and wary of it.

The maid bustled about making tea and giving Verity toast. She picked at the bread, not hungry.

"You may leave, Mary," Lady Duvalle said, and sat down on the chair by the bed. "Now, Verity, you are perhaps wondering what has happened since last night. I have received word that the disreputable Mr Harlan will recover his injuries."

Verity flushed. She was somehow relieved, and yet angry that the man survived. "Am I in great trouble for that?"

"A little. But there is a way to make it go away." Her grandmother's smile was wolf-like. "Do you remember who rescued you last night? It was Mr Armiger. He went looking for you."

And Verity did remember, vaguely, after her panicked flight from the cottage, and her exhausted, despairing collapse in the snow, the kind arms that held her, the voice that called her name, the lips that pressed urgently to her brow.

"Perhaps," she said uneasily.

"He has agreed that it would be best for all parties if you were married."

"To Mr Harlan!?" Verity cried in horror. "No!"

"To Mr Armiger, you silly girl," Duvalle said crossly. "He has agreed that he will marry you, and redeem your honour. In doing so, of course, that awful Mr Harlan appears for what he is: a rapist of honourable women. Then this scandal becomes not about a slut stabbing a paramour, but a woman defending her honour against a dishonourable man, and then your reputation is saved. Mr Armiger has agreed that it is quite the right thing to do. After all, if it weren't for his stupid agreement with your father, you would never be in this mess in the first place."

Then, Verity thought, he had been guilted into doing this. It would be a marriage of shame, of all things.

"The word, of course, needs to go out before Mr Harlan attempts to press charges against you. The full word. The village shall have to know both that you are affianced to Mr Armiger, and that Mr Harlan tried, and failed, to rape you."

"But what if I don't want to marry Mr Armiger?" Verity asked miserably.

"Then the village will forever believe you a whore and a murderer. You may not like the man, Verity, but you can hardly refuse him your hand. And he has agreed to take it."

Verity lay back amongst the snow-white blankets, and stared out the window in despair. She felt relieved that there was a way out, disgusted by the way out, and powerless not to take it.

"He is waiting below, to ask you for your hand. He has already received permission from your father."

"Please, send him up, and leave us alone together." Verity laughed suddenly, and then coughed, her lungs aching with the effort. "You need not worry about my reputation , Maman, he cannot ruin it further."

"Very well. I shall send him." Diane rose, and Verity sighed with relief as she left the room. Her grandmother always made her feel tight and uncomfortable inside.

She pushed away her tray, toast untouched, tea unsipped, and waited. A few moments later, Mr Armiger appeared nervously at the door.

"Are you alright, Miss Baker?"

"Please, come in, and shut the door."

He did so, hesitantly. She could see that his dress looked hasty, and there was a deep crease between his eyebrows. The way he moved was stiff and jerky, and his expression and posture was guilty.

The poor man, she thought pityingly, he has done nothing wrong, not much anyway, not enough to deserve marrying me, and yet he is made to feel guilty for it.

"Miss Baker, are you alright?"

"I..." She looked down at her lap and then burst into tears. "Please don't leave, Mr Armiger," she sobbed. "Just. Give me a minute. I'm sorry."

"Shall I fetch someone? The physician?" He hovered anxiously by her side, a foot from the bed.

"No!" She dried her eyes furiously on the sleeve of her borrowed nightgown, far finer than any other she had ever worn. "Mr Armiger, I am... don't ask if I am alright, again."

Because it was the first time anyone had ever asked her that, and somehow that kindness made her feel sadder than anything else.

"Then, my dear Miss Baker, may I ask you to marry me?" He knelt by the bed, and laid a hand on her own.

There was something hollow and dead to his touch and voice. She swallowed. "Must we do so?"

He patted her hand. "I believe it is for the best for both of us."

For the best. It was hardly a romantic proposal. No. It was guilt, and shame, and a lack of options.

"Oh, alright," Verity tiredly. Suddenly she felt very weak, and very aware that she was ill. And if a man did, graciously, guiltily, offer her shelter in a storm, who was she to refuse it, out of honour or pride? Honour, she had none. Pride, she had too much. "Let us get married, Mr Armiger."

End of Part One