He pushed her away. "It is – true...? You were my... lover? You are to have my child?"

"Y-yes." He was all too clearly horrified by the notion, and his horror in turn terrified her. "You don't remember who I am? You don't remember me at all?"

But he was not listening. "Richard – Rich – is she lying? Tell me she's lying – it can't be true."

"It's not true," Lord Albroke snapped. "She lies."

"It is true." Richard hobbled over and laid a hand on Neil's shoulder. "It's true, Neil. You've been ill. You've forgotten things."

"But I –" The eyes he turned to Verity were full of loathing and fear. "I – no, I would not do such a thing – I don't... I would not betray Giulia – I did not. I can't – she must be lying! She's lying – she entrapped me! She lies!" His voice was raw with pain. "She lies!"

"This woman was not your illicit mistress. She was to be your wife. In January." Richard's voice rose over Neil's sobs. He was trying to calm Neil, but every word seem to cut him deeper. Neil's legs sagged under him, and he fumbled at the wall for support. Verity tried to help him, but he shoved her away, and put a hand over his eyes.

"My wife's name is Giulia. I don't know what you mean. My wife's name is Giulia."

"She died. She died two years ago, Neil." Richard's voice was low and gentle. "Miss Verity Baker – you were to marry her last January."

"My wife's name is Giulia."

Repeating the phrase monotonously, Neil slid down the wall and collapsed into a graceless pile of knees and elbows on the floor.

"My wife's name..." His voice faded away. He seemed to have fainted. Verity dropped to her knees beside him and put a hand to his chest. His heartbeat was soft and slow.

"He's breathing. Is there a nurse? Has he a nurse?"

Richard was pulling on a bell by the door. "Yes. I'm ringing for her. Don't cry. This is not unusual for him."

Verity realized tears were streaming down her cheeks. She wiped them away impatiently.

"Fool girl!" Lord Albroke stood over her, growling softly like a dog. "Look what you've done. He is not to be excited."

Verity pulled the curl back from Neil's face, and put her hand on his forehead. "He has no fever."

"He is too weak for arguments and revelations," said Richard. "I should have told you. But it is so hard to know what will be a revelation to a man whose mind is not right."

She lies. She entrapped me. I don't remember you

She remembered anew Richard's hesitation in the arbour, and realized its cause: Neil did not remember her – not today, not ever. She was entirely gone to him. He stirred slightly. His eyes opened, but he was not fully conscious. Incoherent syllables spilled from his lips.

"I'm here," Verity said, stroking his cheek. "I'm here with you."

An elderly woman came to the door, a man-servant behind her. "Sir?"

"The boy has fainted," Lord Albroke said flatly. "Put him to bed."

The manservant hauled Neil to his feet. He staggered and swayed. For one moment his eyes met Verity's, full of desperate questioning. The only answer she knew to give him was an equally desperate kiss, full on the lips. The man-servant shouted in confusion, and Lord Albroke grabbed her elbow and jerked her back. Neil was wide-eyed with some unnameable emotion. His eyes fluttered again, and the man servant all but carried him through to the next room.

"He won't remember this incident at all when he wakes," Lord Albroke told her. "Don't go hoping. You won't be allowed to see him again."

"I wasn't hoping. I was just..."

"If you'll leave me to my duties, and send up the chambermaid," the nurse said archly. "The boy is very ill indeed." Her gaze travelled scornfully over Verity. She went to the bedroom without a word.

"We shall repair to my office," Lord Albroke said. "We must discuss the child. You have all but admitted it is Neil's now."

"It is mine." But she had lost that battle and knew it. She pulled away from Lord Albroke and fled into the hallway. She stumbled blindly down corridors and stairs, aware that he was following her, until she came to the front hall where there was, of all things, a suit of armour on a pedestal. The grand front door loomed across the hall, but it refused to open to her frantic pulling, and she knew there was no escape through it anyhow. She sunk down upon the bottom step of the master staircase and awaited her reckoning.

Lord Albroke came down the stairs behind her. "You're not running away."

"No?" She leaned listlessly against the newel posts. "What do you want from me?"

"For you to have never existed."

"I can't." She pulled her legs up to her chest, as close as they would go with her round belly in the way. "I exist."

"We must tolerate it." Lord Albroke stepped past her and began to pace the floor. "I wonder what I should do with you. Neil is dying – did Richard tell you? My one handsome son is dying, and the ugly runt survives. You are bearing his bastard. It is an unpleasant situation. The two alternatives before me: I raise the child, though it can never be an heir; or I ignore the child, as it can never be an heir. But which is the lesser evil?"

His self-centredness inflamed Verity – a futile, impotent hatred. The problems, as she saw them, was that her child would likely never know his father, and that Neil was sick. She cared nothing for the threat that the Armiger line would die out. Impossible, for a child who had grown up with a view through the glowing windows of wealth and power, and the door ever shut against her, to care for the complacently wounded ego of an old man who saw his own locked door edging open, and letting his hoarded consequence seep out.

"I shall not give the child up to you to raise," she said grimly. "This child is mine, and has no father – a direct result of your interference. If you were not willing for me to be Neil's wife, then I am not willing to let you be my child's guardian."

Lord Albroke raised his eyebrows and stopped his pacing. "Your will does not come into the matter."

"It does. There was no formal bond between us, and Neil is in no condition to recognize the child, if he even lives to see it born. Moreover, you do not want it, and I do. You are only concerned about whether or not it shall one day forward your ambitions – by the time it is old enough, you shall probably be dead. You must be past sixty years. When the child is fifteen, you should be perhaps eighty. Shall you really live that long, Lord Albroke?" Her voice was shrill and sour and ugly, even to her own ears.

Lord Albroke laughed.

He bellowed, until the hall echoed with the sound, and a manservant peered nervously over the bannister. Then, suddenly, the laughter cut off. The hall was silent. The manservant tiptoed away.

"You mean only to sting me," Lord Albroke said affably. "Of course, I am a realist, and not a coward, and I have considered my own death, and how it will relate to my estate. Richard will be the one who eventually looks after this child of yours."

"He does not want to take it from me. He knew, and accepted that it should be mine."

Lord Albroke considered this. "I suppose he would consider it an encumbrance – he shall never marry, I believe. It would be a child of servants and nursemaids, occasionally paraded at parties, which he does not have; exhibited, then, only at Christmas and Easter, given the requisite gifts, patted, complimented, and sent away before it can make too much noise."

"You can see why I should be the better to keep it. I should love it. And make no claim upon your family for its keeping."

In silence, Lord Albroke crossed the room to lean against a side table. He drummed his fingers against the scroll-carved edge, and considered her proposal.

"You make no claim?"

"None." An idea occurred to Verity. "In that way, My Lord, it should almost be like I do not exist."

A crafty smile stole over his features. "I like that. Very well. I have a proposition for you. As you want this child so much, you may keep it, and I shall make no claim upon it – on the condition that you make no claim upon my family."

"As I said."

"Which includes that you shall make no further effort to see my son, who is the father of your child. You shall not claim that either. He is to be nobody to you."

Verity breathed in sharply.

"Whether he lives, or dies, he is to be nobody to you. You shall not nurse him his dying days. In the unlikely event that he recovers, you shall not approach him in his health, not attempt to remind him of the part you once played in his life."

The room seemed to spin around her. The suit of armour lurched dangerously. The only solid thing was Lord Albroke's voice, pounding away:

"The corollary of course, is this: if you wish to have a part in Neil's life, however long or short the days remaining of it, you shall take the formal role of his mistress, and the child when born shall be formally his and so under my custody and command. There it is, you see, you can only have it one way: Either you are my son's mistress, and your child under our care; or the child is your own, and nobody else's, and you have nothing to do with us."

Verity cursed herself for laying the trap he had sprung upon her. Having seen Neil, so thin and ill, it was impossibly cruel to walk away from him when given the choice to stay – but equally impossible the price of staying. "I need time to think about it."

"Tell me now."

"But I can't! I can't decide so quickly!"

His hazel eyes gazed steadily and coldly upon her. "You must decide now. I have no patience to tolerate your indecision. No time."

Verity put her head in her shaking hands. She could consider herself lucky that he did not take from her both Neil and the baby; he gave her the choice of either of them. That cruel, cruel choice. Perhaps that was why he did it: because he knew it wounded her more greatly to let the one go by her own hand than to have both stolen from her.

If Neil survived, of course, if he remembered her, he would help her. And Richard might show her some mercy, and allow her some part in the child's life, after his father died. But that might be years away, and they had said that Neil was surely dying. She had only herself to rely on, and alone she was no match for Lord Albroke's wealth and power. The baby had only her to rely on.

"I shall have nothing to do with your family," she said numbly. "And you shall have nothing to do with my baby."

~~~~

A/N: Wow, I do love putting Verity through hell, don't I?