They waited in the arbour for over an hour while Verity recovered her strength. It had been harder for her to hear the news that he was alive than it had been to hear that he was dead. Perhaps it was the baby kicking in her belly that made the difference. She could not stop thinking that Neil would never hold his own child. And the baby kept kicking, as though calling out for him.

Finally she stood, and took a deep breath. "I'm ready, Lord Landon. Let's go."

Mrs Roper stood as well, but Verity motioned her back down. "I know you must also wish to see Neil, and I am being very selfish in asking, but will you return to the inn?"

Mrs Roper shot a wary glance at Richard. "If something goes wrong, I should like to protect you, my dear."

"If Armiger betrays me, or if Lord Albroke sees me, there shall be nothing you can do. However, if he is to be trusted, then it should be easier to bring me alone into the house. Some of the servants may still know you from when you worked here, and even those that don't would not wish to question what the master of their house was doing alone with a young woman." Verity felt her cheeks burn at the deception, and added, more truthfully, "You have been so kind to me, and helped me in all things, but this is one moment in which I strongly desire to have no audience, no advisor, and no helpmate."

A spasm of emotion crossed Mrs Roper's face, before she captured it between pressed lips, and swallowed it.

"Aye. I'll give you that then. I'll wait for you at the inn." She jerked her head at Richard. "If she's not back by dinner, I'll be breaking the knocker of your grand front door."

They parted ways. Verity followed Richard to the end of the tunnel of leaves, and out onto a path twisting through rhododendron bushes. They approached the grey manor in a circuitous route, along the most bushy and overgrown areas of the garden. Despite her nerves, Verity noted with scorn that the house was so grand it had statues on the roof. To a girl who had grown up in poverty, statues on the roof were the height of senseless extravagance. What use were statues way up where nobody could see them?

"My father is in his office at the front of the house," Richard explained, as they walked under the shelter of a hedge towards a raised terrace leading into the house. "He will not see us if we approach this way. But the servants, too, we should avoid."

At the bottom of the steps leading up to the terrace, he paused.

"Wait here. I shall go first, in case there is anybody about."

When he had limped to the top of the stairs, he disappeared a moment from her line of sight beyond the balustrade. She waited uneasily, a strange premonition of doom upon her, yet after only a moment, he was back, and beckoning to her. She climbed the stairs, and they darted across the terrace, and through a half-open French window.

They stepped onto a floor of polished parquetry. Verity winced to see the mud she was leaving on it. The gallery stretched most of the length of the centre wing of the house, and its walls were cluttered with paintings. At regular intervals, hovering above identical Louis XIV yellow-silk settees, were life size portraits of the ancestral Armigers. There were two jaundiced Sir Thomas Lawrence portraits of Neil and Richard; a Batoni of Lord Albroke in his younger days; and even a very severe gentleman who could plausibly have claimed to be of Holbein's hand, but was probably not. Richard did not spare a glance at them as he led her swiftly through the gallery and into a vast drawing room, with a very sparse amount of uncomfortable looking arm chairs in symmetrical pairs, and some strange lumpy objects under dark linen covers that were probably musical instruments.

It was carpeted in here, and their footsteps were deadened. Richard took the moment to say, in a low voice, "We should be safe now. But do not talk."

Verity's heartbeat thumped as they crossed the room in silence, and slipped through the double doors on the other side. Here was a hallway, with a narrow, carpeted staircase ascending into darkness. They were half-way up when footsteps ahead warned them of company. Richard held up his hand warningly towards her, and moved up, over the crest of the stairs.

"There you are, Horner," he said briskly, to someone she could not see. "I want you. Go to my room and look at the windows. There is a draft. Perhaps it is the fireplace. Find it, and get someone to fix it."

"Yes, sir." The footsteps receded back the way they had come.

A moment later, Richard appeared at the top of the stairs and beckoned her on again. "Quickly."

It was only a few more yards down the hallway that Richard opened a door, and waved her roughly in, and shut it behind him. They were in a small sitting room, with a low fire going. It was less ostentatiously decorated than the rest of the house, and more comfortable; clearly private, not a room for showing off. There was a pile of mending lying on an armchair, and the paper hangings were shabby and dog-eared.

Richard pushed a door open in the adjacent wall, looked through a moment, turned back to her, and nodded.

She came on tip toe. Her heart was racing. As she slipped through the doorway, Richard stepped back into the sitting room, and she was alone in the bedroom. Alone, but for the man lying on the four-posted bed, asleep.

She floated closer by inches, not daring to come too close, too soon. The baby in her belly was protesting and drumming against her insides. Her lips moved to say his name, but no sound came out.

The sheets were twisted down over his waist, and one arm was thrown upwards under his pillow. His breath fluttered in and out, his eyes were fast closed. A curl, grayer than it used to be, fell over his forehead. They had cut his hair. She knew that, because it was too short. It didn't suit him. His skin was brown with sun-wear, and full of unfamiliar, harsh lines around his eyes and brow. And it stretched so tautly over his bones. There were hollows in his cheeks, and his temples, and dark deep shadows below his eyes. His wrists were bone, and tendon, and skin. Even his hands were vaguely skeletal. And there were scars all over them, red, and still fading. Another scar on his face, coming down through his hair, splitting his temple, and fading over his cheekbone.

She tried again to say his name, but the only sound she could make was a faint sob.

There was a chair by his bed, and she lowered herself into it numbly. For several minutes, she watched him sleep, without daring to move. Finally, she gathered her courage, and rested her hands on the mattress, close to Neil's, but not quite touching. His breath brushed across her fingers.

It was true. He was alive.

She waited a few minutes more, but still he did not wake. Only his breath kept brushing rhythmically across the back of her hands.

"Lord Landon," she called softly. "You can come in now."

The irregular footsteps thumped across the carpet in the next room, and Richard came in. She didn't look up at him, but from the tone of his voice, she could guess the tense expression on his face.

"Miss Baker, this must be your goodbye. For your safety, we should not linger."

"Just a little longer." She could not drag herself away. Not yet. He had not woken. "Does he sleep much?"

"On good days."

She took in every line of his face, every angle. A strange, painful joy was beating in her chest. He can't be dying, she thought frantically, he can't be. He lasted so long, alone, that with help, he would surely survive.

Slowly, she shifted closer, leaned over the bed, and kissed his temple. He still did not stir. His skin was cool beneath her touch. She noted there was no fire in the room, and that the window was open.

"You keep him cold?"

"He runs so many fevers."

She sunk back in the chair. "And... it is sure he will...die?"

"I'm sorry."

"I just can't believe it." His bony chest was still rising, in and out, with slow, soft rhythm. "I can see he is ill but... he has made it so long."

"I wish it were not so. But you cannot allow yourself that hope, Miss Baker. I can assure you, there is no hope in that regard. This is a good day."

Verity could not take her eyes from Neil's sleeping face. If he could just wake up – and see her. If she could speak to him – but she dared not wake him.

The sound of a door opening and shutting in the next room jerked Verity from her reverent vigil. Richard stumbled to the door. Before he could reach it, Lord Albroke strode in.

"Rich-"he began. Then, he saw Verity. He froze. It was the way the wind suddenly freezes in the midst of a storm, only to blow all the louder the next minute.

"You brought her here." Richard was the first target of his anger. He crossed the room in two strides and shoved him backwards into the grate of the fireplace. Richard cried out, and grabbed at the mantelpiece for support as he stumbled. Verity rose from her chair, but hovered back, not daring to go within reach of Lord Albroke's arms. "You wretched liar!"

"He – shall wake. You shall wake him if you shout."

It was not true. Neil had not stirred, even when Richard screamed. But she could think of nothing else to stay Lord Albroke's hand, which was raised in a fist above his son.

Slowly, Lord Albroke lowered his fist, and let Richard go. Richard overbalanced, and collapsed to the floor. Lord Albroke ignored him, and turned to Verity. His face was red with anger. Then, his eyes popped, and it drained to a mottled yellow-white.

"What."

He veered towards her, and circled around her, looking her up and down. She shrank back, and placed her arms protectively over her belly.

"She's pregnant."

He stepped away. Red was draining slowly into his cheeks, and blotting out the mottled colour. The whites of his eyes showed as he examined her unblinkingly. She said nothing. He came closer again, and she flinched.

"Do you think I'll hit you?" He gestured at her belly. "I said: you're pregnant. Hell."

He turned again, and jerked a fist futilely at Richard, who was groping for his stick and clambering to his feet.

"Father, I-"

"You knew."

Richard's cheeks were pink. "Yes."

"Good god." Lord Albroke threw his arms up and looked to the ceiling. "Why weren't you the one on that ship?" He wheeled again to the bed. All his movements were spontaneous, controlled by posthumous thought, if controlled at all. Neil was moving slightly in his sleep; his lips were moving in and out. He had started to dream. "We shall wake him. Come."

Verity stole one last, desperate glance at Neil before she helplessly obeyed the order and followed Richard from the room. Lord Albroke came after her, and shut the door behind.

"She had a right to know," Richard said, in a feeble attempt at protection.

"And I had a right to know!" Lord Albroke pointed towards Verity. "You knew! And you did not tell me!"

Richard was pink and white as he looked from Verity to his father and back again. He began to speak, stopped, began again, and gave up and fell into a chair with a swallowed, painful sound. Verity could see he had been injured when his father pushed him. She backed against the wall behind her as Lord Albroke came closer. His eyes were glittering.

"You deceived me."

"You have no claim to my confidence."

A muscle in his jaw twitched. "It is Neil's child?"

"You have no claim to my confidence."

His fist slammed against the wall above her.

"Father!"

"Shut up!" Lord Albroke loomed over Verity. "Is it Neil's child!?"

She hunched back against the wall with her arms around her belly, and clenched her jaw shut. His fist pounded again, and she screamed.

"Answer me!" His voice was like thunder in her ears. "Are you carrying Neil's child!?"

"Father?"

The voice, frail and uncertain, came from the door. They turned as one towards it.

Neil was standing in the doorway, his figure bowed slightly, his shoulders leering a little. He looked confused, and pale under his tan.

"What is happening?"

"Neil." Verity slipped away from Lord Albroke and flung her arms around Neil. He staggered slightly under her weight, and had to put an arm around her waist to stay steady. He smelled like home.

His bones pressed against her flesh. He was hard, and solid and warm, and full of angles that used not to be there. She rested her head against his shoulder, and gave a sob of relief. His arm at her waist shifted to a more comfortable position automatically, then, confused, left her altogether, and hovered by her side.

"H-Hello," Neil said, in that same frail, uncertain voice. "You- are you alright?" And then his gaze encompassed her figure and the confusion on his face came to a horrified sort of clarity. "It's... my- mine? That's what you asked her, Father?"

"You should go back to sleep," Lord Albroke growled. "Unhand him, Woman."

But Verity could not. She was holding him as though he was a lifeline, staring up into his eyes and hardly hearing a single thing that was said. She felt as though she could feel every atom of blood beating in her veins.

His face turned back to her. He was confused, but not stupid. He had understood the argument that had woken him.

"It is mine."

"Yes," she whispered.

"But – how?" A deeper confusion clouded his face. "I'm sorry – I – I just don't remember."

"You didn't know. I didn't know, when you left – I had a suspicion, but I wasn't sure. So you never knew."

She had hoped to reassure him. Instead, he drew away from her like she had stung him.

"I just don't remember you."

~~

DUN DUN. Someone updated. In fact, someone finished a whole damn novel about five hours ago. This whole damn novel. Right the way through to the epilogue and all. Of course it needs a lot of editing still - a lot. Some passages even need rewriting. But it is done. It's the first novel I've ever completed, properly, without just skipping over the difficult chapters or having a rock fall and kill everybody. When I finally finished, I spent like five minutes staring at the word document trying to figure out what the next sentence should be until I realized there wasn't one. Done. It's a weird feeling.

If you're wondering what delayed updates so long (this chapter has been written since it was due, but changed form several times since then) I was trying to avoid some treacherous plot holes and had to keep adjusting some events and dialogues so that they wouldn't contradict what happened later.