Verity's first impression of Albroke, as the carriage wended its way through the cobbled streets four days later, was of sunlight filtering through budded branches, and faded tudor buildings leering over narrow roads. The Barrow and Pig was one such tudor building, but as peeling and aged as its outside looked, the interior was comfortable, if low-ceiling and narrow-roomed.

Verity stayed under the name Mrs Baker: a lie that made her uneasy, even as she knew confessing her unwedded state might make her an unwanted guest. As they were settling in, the chambermaid brought them a letter that had been left for them yesterday. It was unsigned, but Verity knew it to be from Richard.

Tomorrow morning, at eleven of the clock, in the arbour at the edge of the estate. Go via the west gate.

"If he comes here," Mrs Roper said, "The staff shall know him, and perhaps word shall get to his father. Though, he ought have signed his initial at the least. There is not so much risk in that."

"Do you know the place?"

"Most certainly. It is not a far walk, and very private."

The baby was fidgeting inside her, with the new sort of strength it seemed to be discovering these days. Verity pressed a hand to where it pounded against her side, and paced the room in an effort to soothe it. The journey down, three days by road, had been more of a trial than she had expected. Her joints ached, she was tired, and the baby would not stop kicking. She doubted Richard's integrity – now more than when he had made the proposal. If he was idiot enough to think marrying her would aid her, then he was idiot enough to come up with other useless schemes too.

"If he has brought me down here and it is not important, I shall strangle him."

Mrs Roper laughed. "He makes it very tempting. Shall you have a hot bath?"

"Yes." She massaged the back of her waist. "Oof. As hot as they can make it."

It was raining lightly before breakfast the next day, a delicate sort of sprinkle that shimmered whenever the sun came out from behind the clouds.

"Perhaps we should not go." Mrs Roper was doubtful.

"It looks to clear up." Verity sipped chocolate. In the morning, she was more optimistic. The inn was comfortable: the beds were soft, and the food was good. Most of all, the baby had stopped kicking for the moment.

And it did clear up, and they walked through the damp sunlight towards the Armiger estate at Verity's pace. Mrs Roper took her down side lanes and rabbit paths until they came to a wooden gate in a brick wall, over which loomed masses of dark green tree tops.

"The grounds of the earl's house," Mrs Roper explained. She pushed the gate. It was unlocked and opened without a sound.

Inside, Verity felt vaguely uneasy. She suspected at any moment Lord Albroke might step out from the woods on either side of them. She regretted coming, and mistrusted Richard. But it became clear that there was no one in this corner of the estate at all. They were alone but for bird song and the rustling of animals in the undergrowth.

The path through the woods continue for some way, until eventually it became a tunnel of stone pillars and plinths, veiled along the walls and ceiling by leafy vines growing from stone to stone, through which the sunlight filtered greenly. Richard was leaning against one of the pillars. As they approached, he pushed himself away from it, and bowed.

"This was Neil's favourite place as a boy. The seats are dry. Please sit down."

There were stone seats nestled between the pillars, and protected from the morning rain by the vines. Verity lowered herself carefully into one, still unused to the growing, awkward bulk of her belly. Richard sat on the seat opposite, and Mrs Roper took the place beside her.

"What is it, then?" Verity asked.

"Are you well today?"

"I – am. Why did you call me here? It was not to enquire my health."

"I just wanted to make sure." Richard ground the point of his stick into the gravel beneath his feet. "Forgive me. There is no gentle way to say this, and it will shock you."

Verity's breath quickened. As though in response, the baby moved inside her. "Go on. Quickly then."

"Two weeks ago, we found Neil."

Her hands went suddenly cold. A strange gravity seemed to be pulling all the blood in her body southwards, draining through her veins. Mrs Roper put an arm around her shoulders, and pulled her close.

"What." She could hardly hear her own voice. "His body."

Richard was getting off the seat. He skittered over the gravel, slid in beside her, and fumbled in his pockets. A moment later, he was holding something under her face, and she was blasted by a hit of ammonia. She gasped, and pushed his hand away. Her heart pounded, but her head began to clear. Around her, Mrs Roper's grip tightened.

"Breathe, love. What happened, Richard?"

Richard was speaking very quickly now, as though the quicker he could get it out, the less it would hurt. "He is not dead. He is not dead. He has been sick. He is very, very sick."

"He didn't come for me?" She was assaulted by the confusion of her own emotions, but a sort of numb, bleak logic spoke above them: "No. He must be dead. He would have come."

"He could not come." Richard pressed her hand. "He was too sick to come. Verity, he is not dead, but he is dying."

Her head was spinning again. "I can't-"

"Breathe."

Again, the smelling salts were pressed before her, and she gasped, and her head cleared. But even with a clear head, it didn't make sense.

"Where is he, Richard?" Mrs Roper pressed. "Is he here?"

"Yes. He is the house, in bed. He is too sick to move. We are just waiting..." Richard trailed off. "Miss Baker, I brought you here so that you could say goodbye."

She leaned into Mrs Roper's warmth. The sunlight danced down through the canopy of leaves above. It was too bright a day for such a thing to be possible – for hope to spring so cruelly from death, and be so swiftly reclaimed. She rested her head on Mrs Roper's shoulder, and shut her eyes. Mrs Roper rubbed her back in silent sympathy. She realized from the trembling hand that Mrs Roper was also shocked, though she was not showing it so openly, for Mrs Roper loved Neil too.

She let the news sink in. When her heart had stopped racing, and she thought she had a handle on herself, she said, with her eyes still firmly shut,

"Tell me everything."

"We don't know everything."

"Tell me everything you know."

Her eyes were still shut. She could not look at Richard. She could not.

"A little over two weeks ago, a cargo boat stopped in Dover. Neil was carried on it. He was sick then. He must have been sick since the ship went down. He was feverish and raving, and hardly knew his own name."

"For months he has been...?"

"We don't know. The captain wrote that they found him in Marseilles. He had approached them to beg for a fare to Genoa. He was obviously an Englishman, and obviously not well. They managed to get from him his name, and the captain asked around the town. Nobody knew where he had come from, or who he was. The captain took him back to Dover, and in Dover he was recognized by a captain of the militia, who knew him and my father. So my father went for him, and he was brought back here. You should know that my father did not wish to tell you this. He does not know you are here, and would not let you see him if he did."

Tremblingly, Verity pushed herself away from Mrs Roper, and opened her eyes. She was weeping, silently and ceaselessly. She did not bother to wipe her eyes, and did not care if Richard saw.

"And he is... dying."

"Yes."

She could not have thought it would hurt so to hear it a second time, but it did. She took a sharp breath in, and breathed out slowly. He was not dead. He was dying. He was not dead. He was dying.

She breathed in and out to the tune of it.

"What is his sickness, Richard?" Mrs Roper asked. "Are you so sure it can not be cured?"

"He fevers and frets. He does not know his own mind. He swears that he must return to Italy, to marry Giulia – he does not know that he has married her, and that she is dead. We have tried to tell him, but he swears that we are lying, or forgets what we have said within hours. The doctors say there is nothing that can be done, except to keep him quiet. They are not hopeful of his recovery."

"He is, then, quite mad." Verity finally had the courage to raise her eyes to Richard's. "Is that not it?"

"There are interludes where he seems logical. For a time."

"There may be hope in it," Mrs Roper said firmly. "If it is only his mind that ails so greatly, then his body may recover yet. The soul is more fragile than the body."

Verity did not know if that hope was worth encouraging. If Neil recovered his body, and yet never his mind, would he still be the Neil she had always loved?

In her belly, the baby began to kick. She put her hands to the spot. "Your father's alive," she whispered. "He..." She trailed off, and then gave a low, drawn out sob of agony.

Mrs Roper patted her knee. "Ssh, Love. Don't cry."

Richard watched them awkwardly. "This must be so much for you to comprehend, in such a short space of time. I'm very sorry. I did not know any better way."

"I must see him."

"I know."

Again, Verity began to control herself. It was beginning to sink in now. It was beginning to seem possible.

Neil had lost his mind in the shipwreck. Neil was alive. He was going to die, but he was alive. And she could see him just once more. What little there was left of him to see.

"I take it he does not understand about the baby."

Richard hesitated. "I have not tried to tell him, and my father does not know."

"And... he would go to Julia, to his first wife... he would not try to come to me..."

Again, the hesitation, longer this time. "I'm sorry."

"I always knew he loved her more than me. Do not be sorry for that. It is not your fault." She managed to stand, and paced warily the arbour, back and forth. The sunlight was warm upon her face. Her steps grew steadier. But she was still shaking inside.

"You could have told me this in Houglen, and given me time to recover the shock."

"I was worried he might die before you arrived. He was very poorly when I left. But when I returned he was a little better."

"And today?"

"He was very rational this morning."

Verity leaned against a stone pillar, and stared through the curtain of vines over an expanse of terrace lawns and folds of shrubbery. In the distance, a grey-white manor loomed over the gardens. Neil was in there, somewhere.

"Did I – Did I do right, by you? Is this what you would wish? There is no returning him to you. I can't do that. But I can allow you to see him again, before..."

"Yes." Her voice was harsh. She cleared her throat. "Yes, Lord Landon. It is... right."

~~~~~~~

A/N: Well I'm sure everybody was flabbergasted by this totally unexpected and unpredictable plot twist.