Winter settled in earnest.
Snow came and went; rain lashed the windows; frost etched delicate patterns on the glass each morning before the fires could chase it away.
Livia healed.
Slowly.
Physically, the doctor’s predictions proved accurate. The bleeding stopped. Her strength returned in increments—first the ability to sit up without help, then to walk the length of the room, then, weeks later, to venture once more to the library.
Emotionally, the path was less visible.
At first, she did not speak of it.
Not to Rowan. Not to Agnes. Not, beyond the necessary confessions of symptoms, to Mrs. Talbot.
She did not cry.
She lay awake some nights, staring at the canopy, feeling the hollow where there had been, briefly, a flutter of life.
Rowan pretended to sleep, acutely aware of every small shift beside him.
He did not press.
He learned, in those weeks, the art of being present without pushing.
He read aloud to her—novels, pamphlets, even occasionally the duller parts of Whitlow’s reports if she seemed restless. He played cards with Agnes within earshot of her room, their mock battles over trumps and tricks a familiar, grounding noise.
He took on more of the estate work himself, letting Whitlow and Eames handle the daily details but making a point of walking the fields, speaking to tenants, attending Miss Hartley’s school recitations.
“She cannot,” Agnes said to him one afternoon as they watched children awkwardly declaim lines from some Roman playwright, “be the only thing in your world, boy. That is too much weight for anyone’s shoulders.”
“I know,” he said. “I just… do not know how to balance.”
“You learn,” Agnes said. “As you have learned everything else. Badly, at first. Then less badly.”
He snorted.
“You are very encouraging,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “I am.”
***
It was Livia who, eventually, broke the silence.
One bleak January day, when the sky was the color of dirty wool and the house felt smaller than usual, she walked into the study where Rowan sat hunched over a letter from Channing.
He sprang up, alarmed.
“Should you be—”
“Walking?” she finished. “Existing? Breathing?”
He flushed. “I did not—”
“Yes,” she said, moving carefully to the chair opposite his. “The doctor says I may… resume normal activities. Within reason.”
He tried not to stare; failed.
She still looked… fragile. But less so. There was color in her cheeks again, faint though it was. Her hair, braided simply, still shone. Her eyes, though shadowed, had lost that glassy, far-off cast.
“Sit,” he said. “Please.”
She did.
For a moment, they sat in an almost comically formal tableau, the desk between them, papers neatly arranged, as if she had come to discuss nothing more momentous than barley.
She cleared her throat.
“I have been thinking,” she said.
“An ominous beginning,” he said, because he could not bear the tension a second longer without trying to pierce it with humor.
She huffed a breath. “I will be serious,” she warned. “Prepare yourself.”
He swallowed. “Very well.”
She folded her hands in her lap.
“You have not,” she said slowly, “touched me.”
He blinked.
“I—” He opened his mouth, then shut it. Tried again. “I… have. Haven’t I?”
“Not as you did before,” she said, meeting his gaze steadily. “Not… beyond… this.” She gestured to his hand, which had, without his noticing, closed reflexively over the edge of the desk.
Heat crawled up his neck.
“No,” he admitted. “I… have not. I did not—I did not wish to… presume. Or… hurt you.”
“Hurt me,” she repeated. “Rowan, you have been sleeping as if you share a bed with a rabid hedgehog. On the very edge. Barely breathing.”
He winced.
“I did not wish to make you feel… pressured,” he said. “Or to… remind you. If you did not wish to be—”
“Reminded?” she finished, eyebrows arching. “Of what? That I have a body? That we once… enjoyed it?”
He swallowed hard.
“Yes,” he said, because lying had never worked with her.
She exhaled.
“I miss you,” she said simply.
His heart stumbled.
“I am here,” he said helplessly.
“You are… beside me,” she agreed. “You… support me. You fetch tea. You threaten doctors. You are… an excellent… companion.”
“Ouch,” he said weakly.
“But,” she went on, not unkindly, “you have apparently decided that I am now to be treated as a… china vase. Or a saint’s reliquary. Looked at. Revered. Not… *touched.*”
He flushed deeper.
“I am… afraid,” he admitted.
“Of what?” she asked.
He stared at his hands.
“Of hurting you,” he said. “Of… making you feel… used. Of… reaching and finding you gone. In your head. Somewhere I cannot… follow. Of… of this body that nearly… killed you. That failed you. That failed… our child. I look at you and I… want. And I also… recoil. From myself.”
She regarded him, expression softening.
“You think,” she said slowly, “that desire is a kind of… violence.”
“Sometimes,” he said hoarsely. “Yes.”
“And you fear that if you… let it… it will drag you past what is… safe. Or kind.”
“Yes,” he whispered.
She rose, carefully, and came around the desk.
He stood, automatically.
“Sit,” she said.
He obeyed, bewildered.
She perched on the edge of the desk, facing him, her knees brushing his.
“Look at me,” she said.
He did.
“I am not glass,” she said. “Nor am I an altar. I am… myself. With… scars. With… emptiness. With… want.”
His breath hitched.
“I do not,” she went on, “know yet what I… desire… in this body. Now. It feels… foreign. Betrayed. I look at myself and see… lack. And then I remember… pleasure. And I am… confused. Angry. Curious.”
He shut his eyes briefly.
“And I cannot,” she said, “sort that out… alone. I do not *wish* to. That would be… lonely.”
He opened his eyes.
“I… thought,” he said slowly, “you would need… time.”
“I do,” she said. “And I will take it. But time is not… absence. We can… relearn. Carefully. Slowly. With words.”
“Words,” he groaned. “Always words.”
“They are useful,” she said. “We have rather built our marriage on them.”
He huffed a breath.
“You may,” she said, voice gentling, “touch me. If I do not wish it, I will tell you. If I begin to… fade… I will tell you. If I tighten… I will tell you. But do not… decide for me that I am untouchable.”
He stared at her, throat tight.
“What if I… cannot…” He swallowed. “What if… *I* cannot? If I—if the thought of… of *that bed*… with… blood… makes me…”
He broke off, ashamed.
She reached, took his hands in hers.
“Then we begin,” she said, “not in the bed.”
He blinked.
“Where, then?” he asked, inanely.
She tilted her head.
“Here,” she said, and leaned down and kissed him.
It was not a passionate kiss.
It was… deliberate.
Her mouth pressed to his with a firmness that was almost chaste. Her hands, still holding his, kept his fingers anchored. She did not seek to deepen it at first, did not part her lips.
He sat, shocked, then let his eyes close.
His hands tightened around hers.
After a moment, she leaned back.
“There,” she said. “We did not combust.”
He laughed, half-nervous, half-relieved.
“No,” he said. “Not yet.”
She smiled faintly.
“May I?” he asked, before he could stop himself.
“May you…?” she prompted.
“Kiss you,” he clarified, flushing. “Properly.”
Her eyes warmed.
“Yes,” she said.
He lifted their joined hands, placed them gently on her thighs, and slid his own up to cup her face.
He kissed her.
Slow.
Soft.
No urgency. No heat demanding completion. Just… the press and retreat of lips, the shared breath, the familiar tilt of her head.
She sighed against his mouth, a small sound of contentment.
His heart ached.
When he drew back, her eyes were shining.
“That,” she said, “I have missed.”
“Me too,” he said.
She slid down from the desk, easing herself carefully into his lap, straddling the chair.
He froze.
“Livia—”
“Shh,” she said. “We are merely… sitting.”
Her arms slid around his neck.
His hands, almost of their own accord, settled at her waist.
There was a faint softness where there had been a roundness. His thumbs brushed bone now where they had recently brushed curve.
Grief pricked.
She felt the jerk of his fingers.
“Here,” she murmured, taking his wrist and guiding his hand lower, to rest over the flatness. “Do not… avoid this. It will not make it less real.”
He swallowed.
His palm lay over her abdomen.
Empty.
Warm.
Alive.
He let himself feel it.
He let himself grieve, there, with her weight on his thighs and her breath in his hair.
She held him.
After a while, his body responded in… other ways.
He cursed inwardly, tensing.
She felt it; of course she did.
“Ah,” she said, very dry. “Some parts of you, at least, remain uncomplicated.”
He flushed scarlet.
“I’m—” He started to shift, to move her, to pull away.
Her hands tightened on his shoulders.
“Do not,” she said. “Do not… be ashamed… of… *that.* We have… lost enough.”
His breath stuttered.
“I do not wish to… expect…” he said. “Of you. Now. Today. Or… soon.”
“You may *wish* whatever you like,” she said. “You are often wrong. That is… endearing.”
He snorted weakly.
She rested her forehead against his.
“I do not know yet,” she said softly, “how far I can go. What I can… bear. But I know this: I do not want to look at you and see only… fear. I would rather see… awkwardness. Desire. Attempts. Even missteps. Than… distance.”
He exhaled.
“Very well,” he whispered. “We will… attempt. Slowly. With many… missteps.”
She smiled, brushing her lips lightly over his.
“We are already experts at that,” she said.
***
The process of relearning each other’s bodies was halting.
Some nights, they did nothing more than lie curled together, his hand on her shoulder, her feet tucked behind his calf, sharing warmth.
Other times, emboldened by her own strange mixture of fury and curiosity, Livia would climb into his lap on the chaise in the library, kiss him until both were breathless, then stop, watching his pupils dilate with frustration and amusement.
“You are a wicked woman,” he would mutter.
“Yes,” she would say serenely. “It is one of my better qualities.”
On an evening when the snow piled high against the lower panes and the wind sighed under the eaves, they sat in front of the fire in their bedchamber, the bed for once relegated to the background.
Livia, in a thick robe, curled against his side on the floor, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her.
“Tell me,” she said quietly, “about the first time.”
He stiffened.
“Of what?” he asked, though he knew.
“You,” she said. “At a gaming table. As a boy. The first time you felt that… rush.”
He considered refusing.
Then he sighed.
“I was… nineteen,” he said. “Old enough to know better. Young enough not to care. Fenton took me. Said it was time I learned the ‘real’ rules of society.”
She listened as he spoke, halting at first, then more fluently, of green baize and candlelight, of the smell of smoke and sweat, of the first hand where he had drawn cards that made his heart leap.
He did not try to glamorize it.
He did not excuse.
He simply… told.
When he faltered, she squeezed his fingers.
“And now?” she asked when he finished. “Do you… miss it?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “In the same way one misses… a disease. The fever. The delirium. The sense that nothing else exists.” He smiled, faint. “Then I remember the shaking afterward. The emptiness. The… bills. And I am glad to be… boring.”
“You are the least boring man I know,” she said.
He huffed a breath.
“Your turn,” he said.
She frowned. “For what?”
“To tell me,” he said, “about your first… ledger.”
She laughed. “You have heard that story.”
“Not from you,” he said.
She rolled her eyes, then relented.
She spoke of being ten, of standing on tiptoe beside her father’s desk, of columns and ink, of the sudden thrill when the numbers *matched.*
“It was,” she said, “like… taking chaos and turning it into… sense. Like smoothing a wrinkled cloth.”
“And now?” he asked. “Do you… still get that… thrill?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “When a particularly tangled account resolves. When a factory does not collapse. When a tenant’s figures improve. But it is… different now.”
“How?” he asked.
She hesitated.
“Because now,” she said slowly, “the numbers are not… abstract. They are… tied to faces. To… you. To… rooms. To… that tree Dobbins’s boy is apparently determined to die in. I cannot… shrug them off and say, ‘It is only money.’”
He nodded.
“I did that for years,” he said. “Shrugged. Called it… the way of the world.”
He turned his head, kissed her hair.
“I am glad you ruined that for me,” he said.
“Good,” she murmured.
They fell into silence.
The fire crackled.
“Rowan,” she said after a while.
“Yes?”
“If…” She paused, searching for the words. “If we never have a child. If this… emptiness… remains. Will you… regret… tying yourself to me?”
His arm tightened.
“Never,” he said, no hesitation.
She swallowed.
“You say that now,” she said. “But twenty years hence—”
“I will say it louder,” he interrupted.
She tilted her head to look at him.
“You cannot know,” she began.
“I know enough,” he said. “I have had… many things. I have thrown away… many things. I know what I regret. I know what I do not. I will never regret you. This. Us. Even if half of England calls our line cursed and the other half calls us selfish. Let them. We will be… busy.”
“Busy?” she echoed, a wry smile starting.
“Running estates,” he said. “Managing factories. Bullying tenants. Fighting Miss Hartley. Reading Greek by accident. Kissing you against trees when no one is looking. There is plenty to do without a small person screaming in the house.”
She laughed, helpless.
“You paint a very romantic picture,” she said.
“I am a poet,” he said gravely.
“No,” she said. “You are not. But you are… mine.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“Yes,” he said softly. “I am.”
She shifted, turning to face him fully, her knees tucked under her, her hands on his shoulders.
He watched her, pulse picking up.
“May I…” he began.
She cut him off with a kiss.
This one deepened.
Slowly.
Her tongue traced the seam of his lips; he opened for her, a low sound escaping. His hands slid up her back, careful, then bolder when she arched into him.
He felt her hesitate once, when his thumb brushed the side of her breast; he stilled, waiting.
She exhaled, then pressed closer, her fingers tightening in his hair.
All right, he thought, dizzy. All right. We can…
They did not go as far as they once had.
Not that night.
But they went further.
Bodies are stubborn. They remember.
So do hearts.
As the wind howled outside and the house creaked around them, they relearned each other.
Not to forget what had been lost.
But to honor what remained.
Together.
***