Robert gave up lying in bed at five. By the time the sun rose at eight he was galloping through the woods at the edges of the estate. The physicality soothed his jagged edges, even as he knew it was hopeless. He couldn’t risk hurting Amelia and the price he’d pay was losing her. But Amelia safe in London without him was preferable to the risk of her not being here at all. Even if the thought of her not being with him was thousands of spines tearing at his body.

Eventually, weariness and his horse’s sweat forced him back to the house. The smell of coffee drew him into the breakfast room.

“Papa!” Edith was sitting at the table, her nanny beside her.

His little girl, pretty, innocent, and happy. “Good morning.” His smile wasn’t genuine and probably wasn’t even convincing. He went to the sideboard and poured a cup of coffee.

“Can Miss Chilson and me and you play adventures again this afternoon?”

His heart dropped and smashed. His daughter was asking about the three of them playing. Because of him, Edith wouldn’t get to play with Amelia. “Mrs. Danbury, you and me,” he corrected her in a faint voice.

“Mrs. Danbury, you and me,” Edith echoed, then bit into a piece of toast.

That was correct now, but for how much longer? Amelia said she was going to leave and the wrath he’d felt emanating from her last night convinced him she meant it. Their marriage was over before it had even begun.

“She’s very lovely.” Edith’s voice was full of awe. “Don’t you think so, Papa?”

The remaining shards of his heart crumbled. This was a paradox, a riddle, a conundrum with no answer. Edith was already attached to Amelia, as was inevitable. What could a little girl do in the face of a beautiful lady who her father adored? It wasn’t just him who would be heartbroken when Amelia left, Edith would be too. His daughter, whom he cared for and protected, would be hurt. A little girl without a mother, yet again.

A thought scratched at him. He loved his daughter and for all the pain of the last years, he wouldn’t change it if it meant giving her up. The risk was always worth the paternal love. Love was greater than fear, and Amelia wouldn’t have that. He’d made that judgment for her, taking away her choice and power.

The thought flitted away before he could catch it and examine it fully. He put down the coffee he’d been about to drink and kissed Edith on the head, before quitting the room. Protecting Amelia and Edith was essential. He had to do something. Whatever it took to persuade Amelia to stay, he had to do it.

He found Amelia in her bedroom, head bent over the same piece of red embroidery as she’d been working on over Christmas. She hadn’t left yet. His shoulders relaxed fractionally. This was a good sign.

“I wanted to talk to you about last night.” He drew up the chair on the opposite side of the fire and sat.

“Again? You’re making rather a habit of this.” She didn’t look up.

He was making a tremendous muddle of talking to her already. There was no good way to say that he was sorry for last night but he wouldn’t risk killing her. He owed her a better explanation, but her manner made him want to talk to her and pretend for some minutes that they were just a newly married couple who weren’t quite familiar with each other yet. Or perhaps he wanted to just delay renewing her wrath.

“You’re still working on your embroidery, I see.” Was that really the best he could come up with?

“I can’t go home to London until tomorrow when Great-Aunt Henrietta returns.” She shrugged. “There’s nothing better for me to do and I like embroidery.”

“You don’t have to go.” He didn’t want her to leave.

“What is there for me to stay for?” Her fingers clenched on the embroidered fabric for a second.

He couldn’t help an intake of breath against the cut of pain. Him. She could stay for him. Stay for Edith and for love, he wanted to shout. He didn’t say anything. There was a large leather trunk overflowing with silks next to her. Moving to it, he picked up a bolt of green thread on the top.

“Please leave that alone.” Her hand darted out and shut the lid with a bang, only just missing his fingers.

There was an awkward pause.

“I’ll provide a generous allowance for you to buy the materials you need.” It was scant compensation for his not making love to her, but he’d do whatever he could to make her happy. Well, except what might kill her, he wouldn’t risk that. He’d read after Isabella’s death that one in five women died in childbirth. That wasn’t good enough odds for anyone he loved.

“I have no need of your money.” Her words were clipped. “My customers pay.”

“You sell your work?”

“Believe it or not, many ladies admire my embroidery.”

He could do that. “Could I have a look at some of your work?” Complimenting her work was definitely within his capabilities.

Her mouth twisted in apparent indecision. Reluctantly, she put down her work and opened the trunk. She rifled through pieces and he saw the corners of intricate designs. There were chrysanthemum flowers so detailed they looked real, landscapes, trees. And names. Henry. George. Greetings of Happy Christmas. That was... Odd. “You take special commissions?”

“You could say that.” She pulled out a green and blue embroidery and handed it to him.

“It’s fine work.” It was a pretty landscape in the Capability Brown style, with a meandering river and elegant trees. The sky was made up of a dozen shades of blue and grey and each of the trees was subtly different from the way she’d stitched them. “Exceptional.”

“Thank you,” she replied in a monotone.

“I don’t understand why you have these if they’re commissions.” That was what was odd. She ought to have given the commission to the purchaser. Surely she couldn’t have so many that the commissioner didn’t like?

“I don’t normally tell gentlemen, or allow them to see my work.” Her smile was sly as she took the embroidered landscape from him, tucked it back amongst the others and closed the trunk. “I suppose you’ll find out eventually. I specialize in a particular type of work. My customers like to keep up the facade that they made the items themselves. They lack the time, skills, or inclination to make pieces of embroidery, but require the appearance of the accomplishment.

“I make two. I start one, then give it to the lady. She does some half-hearted sewing in-front of people. I progress mine. Then we meet and swap. She takes mine that is further on, I progress hers. And on and on, until the whole piece is completed.”

An amazed laugh bubbled out of him. “Really?”

“I’m glad you find my vocation so amusing.” She looked at the floor, jaw set.

“No,” he said. “That is inspired. Would you make one for me?”

Her head jerked up, and for a moment there was so much pain in her look it was like she’d punched him, or he’d punched her.

“Maybe a design with pineapples.” He didn’t know why she was so upset by his request, but he could heal it. “I love pineapples.”

“I know,” she muttered, her gaze flitting around his face and chest.

His heart constricted.

She didn’t meet his gaze, her expression unhappy and almost...

A notion appeared in his mind, like an unexpected thorn catching his sleeve. “You’ve already made one for me. Haven’t you?”

She didn’t say anything, eyes lowered and focused on her unmoving hands.

With knowledge that came from nowhere, he grabbed the trunk lid and yanked it open.

“No!” She sprang up and tried to grab the trunk, and they tussled. But he was stronger. With a wrench, he overturned the trunk. Silks and samplers of all kinds scattered across the floor.

He grabbed the top of the pile, the one that had been at the bottom. They both stilled as he looked at it.

His name, Robert Danbury, was embroidered in the style of a commemorative sampler. Pineapple plants with drooping leaves adorned the edges. And where there was usually a sugary sentiment about the virtues of the deceased person, there was embroidered in large letters: Flapdoodle. Coxcomb. Ugly Ratbag.

A man who couldn’t use his staff properly. A vain dandy. And a bag of rats. That’s what she thought he was. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Or hit something. He kept looking at the embroidery, as though something about it might soften the harshness of the words. At the bottom of the picture was a neatly triangular evergreen tree, with a pineapple on the top, and several more scattered amongst its branches. Around the edge, there was a pattern of pineapples, and... In between the pineapples, as if they’d been added later, was something flesh colored... Pricks. Erect pricks. Small erect pricks, or large pineapples.

“What’s this?” He pointed at the pineapples in the tree.

She raised her eyebrows. “Everything in that picture, and that’s what you ask?”

“It seems like a good question.” Better than, why was she inferring he had a small cock and couldn’t get it up?

“You don’t remember?” She shifted and stepped back, blond curls bouncing.

“No.” He frowned. “Not at all.”

Crossing her arms in front of her. “Apparently my embarrassment is more memorable to me.”

He shook his head in confusion.

“You were telling me about your pineapples at the Harris’ soiree. I revealed that I’d thought pineapples grew in pine trees. You laughed so hard, but I…” She pursed her lips.

“Oh. I see.” Tendrils of the memory crept into his mind. He’d laughed in delight and mirth. But she’d taken offense, thinking he was laughing at her, rather than with her. “It’s not the least bit funny?”

A smile caught at the edge of her mouth and she looked over his shoulder towards the window. “No.”

“You proved me wrong.” He held up the sampler, with its pine tree, complete with pineapples and pricks.

“Hardly.” She shot him a wry look while her hands folded and unfolded at her waist.

There was another burning question, whilst they were somehow on good terms again. “How did you know about what a...”

“What a man’s appendage looks like?” Her hands stilled. She shook her head and her gaze flicked upwards. “You men, you think if we’re unmarried that we’re sitting in a box, just waiting for you to come along. I told you last night. I’m not a green girl.”

“You had a lover?” He’d thought she’d just said that last night to make him feel inadequate and force him to give in to her demand. But now she said it in the light of day, it was obvious it was the truth. The jealousy he was feeling was wholly inappropriate and unfair. Probably a little like she felt when she thought of his late wife.

“Yes. I had lovers.”

Plural, though past tense. He’d only ever been with one woman. Amelia’d had lovers. Handsome, rakish men who drove curricles and wore their cravats in complicated knots. Whereas he just tied himself in knots.

“And children?” That could solve all their problems so easily.

“No.” Her brows darkened. “We were careful. And lucky. Many of the ladies who pay for my services are married. They don’t want their husband to know that they’re not the paragon of accomplishment that they appeared to be when they were courting. They were happy enough to help me with wifely tricks to avoid complications.”

“I see.” That was good. Because it would be unworthy of him to wish that she couldn’t get pregnant.

She turned away and went to the window, unconsciously framing herself against the white outside. “You needn’t think I’ve been pining after you all this time. I made the sampler five years ago.”

After he’d become engaged to Isabella. She didn’t need to say that, it was quite evident. He stared at her back and the bleak pale snow that surrounded her like a glow. As if this mess wasn’t complicated enough, he’d broken her heart five years ago. He didn’t know what to say to fix this. It wasn’t at all certain their marriage was fixable.

“I’ll let you get on.” It was only when he’d walked out of the room that he realized the lewd sampler was still in his hand. Accusing him of all the things he knew to be true.

Sitting in his study, for a long time Robert just stared at the sampler. He took in every carefully crafted, intricate, insulting detail. Each part was stunningly done, with care and a steady hand. The pineapple plants had tiny barbs and you could see the hexagonal pattern on the pineapple fruit. He’d seen botanical drawings less accurate than her embroidery. This had been made with passion. Utter hate, definitely. But also, brokenhearted passion. And under that had to be love in the fine stitches that made up his name and the evenness of the letters in coxcomb.

He wasn’t especially vain, but the insult stung. Flapdoodle hurt more, perhaps because it was truer. He couldn’t have intercourse with her. He’d made a terrible hash of everything. In his intent to protect himself, he’d been callous of how he’d hurt Amelia.

He’d tried to get her to reveal her feelings before he’d revealed his. He’d gone with Isabella to the orangery to soothe his pride, rather than risk continuing to woo Amelia. This Christmas he’d used mistletoe as an excuse to get the kiss he wanted. He had gone to her room to look after her, knowing it might lead to her being compromised and force them to marry, rather than calling her mother immediately. Refusing to make love to her because he was scared to risk her in childbirth was just the last in a line of actions he was ashamed of.

She had missed the truth on that sampler. He was a coward.

The realization made him nauseous, as if he could expel his cowardice like a bad meal. Hands on the desk, he felt his stomach roil. He tried to keep himself still with his grip and hold onto his delusion about himself. He couldn’t.

He wasn’t a coward. He’d held Isabella’s hand as she gave birth and embraced her as she died when most men stayed away, smoking and drinking while their wives were confined. But in other ways, he’d been weak. Amelia deserved his courage, his consideration, and his love.

He had to tell her he’d changed and he understood how terribly he’d let her down. He must say how he would continue to make up for his shortfalls for the rest of his life. And the answer was right in front of him. Jerking open a drawer, he took out a piece of paper. In his haste, he made an ink spot with the pen, but it didn’t matter. He wrote down everything he thought he might need then blotted the ink rather than wait for it to dry.

He didn’t have long to wait after pressing the bell. And thankfully, with some canny instinct, Mrs. Lane the housekeeper came herself rather than sending a maid.

“I was wondering if you could help me. I need the items on this list.” He held out the folded paper.

“Yes, sir.” His housekeeper looked puzzled. She read the list and her expression turned to practically alarm.

It was a reasonable response. He normally asked her for cups of tea, not several yards of red velvet and a tree.

“Sir, I can find these things, but are you sure I can’t be of more assistance? If there’s a repair to be made, one of the maids can do it. Sally is very proficient–”

“No, thank you. This is a repair I must do myself.”