Stephen woke from a restless half-sleep, full, as usual, of dreams of his unattainable wife, with his head tipped back against the door. The room was chilly; the fire had banked into embers. Stephen stood stiffly and stripped out of his wedding outfit. Then, feeling, as he always did when at home, like a child, he dropped onto the bed and wondered how long he could put off meeting up with the rest of his family. He wondered if Abby was awake in her room. He wondered if she would speak civilly to him. He wondered how much she would humiliate him in front of his family.

            He rolled over. He had to get up. He had to go downstairs. He had to make himself.

            Abby, meanwhile, had woken freezing, huddled under the covers for warmth. She was not used to such drafty rooms. And she was not used to sleeping naked.

            She unlocked the door leading to the hallway, so the maid could enter and stoke the fire. And she needed her lady's maid. The maid entered to stoke the fire shortly, followed by her lady's maid, who chose her a violet dress that Abby was fond of and helped her into it. Then Abby ventured out of her room. Stephen's door was still closed. She wondered if he was still sleeping.

            She walked cautiously to the staircase and stood at the top of it. Then the butler walked forward from the base of the stairs.

            "The family is breakfasting, m'lady," he said, gesturing.

            "Thank you," she said, gratefully, descending the stairs.

            "His lordship is still sleeping, I take it?"

            "Uh, yes," she said, smiling quickly. Yes, they would expect her to have woken beside him this morning, wouldn't they?

            The dining room was as enormous and drafty as the rest of the house. Abby could not understand how it was the peak of spring and still freezing in the house. There were people seated around the table. She recognized the Duke, who rose to greet her when he saw her in the doorway.

            "Abby. Come in, my dear," he said, warmly. "I trust your wedding was beautiful?"

            She supposed. "Yes," she said.

            "And she's worn Chesham out," commented one of the women at the table. "That's a good show."

            "Come and meet the rest of the family," said the Duke. "My duchess, Stephen's sisters, Pamela and Lydia, and their husbands." The Duke did not name the husbands. Apparently they were not important.

            Neither Pamela nor Lydia looked much like Stephen. They strongly resembled their mother, with hawk-like, severe features, dull brown hair, matching brown eyes. They would never have been called beauties, and their husbands were similarly nondescript. Considering the sinful good looks Stephen shared with his father, Abby could not imagine how the Duke had ended up married to such an unprepossessing woman.

            "Sit, my dear," said the Duke. "Have some breakfast."

            "Yes, I imagine you worked up an appetite last night," said one of Stephen's sisters, the one who had spoken before.

            Abby said nothing. She sat.

            "Where is Chesham?" asked the sister who had not yet spoken.

            "He is-" She paused while a servant poured her tea. "Still sleeping."

            "That is entirely too lazy of him," replied the sister, severely. "There is much to be done."

            "To be done?" Abby echoed. "Like what?"

            "The house needs many repairs," said the Duchess. "Chesham must see to them."

            "And Pamela and I need new dresses," continued his sister. Lydia. She would have to remember that. She would have to be able to tell them apart.

            She did not see what Stephen had to do with his sister's new dresses. And she did not know why they all called him Chesham. Surely here, in his childhood house, he was known as Stephen. Was it for her benefit? Did they not think he had yet invited the informality? "Does Stephen help you shop for new dresses?" she asked, curiously, purposely calling him Stephen.

            Lydia and Pamela both laughed in evident delight.

            "Good Lord, no!" exclaimed Lydia.

            "Chesham in a dress shop? Chesham would rather die!" giggled Pamela.

            "My daughters are suffering under the illusion that Chesham holds the purse strings," the Duke explained, dryly. "But that is not true."

            Lydia and Pamela abruptly stopped laughing.

            "You didn't tell us that," said Pamela.

            "We will discuss it later," he replied, shortly.

            Abby was confused. She did not know what to make of this family. A servant placed some toast in front of her, and she smiled her gratitude, then said, "I was sorry you could not attend the wedding. I'm sure Stephen would have liked to have you there."

            Pamela snorted. "Did Chesham say that?"

            "Pamela!" scolded Lydia, aghast. "Do not behave in such an unladylike manner."

            Why did they persist in calling him Chesham? Did they truly call him that? Had he always been called by his title, even as a boy? It seemed impossible to her. "He did not say that. But Stephen is a man of few words."

            Pamela and Lydia regarded her with frank shock. "Is he now?" said Pamela, sardonically. "I would never have accused Chesham of being stingy with words."

            Maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was incredibly talkative around other people. She thought of the hours of stiff silence in their carriage the day before, and felt miserable.

            "Good morning," said her husband.

            She looked up at him as he entered. He looked his usual, impeccable. He pulled out a seat and sat. He did not look at her. There was a chorus of unenthusiastic good mornings to him.

            A silence descended upon the table. Abby did not understand. Was no one going to offer him congratulations on his new countess? She broke the silence firmly. "I was just telling everyone, Stephen, how sorry I was that they could not attend the wedding."

            Stephen was watching the servant pour him tea in his teacup. "Were you, now?" he asked, absently, and then said, with far more urgent interest, to the servant, "Is that tea?"

            "Yes, m'lord."

            "I do not drink tea. Bring me some coffee, please."

            The servant hesitated.

            "There is no coffee in the house, Chesham. You know that," said his mother.

            Stephen looked at her in surprise. "I can assure you that I did not know that. You knew that I was coming, and you knew that I only drink coffee."

            "I did not know that you only drink coffee," his mother informed him, a trifle coldly.

            Stephen opened his mouth, then closed it. He said absolutely nothing. He picked up the toast that the servant had set in front of him and tore off a piece savagely.

            It occurred to Abby then, as it had not occurred to her before, in her self-centered, self-pitying wallowing of last night. The family had not turned out to see the new countess last night. But they had also not turned out to see Stephen. The sparse room he had been given, she realized, suddenly, was a guest room, not the heir's room. They called him Chesham with a disdainful, begrudging formality. It dawned on her, all in an instant.

            His family did not really like him.

            "Is that all you are eating? Toast?"

            Abby had been staring at him, but she had not noticed that his attention had wandered onto her. She blinked out of her contemplation of the stiff, heavy circumstances at Camberley. "What?"

            "Do not say ‘what'-" began the Duke.

            "Do not correct my wife," Stephen snapped at him, then turned back to her. "You must have more than that for breakfast. We skipped dinner last night. You must be very hungry. Certainly you're quite pale. Bring her ladyship something more substantial than toast," he said to the nearest servant.

            Certainly you're quite pale. Abby frowned and picked at her toast. It would have been nice, every once in a while, to get a compliment from her laconic, unromantic husband.

            "When are you leaving?" asked Pamela, bluntly.

            "They are not leaving," said the Duke. "I have invited them to stay."

            "Yes, but surely you are going to the Continent for your honeymoon?" persisted Pamela.

            "We are not, as a matter of fact," said Stephen. "I see no reason to go jaunting abroad."

            Pamela looked at Abby. "And you are allowing it?"

            She opened her mouth to answer, but Stephen answered for her. "It is not a matter of what she allows. She is my wife. She does as I wish."

            "Are you quite sure there is no coffee in the house?" Abby bit out, in the Duchess's direction. "I believe it would improve his lordship's temper greatly." She looked back at Stephen and just suppressed sticking her tongue out at him.

            Stephen looked on the verge of launching a retort, when, instead, a little girl cried, "Uncle Stephen!" and came dashing into the dining room.

            The expression on Stephen's face changed instantly, into one of adoring delight. He turned in his seat, then stood just in time to catch the little girl, who could not have been more than six years old. He swept her into the air in a great arc, and she laughed in delight. "Lady Rose!" he exclaimed. "How is my favorite niece?"

            "Your only niece," she pointed out.

            "Nevertheless. How many offers of marriage have you turned down? Shall I have to don one of the suits of armor and fight for your honor?" He sent her a mock frown, looking very stern indeed, and she laughed some more. Abby, watching, found herself smiling in reaction. Her dour husband seemed, immediately, much more alive, much more vibrant.

            "Chesham, put her down," said Lydia, severely. "She is much too old to be swung about like that. Why are you not in the nursery, Rose?"

            The nanny rushed in then, an old, portly woman gasping for breath as she waddled after her charge. "I beg your pardon, madam. She heard one of the scullery maids mention that Lord Chesham was here-"

            "What was she doing in a position to overhear what the scullery maids were saying?" demanded Lydia.

            "I'm so sorry, madam. But we were going for our morning walk. You know that you insisted that I take her walking twice a day-"

            "Are you going for a walk, your eminence?" Stephen asked his niece.

            She nodded wisely. "It improves the comstitution."

            "Constitution," he corrected. "And it does indeed. Shall I join you?"

            "That isn't necessary, m'lord," the nanny said, quickly. "I can-"

            "No chore," he said, shaking his head. "Lady Rose and I will do quite well. That is, if I do not get lost on the way. You see, it used to be, when I was younger, I knew exactly the spot on the grounds that led to Faerieland. I do wish I could remember," he mused, as Rose commenced to jumping about him in excitement.

            "Rose!" Lydia snapped at her. "Do behave like a lady."

            "Let us get out of this house," Stephen confided to her. "One does not need to act like a lady when one is outside improving one's constitution."

            "Chesham, do not get her dress dirty," Lydia implored him.

            "Absolutely not," he promised, leading Rose by the hand out of the dining room.

            "And do not fill her head with blather about faeries and goblins and other of your ridiculous notions."

            Stephen had by now disappeared into the front hall, but Abby believed he deliberately raised his voice to allow what he was saying to carry clearly into the dining room. "Do you know what lives with the faeries, Lady Rose? Gnomes."

            Abby chuckled. When Lydia glared at her, she quickly bit down on her smile. "He is only teasing, surely you see that. She is a child."

            "Precisely. She is a child. She is extremely impressionable. She cannot grow up believing in faeries."

            "But why not?" asked Abby, in honest perplexity. "She will grow out of it soon enough. Let her believe in magic as long as she can."

            "Dear God," said Pamela. "Chesham has managed to find a wife as silly as he is."

            "He is far from silly," Abby assured her, stiffly. "I may be quite silly. But he is far from it."

            "Chesham is right," said Pamela, after a second. "You are looking quite pale. It does seem a shame. We always thought Chesham would marry a great beauty, given who he is. Surprising he settled on you, isn't it?"

            Abby smiled sweetly. "The matter was settled the moment we met, you see."

            "And where did you meet?" asked the Duchess.

            "In a brothel," said Abby, simply. "Oh, thank you," she said to the servant, who practically dropped the meat and cheese he had brought for her into her lap on her last remark.

            There was silence ringed round the table. Abby found, for once, that she enjoyed the silence. She was actually hungry, and she ate the food she had been brought ravenously, aware that the family was still gaping at her. Then she stood. "If you will excuse me," she said, and smiled sunnily as she left the dining room.