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The carriage rumbled, creaked and bounced over uneven cobbles, the horses’ iron shoes ringing on the London stone.

Mary couldn’t think of anything to say. Her husband had stormed out of their rooms, then stormed into the Caldecotts’ ballroom with the force of a hurricane. Now it felt as though she were sitting in the eye of the storm. He had neither spoken nor moved since he sat beside her. He sat with the ankle of one leg resting on the other knee, his elbow on the shallow ledge of the carriage window, and he looked out, his eyes focusing on nothing.

Rain began striking the window and the carriage roof in a hard pitter-patter. She looked at the drops of rain landing on the pane of glass on her side.

She should never have made him go to his parents. This was not anger, it was pain. She had wanted to understand all of him, and, oh, how she understood now. He said in the beginning that he did not know what love was. No, he had never been loved, nor loved, until she fell in love with him and he fell in love with her.

Then she had called him a liar…

She sighed.

He turned his head and his gaze towards her.

His observation made her skin tingle, but she did not look back at him.

The first time she met him, she saw the dangerous secrets in his eyes. But now she could see through him, she knew he had been longing, and hoping, to be welcomed and liked. When he was afraid of rejection, he was at his most dangerous.

‘ Don’t pity me! ’ Those had been his last words before he left this afternoon.

She did not want to pity him, she just wanted to love him – and to be loved by him. But the silence between them was a wall she had no idea how to scale. His pain was a fortress. All she could do was wait for his defences to fall again.

The silence continued when they reached The Albany and climbed the stairs to their rooms. When he closed the apartment door, she told him, ‘I will retire,’ and went into the bedchamber.

He followed. ‘I will undo the buttons at your back.’

‘Thank you.’

When the buttons were freed, he left the room.

She heard him pour a drink in the sitting room, as she undressed and changed into her nightdress.

A sharp sound of glass shattering against the stone hearth, made every muscle in her body jump. She knew him now, she knew he had broken the glass Peter drank from.

She climbed into bed, her stomach growling with hunger. She had not eaten but she was not hungry. Nor could she sleep. She lay facing the door. It stood ajar. She could see a candle burning and hear him pacing.

When he came to bed a long while later, he undressed in the dark. The mattress rocked as he lay down, but he did not touch her. It felt as if he were deliberately trying to keep his distance.