She gave him a thoughtful look and wondered—did he truly need her? Very likely Jack needed someone to unburden himself to, a listener and perhaps even a lover, but not specifically her, surely? ‘I can’t do it, Jack,’ she told him finally and, when he would have argued, held up her hand to ask for his patience. ‘No doubt we’d rub along well enough if you endured the derision of your peers and I ignored the whispering and spite caused by such as me catching such as you, but there’s only one thing that would make it all possible for me and that’s the one thing you can’t give me.’ ‘Now you’re talking in riddles,’ he said with a wry grin that still refused to take her ‘no’ as seriously as he should. ‘What is this marvellous quality I so signally lack?’ ‘Love,’ she said starkly, refusing to plead for something he didn’t feel. ‘Oh, love,’ he said hollowly. ‘Yes, unfashionable of me to demand such an unlikely emotion from my husband, is it not?’ she asked and wondered at the brittleness in her own voice.
