What had she got? A despairing, self-loathing nothing was the answer that came most readily to mind, but he couldn't say it. It was too close to an admission, and he wasn't brave enough to be honest with her yet no matter how pitiful she looked when she spoke of living a delusion. He didn't want to tell her until he had fixed it. He still wanted to fix it; someday he'd have paid her dowry back, even if it was only to their household account and even if she never knew he'd spent it in the first place. Someday there would be a budget that wasn't exclusively red. Someday... but even then he would still have secrets, wouldn't he? Because there was no degree of fixing things that could undo the past, and no world in which he would ever feel comfortable admitting to where he'd been before the coat room.

"I would have told you before we married, if there had been any other option," he argued desperately. If she had not been forced to marry him no matter what, he would gladly have given her reasons not to — or he thought he would have. Even that probably wasn't entirely true, though. He wouldn't have been honest with her, he would have simply called things off. Still: "I wouldn't have tricked you into marrying me."

---

She could scarcely believe what she was hearing – and she desperately wanted to believe him, that he had always had the best intentions, that he hadn’t had any choice in anything, but it didn’t make sense. And Noble had – promised her that Ford was a good person. He had said that, hadn’t he? Or that he tried to be. But then, what was stopping Ford from being honest? That night in the coatroom, or here and now. (If she had only been brave enough to ask before, and hadn’t just let herself be used... She might have been ruined still, but she would have spared herself all this.)

“I don’t understand... you’re still not going to tell me?” Jemima stammered, shaking her head and suddenly spilling over again with disbelief or bitter despair. He had wanted to talk, hadn’t he? But she was getting nowhere. She might as well be beating her head against a brick wall. Was this the bargain? What he thought was best? That he admitted nothing, and for his silence she just – kept hers?

Though she was trying to fend off the resurgence of any panic or hysteria from before, she didn’t quite manage to stifle the moan in her throat. “What did you do?”

---

It wasn't until her last question that Ford realized that Jemima knew they were not just talking about Tycho anymore. Up until then it could have been argued either way, but that question paired with the heart-wrenching noise she'd made in her throat made it clear that she was expecting something worse. But she still didn't have the full shape of it — didn't know the magnitude of what she was asking. She thought he could just tell her where he'd been before the coat room, like it was that simple, like there was only one thing to say.

"Jemima," he said, and wrapped up in that word was every sort of desperation:I'm so sorry and please don't make me say it all and half a dozen things between. But he knew he would have to tell her at least some version of it, because she was miserable and incredulous. He couldn't have walked away from her like this. It was only partly a matter of emotion: it would have been dangerous to leave her like this, volatile. She had said earlier she wouldn't leave him, but there were no guarantees in her expression now. How much damage could she do if she went to her parents now, armed with the things she had learned last night, and said my husband has secrets he won't tell me? So he had to tell her, but if he had been sure before that she would hate him forever then how much more ruined would their marriage be once she knew?

"Jemima, I'll — I'll tell you," he said. Behind his back he had been holding on to her doorknob, just for something to anchor himself, and he gripped it so tightly now that his fingers hurt. "But you have to listen while I explain everything, so you can — so you can understand."

He was not sure there was any real chance of that, but at least if he tried going through it all she would... maybe not think quite as terribly of him as she would if he just dropped it at her feet, the admission that he was a criminal and had knowingly blown up her life to salvage his.

---

Ford sounded as helpless as she felt, as trapped as she did. She could have broken down all over again at the way he said her name. It felt like – all night it had felt like – the world around them was caving in.

She ought to have felt some flicker of hope at his sudden offer of an explanation, shouldn’t she? It was what she had just asked for, after all. But – there was something about the panic in his face or his stance at the door, clinging on for dear life, the way he was pleading for her to wait and listen, that only made her more afraid. For better, for worse, Jemima told herself, almost nonsensically thinking of their vows. They were married, and if it was only for worse and worse, then – so be it.

Her face was bloodless, her lips pressed tight together to stop herself saying anything she might regret. She wasn’t quite brave enough to manage saying I will, or tell me, or it’s okay anymore, but she steeled herself against the dread, gaze fixed on him, and nodded solemnly.

---

A nod, and she was evidently already taking the instruction to listen quite seriously because she hadn't managed a word. Ford let out a breath. No choice now but to begin. He didn't even know how to begin; he had never told anyone else about this before, unless one counted Noble. And Noble was different; he had been there at the beginning, so it had only ever been one thing to admit at a time. That was the way he'd have to go through it with her, too, in all likelihood... except he could already picture her face when he had to say and then yet again, the disbelief that this tale of woe really never wound down.

"Okay," he said, taking another breath. "Alright. So our father died in... 1889, in December. That's when it started. And it's been... I've never wanted to do any of this, it's just — for five years straight it's like every choice I make only has the wrong answers. Lesser of two evils, y'know? Because it was never — I was barely twenty-three when he died, alright? I mean I was still a kid," he said with a hopeless shrug. "So before he died I wasn't ever involved with — family stuff, the estate, finances, anything. He never asked me to look at anything and I figured there would be plenty of time when I was older. But then he died and suddenly it was all mine — my responsibility. And — and there wasn't any money," he admitted. His shoulders dropped, as though they had been mainly tensed to carry the weight of this admission, and having offloaded it he could collapse back against the door. "Not just — it was worse than that. There wasn't any money and there were a lot of debts. And so — so I had to do something, and there weren't any good answers, so we — moved here. We don't own this house," he continued with a grimace. "We owned the last one and I sold it. And almost everything in it. This was — Noble was supposed to live here. He had this deal worked out with the owner where he'd pay a little extra on the rent every month and then he'd buy it gradually, but we don't — there's no extra. We just rent. And there was this idea that it was all going to be temporary — that we just had to keep it all up long enough for my sisters to get married. And then it wouldn't matter if I was — I mean, whatever, I'd go live anywhere, I suppose. Pennyworth, if that's what it was. But then the season — didn't work out like it was supposed to."

---

Oh. Whatever hell Ford had been living in, then, he had been living in for the last five years. Jemima felt a lump of fear in her throat already forming, before he had even explained anything – only that he had been twenty-three (a year older than she was now), and still practically a child. If he hadn’t been able to cope with it then, maybe she didn’t want to know after all.

But she had asked it of him, hadn’t she? Demanded it of him, in some ultimatum she hadn’t quite realised she was making until he had given in. So Jemima could hardly stop him now, now that things were veering out of her control. But her heart rate was picking up as he spoke, at odd intervals and snatches of his story, as though in sympathetic panic. There wasn’t any money. Debts. They didn’t own anything, not even this house. He had been ready to live in Pennyworth – and that, in the tone he was using, somehow sounded like a best-case scenario.

She was confused and concerned in equal measure, and doing all she could not to start hyperventilating again. It hadn’t been Ford’s fault, at least – she told herself this as if it was any comfort, and curled her hands tight into her sheets to stop herself from clutching at her face in abject horror. “Because...” she began, struggling to comprehend everything he had just confessed; her voice came out so faint it was not much more than a whisper. “Because they didn’t get married? And there was no more – money for them.” Verity had married, but the others... the others were still here, weren’t they, dependent on him and this house and the family finances. And what of the debts? Were there still the debts? How could there be? How bad had it been?

Bad enough that he would have moved to Pennyworth. “I don’t understand,” she said faintly, although he had told her to wait until he was finished; but she couldn’t fathom what else there could be to add. Surely they were in a better place now. She was an extra burden, then, she could see that well enough – but her dowry, she thought, had been a reasonable sum (and perhaps more than it ought’ve been, to make up for the circumstances). So was there money now? Surely there must be some money. “What did you do then?”

---

"It wasn't just that they didn't get married," Ford said, shaking his head. If only that had been the worst of it. He had never expected them to all find a husband their first season out — at least not seriously. Sure, there was the fanciful optimistic view: maybe someone would fall in love with Grace against all odds, maybe Verity would be engaged in a matter of weeks, maybe they could pull Clementine out of her last year of school to debut early and buy her a little more time. But honestly, the only thing they'd felt confident enough to plan on was that Verity would find a good match. She had always seemed the type, always — up until all her potential evaporated overnight. "You probably never knew Verity before she was married, right? What she was like, I mean. She was — she was supposed to be... I don't know. Grace was never going to excel at this, you know? She's always been shy. So we were really counting on Verity to marry and be able to host things. Dinner parties, games, places where Grace could actually meet someone. But when Verity married..."

Ford hesitated, then sighed heavily. "Did you hear about how she disappeared?" he asked, but didn't wait for an answer. Had Jemima still been in Hogwarts then? It had certainly been catastrophic news in their lives, but he wasn't sure how much of an impact it had made on the wider social scene, given that her marriage had followed too swiftly and absorbed any scandal before it had time to properly develop. "She was gone for days. We had the aurors involved. And then when she came back this suitor just appeared out of nowhere and offered to marry her, and — and he didn't care that I couldn't give her a dowry, and I — obviously everyone thought that was suspicious but — I couldn't afford to ask questions about it," he continued miserably. "Because what was the alternative? But she's — I — I don't think she's happy," he admitted. "And it's my fault. And she hardly spoke to me after that, up until — well now, since the coat room, she really doesn't speak to me," he said with a grimace. He didn't like to dwell on particular reasons that she might have been unforgiving of what she presumed happened in the coat room, or his attitude about it afterwards. That was a bridge that wasn't likely to be un-burned any time soon.

"So then we basically lost the whole next season. Verity was — not up for hosting anything. Grace and Clementine didn't have any prospects. And there still wasn't any money," he continued. "So I had to — find some. Because the last thing I wanted was for Grace to — to have to do what Verity did," he said with another sigh. "Marry someone because she —" (it was at this point in the sentence that Ford realized how he had planned to finish it, and to whom he was speaking; his volume started to trail off). "— had no other choice. Fuck."

---

The truth was terrifying, no matter that she couldn’t fathom where this was going. He was talking about Verity now, and although it wasn’t all directly about him, it still felt as though this was the most she had ever learned about Ford. About Ford, and about his family. She had supposed she was getting to know them, just by living here, in companionable dinners and crossing paths in the sitting room; but Jemima was conscious only now, of how little she really knew them. Even Verity, whom she had been intimidated by from the first – for although Verity had seemed put out with her brother, Jemima quite liked her, and made a point of exchanging letters with her from time to time, to see that they were cordial, if not proper confidantes.

She had not heard much about the disappearance at the time of it, or recalled it much since. But Ford was right about something, even she could see it – Verity did not seem happy. So all at once Jemima felt sorrier for Verity than she had ever imagined; and sorrier for Grace (she understood Grace’s problems well enough – she had never felt particularly confident beside anyone else, although beside Ford’s softest, dearest sister she felt almost bubbly); and sorrier for Clementine too by extension, because she would not be forced into marriage. Jemima had struggled through that Mill essay of Clem’s, after all. (It came back to her now, the lesson of it, ironically late: something like there were no legal slaves, save the mistress of every house. It had meant nothing to her until today.)

She was still listening, wide-eyed, intent. And with every inhaled breath Jemima only felt sorrier for herself, but in the exhale her heart ached for Ford too. “Right,” she said, her voice small. “Yes.” They both understood the reality of that – but she was not yet sure why marrying her had been the safer option for him. Had it helped his sisters somehow, in at least painting his reputation a little higher than a rake? “And did you?” Jemima asked, uncertainly. “Find some?” Money, she meant; it was what he had just said he needed to avoid marrying his sisters off as if they were chattel. But if the Greengrasses’ situation had been spiralling then, it didn’t feel as if Ford had found his way out of anything since.

---

She was starting to understand; he could tell by how little she said, and by the expression on her face. The hopelessness of it all. Maybe she understood by now why he hadn't wanted to tell her any of this; what good could come of her knowing? She was going to be miserable now, he felt quite sure of that — but he had started confessing, and now that he'd started he couldn't stop. They had circled back now to that first question, the one that had required so much of his life story in order to contextualize: the question of what he'd been doing before coming through the floo in the coat room.

"Yes," he said with a faint nod. He wrapped his arms around his torso as if bracing himself for her reaction to what came next. "I — stole some."

---

It took a very long moment before she reacted, because reacting meant – acknowledging that. He had stolen the money. This was insanity. He was mad.

“No,” Jemima breathed, though what she really meant was oh. Because it all made a perfect, horrifying kind of sense, didn’t it? (He had needed the money. So he had perhaps snuck away from that party – an ideal time for theft, because people were already out – and attempted to sneak back in? And it had worked, because he hadn’t even been caught – or, at least, he hadn’t been caught for the right thing.)

Her hands had crept up to her face after all. Jemima pressed her hands up over her mouth and cheeks, trying to swallow and finding herself leaning forwards to retch instead. Nothing came up past her throat; her stomach was twisted but too empty, and this was not even the first sickening revelation of the last few hours. She ought to feel angrier at this, shouldn’t she? She had been angry at him earlier, for his other lies and betrayal. But somehow she – couldn’t feel angry at this, when in spite of it all she understood him. Or, at least, understood it as he had explained it. She should feel afraid of him, or revolted by him – he was a criminal – but she just couldn’t reconcile it. She should... Jemima wasn’t sure, but she imagined herself getting up, getting dressed, going to report him or else making him turn himself in. Here was somehow the most frightening thought she’d had today, twice over: that she had a terrible power, myriad means of ruining his life now if she so chose. As if it had not already been ruined enough.

Did it make her a bad person, if she didn’t report him? Would she be some kind of accomplice, then? But she couldn’t, because the consequences would rebound on his family, whom he’d been trying to protect all along, and she didn’t want to be to blame for that either. (And Jemima was certainly a bad person for this, these were selfish thoughts, but she didn’t want to be known as the wife of a thief, unwitting or otherwise – and she didn’t want to be poor.)

So – she understood. And to her surprise, she found she could still look plainly at him; in fact, she realised she hadn’t dropped her gaze since he had stopped speaking, was just looking numbly at him. But – “I don’t – I don’t,” she started, almost calm, though her voice broke down before she could finish the sentence. Words seemed so very hopeless. She could not very well comfort him; and he had known before she did how unfixable the truth was, so of course she had no solution to offer. I don’t know what to say, Ford. I don’t know what to do.

---

There had been something like relief in the admission about his father, and the money — not relief, but something like it. The feeling of having pushed through something difficult, and now being on the other side of it; now it was said and would never need to be said again. He didn't feel that with this admission. Maybe it was partly that he didn't trust he was through the worst of it. There were still so many questions she might ask: how long, and how much, and how many times, and what sorts of things, and what had he done with them, and how had he managed it. So many details that could make this all worse by degrees depending on how they came out, and so far she hadn't asked for any of them. Maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she'd had her fill of bad news and things she couldn't do anything about. Maybe she'd come around to his original point of view, that it would have been better for her not to know.

His shoulders sagged further. "I know," he agreed, to her fitful starts and stops of sentences. Of course she didn't. There was nothing to be said that would change any of it, and certainly nothing she could do. He exhaled. A beat passed, then he hugged his arms more tightly to his chest and offered quietly, "I'm sorry I lied about you."

---

She nodded, still a little numb. “I know. Me too. But I,” she added quickly, “do understand.” She could never feel grateful for being used as an alibi – but finally knowing the truth had to be a good thing, somehow. If nothing else, it had resolutely murdered the little voice in the back of her head – that nagging unknown to catch herself on whenever she found herself a little too settled, a little too hopeful, too close to content. She had supposed there was no harm in harbouring some affection for him, that if fondness came naturally she was making the best of it. But now there were plenty of knowns to better counteract the impulse. Cold hard truths sure to drown the sentiment.

And there were plenty of questions Jemima could ask to find more, but – if she was not going to use them as evidence to turn him in, what did it really matter when she asked them? She could just as easily ask him tomorrow, or the next day, or the next, so... better to save them for when she had a clearer head or a stronger stomach. Surely they were both exhausted now.

As she watched Ford’s arms tighten around himself, she almost wanted to embrace him. Probably as much for her as for him, from wanting something to hold onto or wanting to be held. Loneliness only, Jemima told herself – sheer loneliness. Because she had never been so alone in her life as now; she had always had a desperate need to confide in someone other than herself for advice or for comfort, hadn’t she? Even just her diary, if she didn’t have a sister or a friend to trust with her secrets. These secrets, though, were too incriminating even to inscribe. So, besides her husband... she had approximately no one. With an echo of his heavy exhale, she steeled herself for one more question, one she needed to know to move forward. (If not the extent of it, then the immediacy, the limits, the future probability. Was it over, or still his reality?) “And do you... are you still doing that?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word stealing.

---

She had picked the one question where the answer wasn't any more damning than the initial admission had been. He was still feeling raw and exposed from the confession, but at least he could be grateful for that. He shook his head. "That was the last time." Even if he'd wanted to continue — as much as he had ever wanted to do it at all — it would have been impossible. Their invitations to the kinds of big, society-wide parties he had used as cover had dried up following the scandal of the coat room, and when they'd started to trickle back in it was unthinkable for him to slip away during the middle of one. No one had cared where he was before, but now his absence would certainly have been noticed and remarked upon, and if people began to realize he had a habit of disappearing at parties then it wouldn't be long before one of the burglary victims accused him. And being almost-caught in the coatroom had made the risks of it so much more immediate: he didn't think he would have been able to manage it again even if he'd had the opportunity, after having had the moment of facing down the Minister's wife and the very real possibility of ending up in jail. So those activities had been firmly put to bed even before they'd married — but there was another element to it, since their wedding, and he thought maybe she ought to hear that too.

"I said before, about how this whole thing was supposed to be temporary," he said. "And I never really cared about — what was left, if we took care of the girls." Just a continuous balancing act; if they could keep things in the air long enough to make the welfare of his sisters someone else's responsibility then it could all come crashing down. So many of the choices he'd made over the past five years were obviously unsustainable. The thievery was one, but there was also the (in hindsight drastically ill-advised) choice to spend on the first few seasons as though they still had money. His mother had said keeping up appearances would be worth it in the long run, and that it would help the girls marry sooner, but they couldn't keep that up and in retrospect he knew he ought to have been budgeting for a marathon rather than a sprint. With a joyless laugh, he added, "I used to fantasize about faking my death, after they were all married." The debts would die with him, if he didn't have children to pass them on to and no one still depending on him for financial support when he went. He'd even floated the idea to Tycho: would you flee the country with me someday? But it had always been a fantasy. He'd never actually had the mental bandwidth to think beyond the present moment in any real sense, so there had never been plans for the future.

He rubbed the heel of his hand against one eye, shaking his head slightly. "I don't think that way anymore. I'm going to fix this." For you, he almost added, but he stopped himself and caught his tongue against the back of his teeth. It was true; he had never had the resolution to sit down and chart a course through this mess, to find a way through the other side, until he had been faced with the prospect of having someone who was meant to depend on him forever, someone whom it would always be his duty to care for and protect. But he had not forgotten the way this conversation had started and what she had seen last night, so he didn't know whether he had earned the right to say ostensibly sentimental things, even if they were true.

---