21 March, 1894 — Greengrass Home, Bartonburg

Four days back from their honeymoon, and four days since Ford had had a proper conversation with his wife. He was not avoiding her, by any stretch of the imagination, and they had interacted regularly in the house whenever he was home, but there were always so many other people in the house that it was hard to consider the words they exchange here or there proper conversation. If there had been anything weighing heavily on her mind he doubted she would have felt comfortable bringing it up over the dinner table or in the parlor, and they had scarcely been in private since their return from the Sanditon. Not from lack of desire on his part (though he suspected she might think so). He'd gone to work Monday morning and so had his suitcase still to unpack Monday night, while she had presumably already handled it during the day — and he had to write letters to all the usual shops and things to get an accurate picture of their accounts around town, which wasn't a quick or painless task. By the time he'd finished and peeked his head out into the hallway he didn't see light under her door, so thought it best not to bother her. Tuesday night was primarily spent going through the returns from all the letters he'd sent out on Monday, tracking them all down in the ledger and fretting over the ones that came back higher than he'd expected. Adding in a week's worth of missed wages while he'd been off with Jemima it put things in a less favorable position than he might have hoped for, and he'd spent a good deal of time sketching out plans for how they might recover the difference in the short-term. By the time he'd finished that he didn't bother checking for her light, because if she wasn't already asleep it would have been a bad sign, and he couldn't stomach any more problems for the night. Wednesday he'd stayed an hour late at work because one of the projects he'd left with a coworker while he was away hadn't been handled correctly and now things had come to a head and another department was ready to sit tapping their toe at the edge of his desk until it was sorted out — and after just had a week off, Ford was hardly in a position to bargain with anyone in his division to get off on time. When he'd returned home he'd been in something of a mood, antisocial and sulky, and had retreated to his room with a book (which, predictably, did little to help).

But today he'd come back from work on time and left the division's troubles back in the office; he'd left the desk drawer with the accounts ledger locked tight; he'd put the latest book of poetry back on the bookcase in the parlor. He had tried to teach Grace something about chess and he'd had a drink with Noble in the parlor for the first time since coming back home, and when he headed upstairs the light was still visible beneath her door. He knocked and waited for some acknowledgement before he entered, then shut the door behind him. He was still fully dressed and suddenly wondered if he ought to have stopped by his room to change first, in case she was already changed for bed and inclined to feel self-conscious about the disparity — but if that was the case he could undress here just as easily. They'd shared a room for a week at the Sanditon, after all.

"Hi," he said in greeting, then immediately continued, "I'm sorry I wasn't over sooner. I hope you don't think I've been intentionally neglecting you." He didn't actually know what sort of cadence these things usually happened on, with married couples, so maybe she hadn't felt that way at all — but after sharing a bed with her for a full week he certainly felt that he'd been neglecting her after four nights without so much as an embrace. "A week doesn't sound like such a long time to be gone, but it's long enough for things to pile up, I've found. But how are you?" he asked as he moved a little more into the room. This was the first time, he realized, that he had been in her room. He had been in this room before, but prior to her moving into it; now it had her things in it, and subtle evidences of having been lived in. The thought almost stopped him from taking another step — it seemed almost invasive, as though he ought to wait for more explicit permission to enter before he encroached on her space. He'd already taken a step, though, and couldn't backtrack now without making himself look foolish if this wasn't on her mind — and he did have a history of overthinking things with her (their wedding night, for one). He split the difference and hovered a few steps beyond the doorway. "How've you been settling in?"

---

She hadn’t known what to expect, of how their life (their life singular, as per their union?) would settle now that they were back. She had only just grown accustomed to the daily habits they had made at the Sanditon. Breakfasts and suppers and sleeping in the same bed. Talking, too. It had not felt like a great deal of talking at the time, but now that they had hardly traded words between themselves in days except in small snatches, Jemima found herself quite stranded without his company.

And maybe this was normal and she should learn to live with it, to swallow every passing thought and doubt and keep herself to herself and hope that she was fulfilling her end of the marriage by simply – existing. In fairness, Ford had seemed busy most times she had seen him in the house – and he had siblings and a mother who presumably wanted things of him, and the Ministry, and whatever else. (A past to grieve, if she had not misread.)

She was in a dressing gown over her nightclothes when the knock came, considering writing a journal entry but hardly able to decide how to begin it. She hadn’t written properly for days, and not at the Sanditon either – it felt like too much, and too difficult when one shared a room – and when she had taken it out tonight she had found that letter from Jack folded in it, which had made her feel guilty enough to put the journal away again at once.

So she had picked up a hairbrush instead as she let him in, standing up to greet him and casting him a small, understanding smile but deciding not to cross the room to close the distance, if he had not. He had come bearing apologies and excuses, which eased a little of the discomfort in her gut – but after days of inescapable awkwardness, both in the house and out of it, even that show of consideration could not dislodge it all. “Well,” Jemima answered lightly, brightly, reassuring, even as she turned the hairbrush over and over unconsciously in her hands. “I’m well.”

She felt fidgety like this, so she perched herself on the side of the bed – her bed – in what she thought an invitation for Ford to make himself more comfortable too, if he liked. “How are you? Besides – busy,” she ventured.

---

He was lucky it was her, Ford thought, not for the first time. He could not yet feel fortunate at the circumstance of being married at all, and it was possible he never would, but if one removed that bit from the equation — if one supposed it an inevitability that he would be forced into a hasty marriage with a woman he hardly knew at an inopportune moment in his life — then he was lucky it was her. Because he knew she was lying when she said she was well. He could notice little things like the way she was twisting the hairbrush or the hesitation before she sat on the bed, which felt just half a step out of sync with the brightness of her tone. Even if she didn't have a single tell, he could have guessed how she was based only on what he knew of her situation, with the rumors and his family and everything else. But even so she held her chin up and kept her tone light; she really was determined to make the best of it. After the pressure build-up of the last four days, he was so grateful for it he could have kissed her straight off.

"No, just busy," he said with a light shake of his head, because there was no other descriptor of his mood over the last four days that he wanted to bring into this room and lay within the space between them. He had (somewhat subconsciously) been expecting to be burdened with some of her complaints when he came over tonight, and just because she wasn't inclined to give him any didn't mean he needed to fill the gaps in with complaints of his own. He moved further into her room, eyes flickering once between the chair at her vanity and the bed where she'd sat as he decided which direction to go. He veered towards the bed and sat beside her, not touching her yet — but he leaned his arm back on the bed at an angle, so that if she was inclined to close the distance it wouldn't take much. "How do you like the room?" he asked. He'd asked the same question when he presented it to her, on the day they'd returned from their honeymoon, but it felt a materially different inquiry now that she'd had a chance to actually live in it.

---

Jemima was having some difficulty deciding whether she had missed him in the last few days, or it was just a misleading symptom of how miserable and lonely she actually was.

Ford hadn’t given much away, so she shifted a knee to angle herself a little better towards him on the bed, eyeing his face for some indication of his mood – and at least his next question was an easy one about which to be honest.

“It’s nice,” Jemima said, sincerely. She was more accustomed to it now, exchanging the Sanditon’s seaside views for a sea of Bartonburg houses beyond her window; and she felt much more comfortable knowing that it was a new extension of the building and that she hadn’t unwittingly forced one of his sisters or Greer or Lorelei out of the room by moving in. “I’m fond of it already.”

It did feel strangely separate to everyone else in the house, which was nice as a retreat; although in the last few days it had left her feeling rather alone, isolated from everything else. She dearly hoped that feeling wouldn’t keep. But it’s strange to not be sharing with you (after their shared room at the Sanditon), Jemima almost considered saying; but she bit her tongue, blushing at the implication. “It just needs some flowers, I think, and then it’ll be perfect.” Just to brighten the space on the drearier days – she could pick something to match the colours of the wallpaper – or maybe she would refresh them regularly with new flowers, make a wordless diary of how she was feeling from them. (If she worked up the courage to go to the florist’s, that was – the incident at the shop the other day had thrown her a little.)

“How’s your new room?” Jemima returned with a wry quirk of a smile, because he couldn’t have been on this floor before, it must be new to him too. And she would stubbornly keep to this kind of small talk, since he had started with it.

---

Ford wasn't sure if she was trying to drop a hint, but he took it as one regardless. Flowers were quite a reasonable ask, particular in exchange for a label of perfect. He'd go to Wildflowers for them, obviously; after Daffodil Grimstone nee Potts had outfitted both his and Verity's weddings it would have felt like a betrayal to buy anywhere else, and she had always given them extremely reasonable prices. Did he know what Jemima's favorite flowers were? He'd brought her some yellowish ones when he'd visited her before the wedding, but she'd never actually taken them. Probably not those. Had she had any input in choosing the flowers for the wedding? He couldn't recall.

She asked about his room and he smiled, conspiratorial, as though they were sharing a private joke. "Too big," he replied, meaning nothing particular by it. After his previous bedroom, which had been intended as quarters for a live-in servant like a nanny, it certainly felt too big. "Maybe I'll grow into it."

---

She let out a laugh in spite of herself, making a face at him – because of anything he could have said, she hadn’t been expecting that. Too big. She had seen in it, through the doorway, and she would not say it was any larger than their room at the Sanditon, so he couldn’t mean it. Unless he felt the same way she did, with the same odd sense of loneliness? Jemima wasn’t sure if she could believe that – the honeymoon was one thing, but at least this house was home to him, and he hadn’t been spending his days back listlessly rearranging his things about in drawers and on shelves as she had, just for something to do – but she could pretend to herself that maybe he was lonely too, and that was why he had sought out her company.

“Well, as long as you don’t grow any taller,” Jemima declared with a smile, taking the words literally in an attempt to tease him more than anything. She softened partly towards him, tilting her head towards his chest or his shoulder as if to demonstrate that in that case he would be too tall for her to comfortably reach up; though she left a little air between them, too tentative to bridge the space so familiarly. “You’ll need a longer bed.”

She hardly knew what she was saying; she probably sounded quite silly. But the past few days had put her all out of sorts, what with the disastrous outing at the shops – and Ford had been out of the house more than she had. Had he been dealing with the same thing all week? Just busy, he’d said. She supposed that said it all.

---

There was a moment — her face alight from teasing him, her shoulder curving towards him, her head tilted towards his chest, a ghost of a smile on his own lips — there was a moment that could have become something else. He could sense the potential of it and he could picture the transformation; he could reach up to catch the side of her head, laying his palm against her cheek, lean his forehead against hers, meet her eyes, say something clever or (more likely, when nothing clever came to mind) something earnest. It could have become a moment of intimacy — intimacy in the larger sense, intimacy meaning more than just sex. He hesitated a fraction of a second and then the window had passed and she was talking about longer beds.

"If that happens maybe I'll just move in here," he suggested lightly. "Push the beds together, what do you think?" It was a silly remark, but obviously a little provocative too — and to punctuate that, he slipped his hand up to her waist, finally closing the distance they had been dancing around since he entered the room. The thought occurred to Ford only now that he hadn't gone by his bedroom to take off Tycho's amulet and if she laid her head or hand on his chest (nevermind any activities that involved undressing) she might notice and ask him about it. Which was fine, in theory; there was nothing overtly suspicious about having picked up trinkets from one's friends. Still, he wasn't sure that he was ready to talk about Tycho around her in a way that wouldn't make anything he said sound suspicious — but now that he'd wrapped his arm around her there didn't seem to be many avenues of graceful exit still available, so he supposed he'd just have to find out.

---

The conversation itself might be entirely ridiculous, but at the same time Jemima considered that the fact Ford would joke about such a thing at all had to mean something. If he hated her, he might still have visited her tonight out of spousal obligation. But quips about moving in surely could not arise from nothing more than begrudging obligation, could they? It had to be a sign he did not hate her completely.
(And they would be within their rights to hate each other, she had decided, for their situation alone. She thought she probably ought to have resented him for it – she had enough reason to – but either she was very bad at resentment, generally, or it was very hard to resent him.)

Or, you know, maybe she had just had too much time to sit here and worry since the Sanditon, and had thought herself in circles. His hand on her waist helped quash more of her doubts, so Jemima leaned away briefly just to set the hairbrush down on the bedside table. On her way back she shuffled closer to him than she had been sitting, tucking up her other leg and shifting towards his lap. “I suppose I could share,” she replied, with a small grin. She wouldn’t have minded the company – she certainly wanted comfort; or affection; to feel a little less lonely; to do her wifely duty. At least one of those things. She would have settled for a hug, honestly, but – supposing she could probably guess what he had come to her room at night for – she stretched up to kiss him instead.

---

Connecting for the kiss felt natural, smooth. At this point kissing her was probably easier than talking to her, he reflected. A week on honeymoon had made finding the space in the curve of her waist where his hand best fit a matter of habit. Getting to know someone's body was a much more efficient process than getting to know someone, the whole of them — probably this was why people spent months courting and then only a week or two honeymooning after the wedding.

"I did come over to ask about your day, and everything," he protested when the kiss ended. He wanted credit for his good intentions, but there was little doubt in his mind he wouldn't be following through on them now. He had turned towards her during the kiss and drawn her closer, so that she was now essentially sitting across his lap. He reached up to move a strand of her hair back from her forehead, then let the back of his fingers trail down over her collarbone and across the curve of one breast on their way back down. "I suppose I still could, but I'd have to forbid you from telling any stories about my mother or sisters while I'm kissing you," he teased. "So it might not leave you much to say."

He shifted her closer and leaned in to kiss her neck.

---

Even one kiss had helped; she felt a little less lonely already. So she was grinning a little again afterwards, at his protests and the pleasant shiver that came from his hand trailing over her.

“Well, there really isn’t much to say,” Jemima insisted, whether about his relatives or not. She could hardly say that it had been mostly awkward, and she also didn’t want to speak too soon and say she was making strides. She had spoken to Noble a little, and Clementine had lent her that essay today, so she was hopeful. But what else? The only other thing that crossed her mind, that was not about his family, was perhaps recounting that abortive attempt at a shopping trip (and by then Ford’s mouth was at her neck, and Jemima wasn’t much inclined to ruin it by reminding him that society was obviously entirely scandalised by her.) She shrugged innocently. “I’ve just been here.”

Ford had been the one out at work, after all: if anyone had news or stories to tell, it ought to be him. He was still in his clothes, while she had been all but ready for bed – and Jemima’s arms had reached around his shoulders, but when he drew back from her neck she relaxed her arms and moved her hands to his shirt to loosen his collar for him. She had managed a couple of buttons whilst leaning in for another kiss, but then her fingers found some kind of string under his collar, strung around his neck. Some kind of locket or pendant? As she opened another of his shirt buttons, she ducked her gaze in curiosity to see what it was.

---

He felt another small but inexplicable surge of fondness for her at I've just been here. They were still practically strangers so it would have been too soon to say he was glad she was, but it seemed like the sort of thing he might grow into; that it would be nice someday to have someone to come home to. He tipped his head towards hers in anticipation of their next kiss, until she pulled back. For a fraction of a second he was confused at her hesitation, then he felt the necklace shift under his shirt and realized what she'd dipped her head to look at. He'd forgotten about it again and now that his attention had been drawn to it again he flushed slightly. It would be impossible to avoid, as he'd already known, so he exhaled and fished it out so that she could see the amulet itself.

"A gift from a friend," he said, tone slightly thicker than usual. A friend, indeed; as though Tycho would have parted with anything so meaningful to him for someone who was just a friend. But she didn't know the story behind it and didn't know Tycho — at least not in the way that Ford knew him — so maybe she wouldn't find this odd. "It's from South America."

---

Jemima studied it as Ford held it out – it being perhaps more of an amulet or a charm than a locket. In fact, she was more intrigued by the explanation than the object itself: a gift from a friend. An exotic gift from a friend. “Is it charmed?” Jemima asked, in an attempt to be only casually curious about it, but she couldn’t help herself – something in his face or his voice had led her imagination somewhere else, to something she had been pondering.

Maybe it was better to address it now, even if it ruined the mood? Jemima screwed up her courage, chewed on the question she dreaded the answer to for a moment more and then, very tentatively, asked it. “Was it... from Miss Chang?” Miss Chang was – perhaps more than a friend to him, since word was they had been all but courting before Jemima had obviously ruined that for them. For him. (And she didn’t remember much of Miss Chang from school, but she knew her family was in trade of some kind, and that Miss Chang had always been a dedicated scholar, too. So – this did seem the sort of unique, clever, fascinating gift she might have given him. As a good luck charm. Or a token of affection.)

---

This question was so unexpected and so absurd that Ford almost laughed. Fortunately he bit it back. The question wouldn't have seemed absurd to her, he recognized, given the rumors surrounding him and Miss Chang — rumors the pair of them had intentionally nurtured along for the convenience they afforded. He ought to disabuse her of that notion, because she had no reason to feel self-conscious comparing herself to Ida Chang. It would be particularly detrimental to their ever being friends — which may have been an unlikely thing to hope for, given the circumstances, but he had enjoyed her company so much in the past and had always known her to be an entirely non-judgemental sort of person that he had already considered, hopefully, whether someday she might prove a friend to Jemima. So he ought to set the record straight... but there was some difficulty there, in that the full story really wasn't his to tell. Would it seem odd to tell the story but leave out the reasoning for it? He couldn't tell her Miss Chang was disinclined to marry because she had been besotted with another woman. And he couldn't really tell her that he had been equally disinclined to ever marry — at least not without hinting towards a truth that would hurt. He had multiple reasons for presuming he would never marry, but none of them would be palatable to someone who was now chained to him for life.

"No, it's not from Miss Chang," he said with a frown, as he continued mentally charting a course to navigate this conversation. He could hardly say they were just friends and leave it at that; men and women of marriageable ages were not just friends, as far as society was concerned. And Ford had bought her flowers, paid calls — acted the suitor, at least to outside eyes. "The situation with Miss Chang isn't... exactly what people talk about."

He let the amulet drop back to his chest and leaned back on his hands. "Do you know her? She's at the Flint Institute. She wants to be a scholar. But her family is more..." he drifted off, not sure how much of this was common knowledge enough that he could claim it as his to tell. "It was — er, convenient — for her family to think someone had taken an interest. She figured if they thought she was heading towards marriage when she finished at the Flint Institute they would be less inclined to interrupt her. So —" he shrugged helplessly. He did not suspect this explanation would be sufficient, but he wasn't sure what else he ought to add to it. He had the sense that the less said here was probably for the best, so — better, perhaps, to wait for her to ask the question than to try and answer it preemptively.

---

She had feared he might just say no, shortly, and leave it at that – and that would almost be worse than hearing it from him directly, because, left to her own imagination, she was very good at thinking herself in circles. So her eyes had been glued to the amulet around his neck, as if she might find the truth studded in its details – but when he explained it wasn’t what people talked about, her gaze ventured back up to his face.

She could only give a small shrug at his question of knowing her, because she would recognise her at a party, and they had crossed paths at school, but – Jemima certainly never would have been inclined to go (or been accepted at) somewhere like the Flint Institute. So she had never heard anything ill about Miss Chang, but even by virtue of that she felt a little awed and intimidated by her. Not jealous, surely – she had had no intention of marrying Ford before it had happened – but maybe she felt guilty. “Oh.” And she had still ruined that scheme, if that scheme was what they had been aiming to present, but – oh, that was much less dire than she had imagined. “So you stepped in,” Jemima finished for him slowly, carefully, hoping she understood the situation. “You were doing her a favour.”

That made sense enough, that way round – but she was not sure what Ford’s side of the arrangement had entailed. How had he benefited? Or was he just being a good friend, and that was all? “But she wasn’t expecting... You weren’t intending to... actually marry her, one day?”

---

Given how unconventional the situation was and how sparingly he had explained it, Ford was a bit surprised how well Jemima had parsed it all (pleasantly surprised yet again; maybe he wouldn't have to fill in many details at all). He nodded eagerly. "Right," he agreed. "She wasn't expecting, and I wasn't intending."

They had never really discussed how things would end, so Ford didn't know what the plan would have been, but he was quite certain they'd been on the same page about not really intending to marry each other. Perhaps they would have staged some sort of falling out — or maybe he could even have gone to ask for her hand but then botched the ask so badly that her father would have had to refuse. Then they could have continued on, her towards academic spinsterhood and him continuing on as a bachelor, with the general consensus in society that they were thwarted lovers. That might have suited them.

Ford shifted his weight from one palm to the other, still leaning back on his hands. He had the sense that the conversation was over, or at least that he didn't have anything else he needed to contribute towards it if she didn't have further questions... but it also seemed a bit awkward to go back to kissing Jemima when he was still half-thinking about Ida Chang. "So..."

---

Not expecting; not intending. That had lifted her spirits considerably. She had not ruined Ida Chang’s life, then (just Ford’s); maybe Miss Chang would not be the newest person in society to despise her. Maybe there was no real reason to feel so bad about enjoying this, then, Ford being in her room, and the kissing.

Only – she still felt sickeningly guilty about Jack, however she tried to cast it from her mind. It was a mercy no one else had known about that – invisible ties were more easily cut, when it came to it – but Jemima had never felt more callous in replying to his letters so shortly, with such finality, in her refusals. He hadn’t written back before the wedding – and maybe they would never speak again. Maybe she would never know if he understood why she had refused him. But she stood by it, she thought: it was better for him that he was not bound to her.

So maybe she had halfway wished there had been something true broken off with Ida Chang, just so she was not alone in her feeling terrible about it? No, that was too awful to think – it was better that there was nothing there, that no one else’s feelings had been hurt when Ford had been forced to marry her. And if he hadn’t been intending to marry someone else, maybe there was a little hope here.

So. Jemima blew out a breath. “So,” she repeated tentatively, hopefully, “there wasn’t anyone else you were hoping to marry, before...?”

---