25 February, 1894 — Greengrass Home

Ford had three activities he engaged in at home since his engagement to Miss Farley. The first was locking himself in his room with their financial ledgers, balancing and rebalancing and trying to figure out how they were going to make it through the end of the year, much less the rest of their lives. The second was glancing at the nearest clock and trying to guess how many minutes it would be before he could reasonably steal away to Tycho's, then checking again two minutes later and morosely introspecting on the nature of time and why it dragged so much in moments like these. The third was pacing. On this particular afternoon, he was engaged in the third.

He was pacing in the kitchen, because his sisters were in the parlor, and all of them were intolerable for different reasons. Grace was trying to be happy for him, which was heartbreaking in its own way. Clementine was obnoxious as ever. And Verity's anger was palpable. Ford had known he was going to upset her when they'd talked after the party, but after the engagement had been announced he'd expected it to lessen somewhat. This was what she'd wanted him to do, after all — the honorable thing. If anything, though, she seemed even angrier with every stilted conversation they were forced to have.

He had just started to transition to his second usual activity (obsessively checking the clock) when the kitchen door opened and Verity came in — from the looks of it, in order to refresh their tea. She probably hadn't known he was in here, Ford imagined, or she would have made Grace do it. In his defense, Ford hadn't meant to be in the way. There just wasn't enough space to pace properly in his room.

"Verity," he said by way of cautious greeting. "Want help?"

---