Aldous seemed quite confident that there would eventually be a second residence, despite Ben's use of the word if, but Ben could hardly blame him. Given everything Aldous knew, and how recently he had learned it, he had no reason to believe anything would change in the next eight months. Why should he believe that Ben was even capable of loving Melody, knowing what he did? It wasn't something that made sense, Ben knew that, so he knew better than to try and explain it. It would only set Aldous to wondering about love potions again, which would earn him more time here. He had a suitable excuse for his hesitation to leave the other day, and Aldous appeared to have taken it at face value. Ben assumed, too, that the fact he hadn't said anything in response about the circumstances under which they'd married meant he would keep Ben's secret, at least for a while.

"Yeah," he agreed, with a vague nod. "I don't know when people normally do these things. Tell people, hire people. It's still early. A month in." Ben knew exactly which occasion had resulted in the pregnancy, because they'd been using protection on all the other occasions, but Aldous could make his own assumptions about why the timeline was so precise. Maybe he'd believe that they hadn't been sleeping together, generally, but given Ben's reputation probably not.