“We cannot endure losing the very roof above our heads,” Desdemona said, voice still soft so as not to draw undue attention from the small household staff, once the nursery door was firmly closed.

It was only after she said the words that We did not include Arthur himself.

He had, after all, already lost one house to his gambling, in the “before”—a before she had been quite certain would never be replicated.

“How long has this been going on?” she asked, tears finally beginning to develop in her eyes, though not yet threatening to spill over. “Weeks? Months?”

Years?