Unless Thou Tell Me How

"I pray you, bear me hence from forth the noise and rumor of the field."

Content Warning: Click here for content warnings. (Potential spoilers)

October 31st

"Oh, my poor little man," Georgiana tutted. Her nephew had fussed since they had arrived at Darcy House that morning for a day's visit with her mother. For the inmates of Capulet Manor, it was their first day at liberty. The other adults had moved from one type of confinement to another: meeting their adversaries in Lady Iden's chambers to negotiate the terms of the trial. Rather than go to sit silently in a stuffy room, Georgiana had offered to bring Will to see his grandmother. "You're too little to remember, aren't you?" To her relief, he started to quiet down. "You've been away these three months, and that's a long time at your age, isn't it? This is your home, though you don't remember it just yet."

When Will disagreed, his aunt gently rubbed his little back. "If only you knew how overwhelmed your father and I felt when we first came here! Your grandparents never let us go without, of course, but I couldn't count how many times over our house in Percria could fit into this one. Surely enough, though, we learned how to be happy again here, and that made this our home. One day, little love, you'll understand that."

Through his coif, she kissed her nephew's soft little ear before filling it with selfishness. "But these aren't easy days, are they? Maybe for us. We had a lovely visit with your grandmother, didn't we? But your parents, your other auntie, your uncles? They all went to meet with the magistrate and those wicked women. From mourning to battle, without a breath in between, can you imagine? And my first night so far away from your uncle..." That had not been the plan, but a messenger had come not long before to alert her to a change. Hermia, well past the point when most expectant mothers restricted themselves to their homes, had gone to the meeting to carry her share and left more than a bit overwhelmed. "You have a silly aunt in me, don't you? Of course Aunt Hermia would be tired! Carrying your new little cousin is work enough, even for a strong lady, and to go see those..." She sighed again, sick of how quickly every moment led back to the conflict at hand. "Oh, you are a sweet boy - and if you promise not to think me too selfish, I'll tell you a secret."

Will babbled.

"More than anything else, I miss your uncle being just mine."

Not long after supper, Georgiana had chosen to follow her mother's example and have an early night. She knew hours passed more quickly in slumber. Unlike Will, she had felt right at home in her old bedroom, all the way down to sleeping on the 'wrong' side of the bed. She was thus not easy to stir with a mere knock at the door. It took several attempts, their urgency surpassing politeness, to wake her. Her eyes noted the persistent darkness as they eased open. "Yes?" she mumbled.

"Miss Darcy?" The voice was small, vaguely female, and unfamiliar. The last, she conceded, could be down to the whispered tone or simply the months since she had last been in her brother's house. Surely anyone who would revert to calling her 'Miss Darcy' was previously known to her.

"I'm coming," she replied softly as she eased herself out of bed. Locking the bedroom door at night was Tybalt's habit, which she had adopted at his insistence. It had made him happy, and it was at least less strange than him hiding an axe under their bed. (Although, she noted as her bare feet touched the cold floor, at least the axe had never caused her any tangible inconvenience.) She cursed herself for not accepting her mother's offer of a robe; it felt terribly immodest to open her door in such a state. Then again, if this was some sort of emergency, modesty would mean little. She stood where the door could block most of her body and carefully opened it.

"You tricked me," she exclaimed as much as a whisper allowed. "Why in the world did you do that?"

"Because I used to spend a lot of time thinking about Miss Darcy in her bedroom."

"Tybalt!" she cried again, this time far exceeding a whisper. Scandalizing comments and all, she was delighted by the surprise.

He wished he hadn't said it almost immediately. It wasn't for any regret about her furious blush; the day that passed without her cheeks turning at least a charming pink was surely the end of all days. He regretted even less the towering mountain of truth behind his words. While waiting for his leg to heal in that grubby peasant village, he might otherwise have died of boredom and annoyance. No, Tybalt regretted it because he knew he was about to douse her happiness to see him. Hoping to etch it into his memory, he studied her face - until he saw a smudge of dirt on her cheek, courtesy of his hand. "Sorry, I should have washed before I touched you. I'm covered in filth."

"There's fresh water in the dressing room, though it won't be very warm by now."

"I'll be surprised if it isn't iced over," he quipped with a glare toward the cold fireplace. "Which lazy servant left you to freeze to death overnight?"

"I was perfectly warm in my bed until you made me leave it, to tell the truth. I had no thought of rising before someone was around to light the fires in the morning." Smiling, she sat down at her vanity to take care of the smudge on her cheek.

With a grumble, Tybalt abandoned his crusade against the unknown villain. He settled for igniting a small fire himself before retrieving his saddlebag from the corridor and battling the gauzy curtain guarding the washing basin. The side room was rather dark. He fumbled out of the worst of his riding clothes and scrubbed his skin until it felt clean. An unexpected texture sparked his memory when he reached into his bag. "I brought one of your nightgowns, if you want it," he called out.

Indeed, she did, and she was thoroughly amused to see it was her best one. She felt warmer and prettier the moment it settled on her skin. As she embraced her husband from behind, she was sure she saw the fine fabric glistening in the dark. "You are so thoughtful."

"Rarely." He laid his hands over hers. "And you're still cold."

"But perhaps not for long?" The lightly suggestive tone she used felt like an act of heroic bravery to her. Speaking was so more agonizing for her than acting, but had decided she wanted to know - not just to hope - that her husband knew he was wanted. He never left her in doubt. If she could just learn to trust she wouldn't die of embarrassment, she was sure she could then learn to not feel so embarrassed in the first place and thus speak more easily. Little steps. One foot in front of the other...

He stifled a low groan. He knew exactly how he would warm her up, and it sickened him. He would not be the sort of man who lied by omission just to get inside his wife one more time. Her invitation was as good as rescinded because he had to tell her. He had to tell her now. "I did something today."

She felt his muscles brace; it hadn't been a good deed. "Would you like to tell me about it?" When he replied that he would, Georgiana released him and led him to the little bench in front of the fire. If he was concerned, than so was she, and the bed was not the place for a serious discussion.

"Lady Iden is requiring each side to submit a bond to the Court," he informed the fire, which would not prick away at his soul when it flickered as her gaze would.

Confused, Georgiana asked, "Were we not preparing for that? I thought your uncle was looking over the financials with Fitzwilliam just the other day."

"She isn't asking for money. Jule and Goneril - or another in their stead - have to agree to spend five years in the personal custody of the victor. If the losing faction violates the ruling, that person's life is forfeit."

Georgiana gasped. "She can't!"

"She can, apparently." Tybalt relayed the heart of what Fitzwilliam had said after the meeting. The practice was rare and almost archaic but still legal. It was a signal that the Crown Court believed the losing side may not accept the ruling. Both to avoid a civil war within the House of Capulet and to emphasize its own authority, the Court wanted to motivate the losers to obey the decision. "Your brother tried to dissuade her, but it's a civil case, so she can set nearly any conditions she wants. The only positive part of this is that Jule's petition was accepted and Grandmother's will re-opened. If Goneril wants to present her side, she has to offer someone up, too - Hal, most likely."

Georgiana could barely dare to ask what their side had decided.

"No-one else decided anything. I volunteered."

Great God in Heaven! Though not surprised, she was utterly dismayed. She had known - they both had - that some of the early months of marriage would be ceded to this dynastic struggle. It had been a sacrifice happily made for the opportunity to face the trouble together. It wouldn't last forever, after all. But this? This could be five years of youth utterly wasted under the thumb of the cruel Lady Goneril. Georgiana herself knew she would feel the loss of her family and friends keenly - for her aunt-in-law could hardly be a liberal guardian - but Tybalt? His aunt despised him, and he believed her guilty of murdering his grandfather. It would be barely short of torture for him to be at her mercy. How would she ever keep him from snapping under the strain?

"It's the only choice we have," he said. His shoulders were sunken and his expression miserable. "My sisters are both expecting, and if they weren't, Goneril would still have to come through me to get to them. Even if Lady Iden was stupid enough to accept Puck, no-one wants the Fae involved in our business. Your brother doesn't have the name, and your family line is on his shoulders, Will aside."

"You're right," she conceded. It seemed somehow wrong to her that both sides should offer up men, when they were not of the dominant sex in their families. She could hardly imagine two male-line families offering up their sisters or daughters. Yet, politics did not change the ways of reproduction or common instincts. Tybalt would always want to protect his sisters, and Georgiana would always want to comfort her husband, even if it was so very difficult just now. "I can't say I'm happy to hear this, but it does seem the most logical course." When she touched his shoulder, she was not surprised to feel an unsteadiness. "But there is still much to be hopeful about, dearest. We are on the side of good, and my brother thinks we are also on the right side of the law. More likely than not, Juliette will prevail and no harm will come of this. And if it does, we will endure it together."

Before meeting Georgiana, Tybalt hadn't paid God much attention in a long time. After, he had many times prostrated his soul before that omnipotent bastard in the sky, bargaining it away for her love. Praying had actually accomplished something, to his shock. Tonight, feeling the pain of irony in his gut, he realized it hadn't. God was just playing a goddamn trick on him. Tybalt had gotten everything he wanted and still had a primal instinct to piss it away for blood. "You aren't part of this bargain, Georgiana."

Her touch hardened to a grip. "Yes, I am," she insisted. "I will be. Your aunt isn't God. She can't-"

"She'll have her claws in you over my dead body!" At last, he looked at her, and he saw just what he expected: fire and ice and fear. "We aren't surrendering if Lady Iden sides with her brother's future mother-in-law," he spat. Tybalt had been unmoved by his brother-in-law's lecture on the inviolability of a betrothal contract with the Church or even his sister's suggestion that it might be a novel way to control Goneril. "When Regan and Goneril go too far, I'll be as closer than any spy or assassin could hope to be. I'll be the one there, I'll know what's happening better than any of you could, and so I'll stop them. My life will already be forfeit if we act, which I can't do, which Jule couldn't do, if you are there!"

Unwelcome anger surging through her blood, Georgiana jumped up off the bench. Better the energy go to her legs, she thought, than come racing out across her tongue. "Do you honestly think I am so much more precious to your sister than you? Juliette adores you. You know she does, You can't expect that she would ever ask or even allow you to... to..."

"Not right now," he conceded as he stood, "but later? If the time comes? Jule and Hermia and I were born into this family. That means something. It's meant something for generations, and we all know it must continue to mean something. We cannot be the generation who loses it to a pair of vicious hags who don't know better than to burn it to the ground! We might not even be able to communicate, but if we can, Jule will see reason and let me act, if it's for the good of the-"

"What good? What good comes from a death?"

"One life is lost, but the family - it's wealth, it's stature, it's honor - is saved. The family lives on."

"That isn't a family! That's a name!" she cried, flesh quaking. "The name is not worth killing yourself!"

"You know it is!"

The hot, anxious tension inside of her snapped. An icy, burning feeling flowed out of its remains, coursing through her veins and steadying her with resolve. "Don't you dare, Tybalt Capulet."

"How is it any different? If not for the family name, for what did your father drag his family halfway across the world and into the pit of Hell?"

"He wasn't seeking out an opportunity to die. He died so the men who wanted to..." Her lips couldn't support the truest words. "He died so his wife and his children could escape from a living, breathing horde of monsters."

That he led them into. Tybalt clamped down on his tongue before the words could fly out, grinding it between his teeth while he fought for something else to say. "I'm not hoping to die, either, but who else is there to do this - if not for us, then for the children who will be born into this? Will and Elna and Lysander and..." And yours, if only...

"You weren't there. That was a life or death situation, and this is not. It just isn't!"

"Georgiana, listen to me!" He took her hand and held it level with his heart. He didn't press it against his chest as he usually did, but held it out, safe and secure inside his. "I need you to listen to me. I know you think my aunts are wicked - even you can't redeem them! But you don't know them like I do. They're monsters, too, as much as anyone else in this world. Sooner or later, it will be life or death. They have no honor, no respect for anyone but themselves - not their own kin, not even their own children. You remember what Jule told the servants and the guards after Grandfather died, don't you, how Goneril would treat them for the crime of working in the house? What do you think she will do to us for rebelling, what that revenge will be? Do you know? Because I do. I know what I would do, if I was a monster like them."

The look in Tybalt's eyes told her she didn't want to know.

"I would kill Fitzwilliam, and Will, and the new baby, and... and you," he forced himself to say over a hitch in his voice, "to get revenge on me and Jule, to show the realm what happens to people who defy me. I would kill your family - the one your father died to save."

Gulping down air, she begged him not to say any more. Her eyes were wet and wide when he made her look up at him. "They couldn't... it would mean war with my uncle. Who would ever support them after that? They couldn't do- they couldn't want that," she tried to tell herself.

"After the fire, Grandmother decided she would have revenge on the Montagues but not go to war. There was little I wanted more then than Montague blood, but she was Lady Capulet. She was the head of the family. So, I shut my mouth, obeyed her wishes, and respected her authority. My aunts? They argued with her constantly and openly - not out of sisterly love, because they had none, but because they were displeased that my grandmother wouldn't exploit her child's death to start an ill-advised war. They let their dissatisfaction be known to anyone who could hear them. They whined about how Goneril's baby wouldn't be safe in a world with Montagues - as if war would be safer - but, beyond some crackpot scheme to make Jule wait on Miranda, they didn't spare a thought for me or my sisters. Regan wailed about the Montagues returning to finish their work in my little sisters' hearing." Never would Tybalt forget the weeks of nights spent half-asleep in a chair in Juliette's room, weapons at the ready, so his sisters could sleep between crying fits. "I overheard her say my mother's death was her own fault, because she was too stupid to take my sisters and flee. My father and I deserved to be left to die for the crime of being men, just like their father deserved to die for contradicting them."

"You... you don't know..."

"Yes, I do, and even if I didn't, it doesn't matter. What difference does it make if he died before they could do it if we all know they would murder their own father to achieve their ends? If they would do that, what would they do to anyone else in their way? You don't think Goneril would get ideas about felling the other houses, about spilling enough blood to make herself a queen? Even if she failed, so long as she loses less badly than the others, she wins in her eyes because she's more powerful than when she started. Or she and Regan will plot and scheme and play games with the lives of everyone under their protection. They killed their own father before going to court to defend their position. What do you think they will do once they're free to do as they like? How can any of us live with that?"

She couldn't answer. Her mind was lost in a hurricane, whipping into that deserted hut in Abbadon's Valley, to her brother's side as he lay soulless and half-dead in Juliette's bed, past the cradle hiding little Will's body, and around to the sight of her disheveled husband being dragged up the stairs of a gallows trimmed with black cloth. There were no words; the panic ejected all reason and reality from her. The air staled, turning thin and unsatisfying. Around her, the cream and pink walls drew closer and threatened to collapse in on her. Quaking and struggling to breathe, she staggered away from her husband and dropped her weight onto the edge of the bed. She wrapped her arms tightly around her torso, hoping to keep her thumping heart and heaving bones inside her.

While her panic marched to its peak, she tried to focus. The fear was inside her. The terror was her own creation. Nothing outside could help her, but nothing inside would hurt her. Her heart wouldn't die of exhaustion, and she wouldn't suffocate. She knew this storm; she had been in it before. It was a cruel but mercifully rare experience. Even as it worsened and worsened, some unconscious part of her knew it would ebb. That instinct did nothing to make the collapse of her world into a ball of crippling fear easier; it was only a promise that this wouldn't be the last thing she ever felt.

Tybalt found himself on his knees when he came back around to the moment. His gray eyes followed her flighty blue pair, searching for some hint. He had pushed her too far, too fast, yes. But had he broken something? Was she in pain? Was she in danger? Only she knew, and she wouldn't tell him. Her eyes wouldn't acknowledge his; she looked right past him whenever her gaze came his way.

And that, he finally realized, was the hint he needed.

Eventually, Georgiana dropped her hands. Her breathing slowed, her mind cleared, and her heart settled back where it belonged. She looked at her husband, who she realized had been kneeling there all along. The poor thing looked sick - wanting to punch himself in the mouth, as she had heard him say before. When the easy but wrong words came to her lips, she swallowed back down and waited for the right ones to bubble up. "You don't have to kneel there."

He stayed. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. "It's happened before, sometimes for no reason."

And sometimes because your idiot husband heaped trouble on you and poured on the poison he absorbed over a lifetime. "What can I do? Is there anything you need? Anything you want?"

She quietly contemplated the questions for a long while before answering. "I need my husband, the one who made promises to me in front of God. I want you to know that I understand what you said, how dangerous this all could be, and that you mean to do good for us all. I also want you to know how much it still hurts that the first solution is the one that puts you in the most danger. Think about how you feel when I let Aunt Catherine make her unkind remarks - and then think about how you would feel if all the unkind remarks were attempts to hurt me physically. That's how I feel." Georgiana drew a long, deep breath and sighed it out. "That's all I can say tonight. I need to sleep."

He waited for her draw her legs onto the bed and pull up the covers before he stood. He might have been content to kneel on the rug a few more hours and rummage through his brain for some shred of an alternate plan, but he doubted she wanted him staring into her back as she tried to fall asleep. Halfway to the door, he paused with an eye to the little bench at the end of the bed but then shrugged it off. He could probably make a run for a-

"I didn't say you could leave."

November 1st

Morning arrived far too early, heralded by a rattling of keys and a gasp from the maid come to revive the fire. Georgiana barely had to open her eyes to ascertain that daybreak had arrived. She shut them again promptly and pushed herself closer to her husband's back and thus away from the waking world. Sleep was scarce afterward, but all the time spent with her eyes closed brought her somewhere calm and quiet, somewhere she could think.

If all Tybalt told her was true-

Not 'if'. If he wanted to lie, you would be happy right now. 

He had told her more than she ever wanted to know, but it was no less than what she needed to understand. It was one thing to attend the domestic concerns so the better-suited could handle the battles. It was quite another to hide from the truth like a scared child. Fear was not shameful, but hiding was. Hiding earned her terrible secrets spilled in the night and a rigid, lonely journey. If she accepted the situation as it stood now, there would be much, much more fear. She couldn't live in either ignorance or fear. She needed a plan - they needed a plan.

What plan? What possible plan?

She didn't know precisely. She knew what was needed: a way to safeguard the family and a way to keep Tybalt safe. The former was absolutely essential to the latter. No-one would be content with leaving the fate of their loved ones to the whims of the cruel, but Tybalt was the most likely to do something irrational. His instincts were not bad, but they needed tempering in such a delicate situation. But how? His temperament was not a secret and neither was the disdain with which his aunts regarded him. Would they not torment or even goad him? Isolation would only help that cause, and what leg would a losing faction have to stand upon to demand cooler heads have access to him?

But how could they not? No, they needed such a plan. It was absolutely crucial.

The others knew it. They had to know it, which made her fearful. Perhaps the better-suited had considered that point and found no resolution. Perhaps she was, in her ignorance or innocence, grasping at straws. Was it at all possible they had simply overlooked the idea?

For Heaven's sake! What could you know that they don't? 

That thought rang true. Someone did have to tend to the domestic, yes, but Georgiana also thought herself the most dispensable in the planning. She was not a diplomat or a scholar or a solider. She had the least experience of all with the politics of the family and with the faction within that was her enemy. To be sure, she had no special skills that could override any of that - she was not a master of intrigue, a strategist, a cryptologist, or any such useful person. What did either Miss Darcy or Lady Georgiana know about political plots and machinations? Oh, to be sure, Lady Georgiana was now part of a family that churned out women suited those tasks, and Miss Darcy had not gone in blind, but-

Could it be? Could it be so simple? 

Tybalt awoke a little while later, feeling warm flesh and a gentle breathing pattern against his back. It was a soothing moment until the demons came roaring back. He remembered her every quiver and every gasp. He remembered how fast his own blood had been pumping, pushing words out of him without even a passing glance at his brain. He'd scared her in a way that would have incited blood lust had it come from another person. Worst of all, he had no relief to offer her. Feeling guilty, he slid out of the bed and, for lack of any other destination, went to wash his face.

Standing over the washbasin, he examined his face in the mirror. He didn't see scars or red stubble. He saw half a man. Until recently, the half was a whole. He was good enough for himself. He wasn't good enough to be everything she needed, and that stung because Tybalt never saw it coming. He thought he had learned his lesson about jobs half-done years ago. The pain of the lesson still wrenched and throbbed in his gut, and he didn't want to think of that, not now. But there wasn't enough cool, bracing water in the world, much less in the refilled basin, to wash away the invading memories.

If it hadn't been for his mother, they would have all perished in the fire. Their new cook, working for the Montagues, had laced the family's last meal with a sedating agent. Tybalt remembered how ashy the overcooked supper had tasted and how his father had reminded him to be grateful to have food to eat. One smart comment later, Tybalt had been confined to his bedroom for the night. With nothing better to do, he had surrendered to his sleepiness. He had woken to an acrid smell and the violent splintering of his locked door. Before he could haul his groggy body over there, an axe had broken through. His mother had been behind it, gasping and crying his name - the same mother who had felt too unwell to eat that entire day. She had carried her daughters out to hide them in the orchard and now broken down his door. They struggled to get him through the hole she had made. Then, his mother had crushed him in her arms. A dreadful groan had cut short the reunion and prompted her to press her weapon into his hands.

The axe had been his a few days earlier, a Christmas present given and then revoked on the same day for bad behavior in church. As soon as he had clutched it, his mother had ordered him to take it with him, to find his sisters where they hid, and to safely convey the three of them to the Manor. She had insisted on returning to the thick of the fire to find Tybalt's father, and none of Tybalt's arguments had swayed her. She had forced him out with an ultimatum: either he went to protect his sisters or no-one would. Tybalt had never revealed that detail to anyone, lest anyone misunderstand or dare to doubt his mother's love for her children. It was her love for him that had shown her the way to make her stubborn brat do as he was told.

And he would have thanked her for it afterward, if the roof hadn't collapsed a few moments after he cleared the house.

He had made the best choice of the two; it just wasn't good enough. Fifteen was old enough to find choices beyond the ones presented. Fifteen was old enough to repay your mother for the trouble of having you in her belly on her wedding day, for not making you a secret and giving you away. Fifteen was old enough to die. Who was to say he shouldn't have? Maybe the sands in his hourglass had simply run out that night. He would never know because his mother had smashed her glass open and given her sands away. Since then, Tybalt had carried the weight of that sacrifice. He had sworn it would matter, that it would ultimately be for something much greater than just-

"Tybalt?"

He could see Georgiana's form through the gauzy curtains but not her expression. It was no matter because he was about to see it for himself. Whatever he was, he was better than hiding from his wife in her dressing room... although perhaps not better than facing her this morning in just his nightclothes.

"I'll be right there."

Georgiana briefly wished she too was dressed for the day when he emerged, but she then decided it didn't matter. What help could her stays and yesterday's gown be? After declining his offer to sit, she began her speech. "I can't go home and be poor, pitied Georgiana today, much less for the next five years. I can't wake up each morning and wonder if this will be the day you fall on your sword, the day Lady Goneril finds an excuse to destroy you, or the day I learn you died some other day without my knowing it. I can't live on tenterhooks. Most of all, I can't live without some say in our fate."

"But-"

"No," she interrupted firmly. "This is not negotiable, and, though I admit I reacted poorly, I did listen to your reasons. And I do understand them. I believe you, and I believe you want to do what is right. I want to help you do that, but I need your help, too. You asked me to be your wife, and you stood before God with me to bind us to one another forever. What happens to you happens to me. I need your word, your promise, that you won't make a mortal decision without me."

Plenty of responses popped into his thoughts - he was protecting her, he couldn't give her a name and live to see it be dishonored, that he was only more motivated to save the family because she was a part of it now - but were pushed down by something stronger. He had no idea how to give her what she needed. Would that the Devil had come up and demanded his soul for her relief; that would have been easy. This? He didn't have a clue how to do it. Goneril would never grant him meetings with all his conspirators so they could decide the best way to destroy her. She wouldn't give him any reliable means of private communication. For certain, she wouldn't give him the luxury of being able to wait for the next scarce opportunity to consult his wife on critical matters. True, he could stand down from his offer, but how much worse would that ultimately be for everyone, including Georgiana? He hadn't been stupid enough to think he wouldn't bring troubles into her life, but he had been cocky enough to think he could fix them.

Wrong again, bastard. Maybe the next one will do better. 

That was a more blood-chilling thought than he had ever had. The selfish part of him screamed that he hadn't come this far to be the dead first husband, he of the five-minute marriage her children by some thieving milksop might never even know existed. A better part of him asked what goddamn good was he to her if he was dead? What if he tried to drag the hags into the grave with him and failed? What if he spent his life on the wrong danger? It could very well happen. He knew himself too well to deny it being a serious possibility.

And what of everything else he was supposed to do for her? What good were vows if he escaped them so soon?

He didn't know what to do.

You're an ass and an idiot, just like you said. She'll believe it herself before long. Might as well own up to it.

"I can't," he admitted to the floor. "I don't know how."

"But I think I do."

His gaze flew up from the floor, just as gray rocks rising out of the dirt looked eternally up to the blue sky above. "How?"

"You could be a spy. You said yourself you would be closer than anyone else could be," she quickly added. "Juliette will need information if she means to keep fighting, and you will need perspective on what you're hearing. Who knows if they wouldn't simply try to goad you with misinformation?"

He shook his head. "Dove, they will never abide me having any substantial contact with Jule."

"Yes, but they won't have a choice when it comes to your wife. It is illegal to interfere with the divine rights of innocent people. What is more sacred to the Church than marriage?" During his holidays from studying at the Académie, her brother had liked to keep his studies fresh in his mind. Georgiana had many times sat across from him with a pile of paper slips, a question and correct answer written on each. Those quizzes might have been primarily for her brother's benefit, but Georgiana had not escaped without absorbing some knowledge. "I think even the law considers it sacrosanct so long as a person is not a criminal. You won't be a criminal, just a ward of sorts, yes? Lady Iden must surely grant us provisions to maintain our marriage without impediment - both in person and by correspondence."

Unsurprisingly, Tybalt had not considered the Church for relief. The Church had the required place in his life but nothing more. As far as he knew, and as far as he trusted how sure his more religious wife was on this matter, this idea had considerable potential - and yet, he saw a fatal flaw. "I'll eat my boots if every letter isn't read by Goneril or Regan."

"Let them try." Georgiana shrugged. "It is no crime to write in a foreign language, which we could do if I teach you Percrian."

"A secret code," he muttered. It would be as good as any, for sure. Percrian was quite an obscure language in Verona, and, if Jule was to be believed, not to be casually picked up. Still, he told himself before he could get carried away, no plan was flawless. "Goneril could find an interpreter. She could even just pay someone to learn it expressly for this purpose."

A light sparked in her eyes. "The Percrians are protective of their language - diplomats and clergy all conduct business in our language so foreigners don't have much reason to learn even standard Percrian. The chance of her finding someone who speaks or could even learn the exact dialect we use would be very small."

Georgiana explained the language's origins. It had started out as a code for small groups of revolutionaries, but as the rebellion against the Old Empire grew, so did the language. Accessibility for both the learned and uneducated alike had been crucial, and so distinct dialects had formed around familiar regional cultures. Each region had required only a handful of rebels able to translate between dialects and pass along what the local population knew. Loyalists and Imperial forces simply couldn't have invested the time to learn every dialect or absorb every culture that had inspired one. "By design, much of the vernacular isn't dependent on common words or roots. My parents, Fitzwilliam, and I all had to learn new phrases after we left Lambton. It wouldn't even be impossible to create a limited dialect of our own - the essentials, at least. It might make it easier for you to grasp, and we would have to begin with phrases no matter what. There isn't time to start from nothing, after all."

In this single instance, Tybalt was utterly pleased to remember how low his wife's intelligence was rated by his aunt and her followers. They would surely connect the unreadable letters to Georgiana's foreign roots; they would just as surely assume it the thin plot of a naive little mouse. How much time would the rats waste chasing their own tails? How much energy would they expend on being vexed to be so thoroughly outsmarted?

"I'm sure," Georgiana added, "that Lady Goneril and Lady Regan would not give up on interfering. After a point, however, I would have cause to go to Lady Iden or to the Church to ask that my rights be enforced. They may perhaps become tired of such meetings, but I shall not, and I will be in the right."

As he had the night before, he took her hand in his and held it level with this heart, but the moment could otherwise not be more different. She looked pleased, perhaps even happy. She wasn't afraid. And Tybalt? He felt more admiration for her than ever, something he had not thought possible, and he felt hope. Just a smirk on his face showed all this to the world. "The sweet dove shows herself a schemer after all."

"It's hardly scheming," she deflected. "There is no trickery involved, just resourcefulness. I am making use of my rights, nothing more. All of us would feel better with regular communication. You would not be isolated, and we would know what you know and how you are faring. That cannot but help achieve us what we would all want: for you to come home to us. Am I wrong?"

"No." He kissed the crown of her head, her soft golden hair brushing his face. "I won't do anything without your leave, Georgiana, I swear it. I further swear I will not always be such a useless clod to you."

"Shush," she gently chided. As echoes of a far-away conversation she hadn't been meant to overhear swept into her thoughts, she closed her eyes tight. "I promise I won't stop you, if it's the right thing. I'll let you go if I must." At long last, she knew what horrible pain her mother had felt in her heart that night. She prayed she would have her mother's courage if the worst came to pass.

"Then you're braver than I am." By the minute, he thinking more of the agony of letting her go than anything else. Rather than wallow, he tried to shift the tone. "If I let a plot of yours fail, I'll never hear all the other ones you are hiding. I can't possibly risk that."

"You surely know I am not hiding anything. Writing letters to your wife is not a scheme."

"It had better be," he countered, angling his lips to brush her ear. "I am far better at schemes than I am at languages. If not for the scheme, those letters will be worthless - unless you have been wanting love letters from an illiterate fool?"

"Not until just now."

"Good."

Next Post: "What perils past, what crosses to ensue"