A/N- The persistent angst bug has bitten me again! So, I hope this gets some attention, because reviews are what make me happy.
Marius and Cosette faced each other silently, he in an overstuffed armchair, and she in a straight-backed wooden chair from the dining room. The silence between them was heavy. Cosette's hands, twisting around each other anxiously in her lap, and Marius's tapping right foot were the only movement in the room.
The fire in the hearth popped to fill the void, and an old clock on the mantel ticked on tenaciously. The room gradually darkened. Nicolette bustled in, lighting the lamps for the couple, but the cheerful tune she had been whistling died on her lips, and she finished the chore in silence before exiting as quickly as she could.
The door closed behind the maid, and Cosette spoke.
"I don't want it."
The words did not immediately break the grave silence. A log in the fire collapsed with a shower of sparks. The minute hand of the mantel-clock clicked forward.
After a pause, Marius slowly rearranged himself in the chair. "You know it wasn't your fault."
The baroness immediately ducked her head, covering her face with her hands.
The room dissolved back into near-silence. Marius heard a floorboard creak in the hallway, and he knew Nicolette was standing on the other side of the door, listening.
The unspoken problem was that both knew that Cosette had been responsible. If they had only hired a governess, the baby would have had a more experienced caretaker, and things would have turned out differently.
The baroness had not moved but for the slight heaving of her back, suggesting that she was weeping. Marius heaved a sigh and pushed himself to his feet, crossing the room and kneeling before her. He slipped his hands between hers and her face, pulling them toward his lips. "It won't happen again, I promise. You didn't know any better."
"I don't want another one," Cosette said again, her eyes red and her pale cheeks streaked with tears. "I want it to go away."
"But it's too late for that," said Marius. "And I'm not letting you get rid of it. I'll find a governess myself, and she'll teach you how to do things properly. We won't let it happen again."
Cosette was silent.
"You didn't know any better," Marius repeated. "Neither of us knew."
The old clock chimed the half-hour loudly, introducing another spell of stillness. Marius remained on his knees before his wife, gazing resolutely at her tear-stained face, while Cosette's eyes did not move from a knot in the woodwork of the floor. Deliberately soft footsteps brushed away from the door as Nicolette abandoned her eavesdropping. At last Marius clenched Cosette's hands all the more fiercely and said, "I love you the same."
Cosette closed her eyes, lashes glimmering with tears, and shook her head slowly. "I don't want it."
Sighing, Marius dropped her hands and got to his feet. "Well, I do," he said with soft fierceness, and he left the room.
Cosette remained in the chair, her eyes fixed on the fire in the hearth.