Eliza had imagined this very scene so many times, waiting for a cold breeze to stop rattling her bones, her wan face wanting a wash. It was those days that now seemed fantastical to her as she sat in an overstuffed armchair before the fire, unperturbed by the snow that fell relentlessly outside the window. On the hearth rug at her feet, leaning gently against her legs, Henry was absorbed in a book. Eliza, lulled by the flickering light of the fire, had long since closed the book he had assigned her, settling into a comfortable drowsy stupor.

Yes, he flower girl days seemed more like a dream now, an indulgence in unpleasant fantasies that stirred up her squeamishness and made the library fireside even cosier, with Henry's temple resting on her knee. Eliza reached out a slender hand to touch his hair, instinctively, like a contented cat stretching out a leg.

"Not quite asleep, then?" he murmured in tone that told her he was smiling. "I was beginning to worry I would have to carry you upstairs."

"Perhaps I will fall asleep then, just to make you be so obliged," she suggested.

"In that case, I shall leave you to sleep where you sit, and offer no sympathy when you complain of a stiff neck in the morning," Henry declared.

"How very ungallant of you," Eliza rejoined sleepily. "Perhaps I should have married Freddy after all; he would have been glad to carry me upstairs."

"If he could afford a house with stairs, that is," Henry retorted quickly.

"You're very hard on Freddy," Eliza said, seeing that their pleasant banter was turning into a squabble but doing nothing to stop it.

"There is no one more deserving of my scorn."

"It's not that at all," Eliza sat up straighter, her eyes lighting up suddenly. "You're jealous of him!"

"Me?" Henry cried, thoroughly scandalised. "Jealous? Of Freddy? Whatever could Freddy Enysford-Hill have for me to envy?"

"He might have had me if I'd liked," Eliza replied, almost gleeful at her sudden realisation. "And it eats you up inside that I might have passed you over for him."

Henry sprang to his feet.

"That's absurd!" He had worked himself up, his voice shriller with each indignant exclamation. "What have I, a respectable man of learning, ever had to fear from that foolish, useless boy?"

It was an old argument, their different opinions of Freddy, and one which had slipped from their minds over the past few years, but Eliza had happened upon a new angle, and a sore spot in Henry's heart was quickly chafed into fresh irritation. Eliza continued to tease him mercilessly, leaning forward in her chair.

"You had everything to fear—you might have been condemned to loneliness by him, robbed of someone to teach and scold and order about."

"What are you playing at, Eliza?" he demanded.

"Admit that you were jealous."

"I shall not!" he snapped, quickly adding, "For I wasn't!"

Eliza bit her lower lip and narrowed her eyes at him.

"You must have been, imagining me fetching his slippers for him. Who would have fetched your slippers?"

"I could have fetched them slippers myself!" Henry bellowed so adamantly that it took him a moment to realise his error. Eliza felt herself to be triumphant, but was shocked into silence by that one word, as though it had been an unforgivably odious curse thrown at her.

Henry was silent as well, looking down at the carpet as a faint flush spread across his face. He cleared his throat quietly and stepped gingerly to her side. Eliza moved only her eyes to look up at him. Without a word, he bent over and slipped one arm around her back and the other beneath her knees to lift her out of her chair.

"You're looking rather tired, Eliza," he said, bearing her towards the stairs. Eliza, giggling into his shoulder, allowed herself to be carried upstairs.