It was six years later that the Reynolds Pamphlet was published. On that day, Alexander walked into his house to find Angelica sitting inside waiting for him.

"Angelica," he said, uncertainty lacing his voice.

"Alexander," she replied, standing up to greet him. He looked into her eyes, seeking some sort of sympathy. He found nothing but fury.

"Explain."

"I had to protect my career," he began, trying to get her to understand why he'd had to publish the pamphlet.

"Liar." Her voice was harder than he'd ever heard it. "Your career is in tatters. Your enemies aren't even bothering to attack you because you've already done more to ruin your career than they ever could. Try again."

"I was accused of embezzlement! If I hadn't proved them wrong, they would have destroyed everything I've worked for!"

"Everything we've worked for, Alexander." Angelica's words were harsh and biting. "I had as much part in passing your plans as you did. So do please explain," she continued silkily, "why you didn't wish to consult me on such an important decision, when I was just as vested in your work as you were?"

He began to speak, but she continued before he could get out the first word.

"And before you do that, explain why you didn't even tell me to my face that you cheated on me?" The scorn in her voice was deadlier than any sword. "I found out in the newspaper."

Alexander's mouth was suddenly very dry. He'd never been able to bring himself to tell Angelica, and so when he'd published the pamphlet she still hadn't known, and he was beginning to realize that might not have been the best course of action …

"I … I didn't think of it," he stammered.

"That's not why. You didn't tell me because you're a coward." Angelica's voice was sharp enough to cut steel. "You fought in the war, and you were still too much of a coward to tell me to my face what you'd done. Now, you have one last chance, Alexander. Tell me why you published that pamphlet."

"I had to! It was the only way – I had to protect my legacy. They would have charged me with embezzlement, I had to write my way out!" It had been the right decision, he was sure of it, and Angelica couldn't convince him otherwise. She would come around, he was confident. It was just a matter of finding the right argument. "You swore you wouldn't get in the way of my ambition, Angelica!"

She slapped him across the face, hard.

"How dare you use that as a defense. How dare you even try to defend yourself with that," she hissed.

He shrank away as his face began to sting. "Even if I assume the counterfactual fairy tale that this idiocy does anything but burn your reputation and ambition to the ground, I see no reason why I am still bound by that promise. Or don't you remember what you promised me in return?"

Angelica stepped closer, face inches from his. "Did you stop to think once, about what this would do to my ambitions? I can see by the look on your face that you did not. If you were wondering, then do allow me to explain. In the social spheres in which I operate, and in which my ambitions lie, everything – everything – depends on reputation. Since you published your affair, the vultures have already begun to descend. I am an outcast. The woman who couldn't even control her own husband. And not one time before you published that pamphlet did you stop to think about how you were breaking your own promise. Though I suppose you were too busy breaking your wedding vows to notice." The disdain was dripping from every word she spoke.

"But I understand, now, why you published it. I probably should have seen it sooner."

Alexander felt the beginnings of hope stir, that Angelica might finally have understood.

"You wrote that pamphlet because you're a selfish, insecure child who never learned how to take a hit. Someone makes an accusation against you, and you just have to prove them wrong, with no thought to the effects your actions will have on yourself and anyone who cares about you."

"It's not like that!" Alexander defended himself automatically, although doing so probably only made things worse for him. "It was a sacrifice! You've never had a career, you don't understand –"

"Stop."

Alexander felt his mouth stop moving of its own accord, as his mind continued to rage.

"We're done."

Angelica stepped back from where she had been standing, uncomfortably close to him in her fury. She shook her head slowly, disappointment and disdain plain on her face. When she spoke, her words were softer, calmer. "Just answer me one last question, Alexander." Her eyes searched his, as keen and perceptive as ever. "Why didn't you just take a break, the one time I asked it of you?" Hints of desperation began to tinge her words, and she spoke almost pleadingly, more emotion slowly creeping into her voice as her control wavered. "Why is it you could say no to me, say no to Eliza, and not say no to Maria Reynolds?"

He flinched when she said Maria's name.

Pain entered her words as she continued, voice still quiet, though rising in intensity. "Was I not enough? Was that it?" Suddenly she was almost shouting. "Why! Answer me!"

He stammered in response, mouth very dry. "No – no – it wasn't that. It was never that!" Now Alexander was the one who was pleading, begging Angelica to understand, unable to defend himself against this new attack. "I missed you, I was alone and I missed you and so I –"

He was interrupted by Angelica's derisive laughter. "I'm sorry, was that supposed to make me feel better? 'I missed you so much that I cheated on you with another women'? How touching."

She stepped back from him, face showing nothing but disgust. Alexander stood before her, silent.

"Leave."

"What?"

"Leave," repeated Angelica. "You forfeited your right to this house when you brought Maria Reynolds into our bed."

He flinched again, as Angelica spat out the name. Nonetheless, he managed to force out a few words.

"Where will I go?"

Angelica's laugh returned, cruel and utterly humorless. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as she considered her next words. And in Angelica's mind, the last restraints fell away, because Alexander was being so obliviously stupid, and had refused to even admit to any wrongdoing. He had shown himself unworthy of the least pity she might have bestowed him. She turned to her cruelest, most vicious attacks, words designed to rend and tear, words that she had always been too kind or too controlled or too empathetic to use. Now, she was only furious, and she was done holding back.

"You mean none of your friends are sympathetic? What a shame. If you can't afford a house on your own, then maybe you should go asking on the street. Pass a plate around. You've done it before. Put yourself at strangers' mercies, and see who exactly is moved to pity by your story, this time around."

Alexander stood stunned. Agonizing ideas raced through his head, following the tracks Angelica's words had laid out for them. That all his efforts to rise above his station had been for naught. That his writing had failed him. That he would have to once again plead for the kindness of others. That he might just fail, amount to nothing, be forgotten to history. They were all the thoughts he never allowed himself to think.

He'd told Angelica about his childhood, but he'd never told her those secret fears. And somehow, she had looked at him and seen exactly which injuries had never healed, exactly where he was still vulnerable. Now she had used that knowledge to wound, to attack him with pinpoint precision and merciless cruelty. He hated himself for how much it hurt, for how shaken he felt in the wake of her attacks, hated himself for the tightness of his throat and the moisture in his eyes.

Angelica's eyes were still fixed on him, pitiless.

Alexander turned and fled. He got to the door in time to hear her final whisper.

"I expect to find your things gone by tomorrow. You'll come back while I'm not here if you value your life."

Alexander returned to the house later that day, when he knew Angelica was out, and found Eliza, sitting in the seat her sister had vacated. He didn't know what to expect. Eliza was the kindest, most forgiving person he knew, and he didn't yet know whether she would extend that forgiveness to him.

"Eliza, I – you – forgive me?" He wasn't sure even in his own mind what he was asking her, whether he meant 'do you forgive me' or 'will you.'

Eliza stared at him, eyes sparkling with unshed tears. "I'll forgive you when Angelica does." Her eyes didn't leave his.

He couldn't move. Her gaze was as paralyzing as Angelica's in its own way, and he stared back, transfixed. She didn't say another word, just looked at him in silent disappointment.

Angelica's words had hurt more than this. She had meant them to, had spent a lifetime shaping words to her will, just as Alexander himself had. But just as Angelica could shape words, Eliza could shape silence. Sometimes, her silence was warm and comforting. Now it hung heavy around him. The certainty that had supported him as he had stood before his wife was swept out from under him by this silence, and it occurred to him for the first time that he might have made a mistake.

Suddenly, he couldn't stand to be there any longer, and he turned away, walking up the stairs to the room he had once shared with Angelica. He found his things already packed and waiting outside the door. He took them without once entering the bedroom, as he knew she had intended.

Then he had to turn back. In that instant, he would have renounced his legacy in order to not pass through Eliza's silent stare a second time. But there was only one way out of the house, and so he crossed the room, moving as quickly as he could. He was halfway across when he heard Eliza's voice.

"Wait."

He froze instantly.

"I've been talking to Angelica." Dread filled him again. "We've agreed that the children don't deserve to suffer for this. Give us the address you're staying at, and the ones who want to will come and visit you once a week."

Silence filled the room again, and he knew he was dismissed. One of Eliza's phrases crossed his mind. 'Look around, look around, at how lucky you are to be alive right now.' He left, eyes never straying from the ground beneath his feet.