Snowbear

A Mansfield Park and Pride & Prejudice fanfiction

Chapter Seventeen:

Waking a good twenty minutes prior to the customary servants' knock which alerted guests breakfast would be served presently, Fanny lay very still at first, blinking over at the marble wash basin a few feet from the bed and trying to remember what happened last night.

She had a bleary recollection of Tom waking her before he left and talking to her a little, but not of what he'd actually said.

Peeling back the blankets, she discovered herself to be still unclothed, and that was when it all came rushing back – the ball, the waltz, Tom's tender attentions to her, his taking her apart and leading her back to their room and...

Fanny froze, petrified, and gulped. "Merciful God," she rasped, eyes wide; "what did we do?"

She knew it wasn't wrongdoing in any legal sense, them being man and wife made it quite as safe an indulgence as waltzing had been, but only now did it occur to her to consider – under all the odd feelings and the utter strangeness of last night – it was still her cousin Tom Bertram.

For an instant, she wished Edmund were here in London to ask, because her favourite cousin always had the best reasoning when she questioned – when she doubted – herself on any moral level, never untruthful but kind enough not to be too harsh with her even if he felt she was very wrong, so many years he had been her most prominent guide outside of herself. But habit, rather than sense, had made her wish for him, and she immediately felt unwell and thought Edmund the last person in the world she could ever speak of what happened last night between herself and Tom to.

But it had not been an ugly thing.

If she were being honest, she must admit to herself she'd taken pleasure in nearly all of it, excepting the unavoidable awkwardness resulting from its novelty, from a lack of experience they both shared after a certain point.

As it came back to her, she coloured vividly, self-consciously remembering her own involuntary sighs and moans as he had...

Had she, Fanny fretted, behaved as badly as Maria, who'd, so unresisting, let Mr. Crawford touch her during the Lover's Vows rehearsals?

Well, to be sure, Fanny was not engaged to anybody, and Tom was her legal husband – it would have been very wicked indeed had she let another man take her away from the ball and into a bedroom...

Only, what plagued her was how she'd felt – the sudden intense attraction to Tom – and the worry that had he not been her husband she might still have been tempted.

Henry Crawford, as a man, Fanny had never liked at all, even after Julia and Maria decided to change their minds and declared there to be nothing plain about him. Any temptation she had had to accept him, before Tom's idea and the notion of her ending his curse were introduced into the matter, was all due to what she knew she ought to feel. He had done a great favour for William; he was a man of means and she was, if not penniless, still the furthest thing in the world from an heiress, from having twenty thousand pounds as his sister had; gratitude was supposed to make her love him.

If his character had not unsettled her, she would have wished, perhaps, for a magic spell to make her love him instead of Edmund.

Certainly, it would have pleased her uncle.

But Tom...

Although she had never dwelt upon such thoughts before, not in any meaningful way, Fanny realised she must now admit she'd always considered her eldest cousin to be a most handsome, agreeable gentleman.

Even with half his face covered by a mask, anyone could see – despite his most languid moments – how well he stood, how he carried himself.

His selfishness and fondness for being away from home in the past had made it impossible to love him as more than a cousin, to respect him as more than the future owner of Mansfield Park, and Fanny had long imagined, wholly taken for granted that, such feelings as felt in childhood must be set as they were from the start for her whole life.

Last night, however, she had found him more than merely agreeable.

But if all the difference between herself and Maria was simply a matter of taste in men, rather than being built upon any sort of real morality, what did it say about her?

Only, Maria had known what she was doing at the time of the play was wrong – she must have known it to be a wrong against Mr. Rushworth, if nobody else. Fanny was at least uncertain if what had occurred last night was wrong, and there was nobody but Tom and herself to be hurt, if indeed it were. And, with all fairness to Maria, Fanny doubted, in her cousin's case, it had gone far enough to be worthy even of the comparison.

Poor Tom, though!

If she were so confused, surely he must be suffering as well.

Supposing it was only the wine at the ball and the repeated exposure to laudanum which made him act as he had last night and now he regretted consummating his marriage of convenience?

Yet, what if he really loved her?

Stretching, feeling unfamiliar aches, she began to sit up in the bed and pull the blankets – as well as the linens tangled about her legs – all the way off herself.

She needed to dress and wash her face, then she could think clearly.

Sometimes a small surprise is all it takes to distract from lingering doubts, and Fanny discovered one in the peculiar fact of there being blood on the linens.

Furrowing her brow, she tried to count back in her head. She was fairly certain her courses weren't due yet, had not expected to have them in London at all because, being in town only for the week, she'd anticipated being home in Mansfield again well before that.

For some reason, Fanny felt mortified at the thought of the servants cleaning up the soiled bed linens, as well as a little guilty to have ruined something belonging to the Bingleys in the first place and tried to come up with a good scheme for, perhaps, cleaning it herself and avoiding troubling anyone else.

She could offer to pay for them, to replace them if the stains didn't wash out.

Except, how would she know if the stains would wash or not, if she were too ashamed – the whole reason she was taking such pains – to allow the maids to see them?

It would be unsanitary to wash them in the basin for her face, and not enough water – and not nearly as hot as would be required – besides.

There was the tub for guests' use, in one of the adjoining rooms, but that, too, would require the maids bringing up hot water to fill...

She could say she wanted a bath, hide the linens away until then, till they'd got the tub filled with steaming water, and after that no one would know what she used the water for if she were discreet.

But one of the maids would surely return to offer to help her out of the tub and then they would know she was never in it herself.

Besides, what if whichever maid remained – while she was allegedly bathing – decided to see to the bed until they were required to assist her and discovered it stripped of linens already?

Moreover, it would be thought extremely odd for her to want to bathe, to luxuriate in streaming water, in the morning while everyone else, by then, would be downstairs having breakfast.

That would be bothering people and upsetting their routines as badly as anything else...

This wasn't a country estate where she could hope to smuggle the linens out to a well by a side door – she'd simply be on the street, the minute she stepped outside, holding stained bedding in her arms.

Water from a country well would be cold unless she heated it over the fire first anyway...

She dithered so long, uncertain what to do, feeling more and more as if there were no proper solution to be had, calling, a little hoarsely, "Pray, forgive me, I'll just be a moment," to the knocking servant several times – without realising how many times she'd done it – until a rather mystified Bingley, thinking it unfair anyone in his house should have to go without their breakfast, finally sent his wife to see if she was all right.

She was biting her lip and almost in tears when Mrs. Bingley knocked – far more softly than the servants had – and asked to come in.

Grimacing and apologising both for missing breakfast, subsequently calling Mrs. Bingley away from her breakfast in so doing, and for wearing nothing but a dressing-gown, Fanny hurried tried to explain her dilemma.

"I wasn't expecting my courses yet" – she blushed – "and I felt dreadful about ruining the linens, you see..."

"Oh." Glancing from the aforementioned linens to Mrs. Bertram's scarlet face, and then to the rumpled blankets on bed, her eye landing at last upon the white ballgown still in a heap on the floor, Mrs. Bingley began to form an idea of what had happened. "Oh, you poor dear; put those down." Jane came over and uncurled Fanny's cold, tensed fingers so she could let go of the linens. "It's all right – Mr. Bingley and I don't care a fig about those, you've got yourself frightened over nothing; they get replaced with new ones every few months and then the servants take them to their homes."

"I-I didn't know," stammered Fanny, stupidly.

"Mrs. Bertram," she said, turning a little pink about the cheeks herself, "I do not think it was your courses."

"But–"

"You're the eldest girl in your family, aren't you?" Her tone was sympathetic. "Mothers forget to mention it, to explain certain things to us first-born Misses sometimes." She moved a lock of hair – a twisted tangle of gold curls – off Fanny's shoulder and set her own small, white hand there reassuringly. "And Charles has told me you were quite young when you left your mama."

Fanny's lips parted and she stared back at Mrs. Bingley, who she was still rather in awe of, as if she were a materialized angel or strange bird declaring some message which was utterly indecipherable.

"Was last night...?" Mrs. Bingley asked, dropping her gaze a moment. "Was it your first time with your husband?"

Slowly, Fanny nodded, chin quivering.

"A little blood is normal after the first time," she explained. Then, seeing how pale poor Mrs. Bertram had gone, added, "It does get easier, I promise."

Her kindness overcame Fanny's immobilizing shock at last, and a few tears escaped her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

"Charles is exceedingly fond of Mr. Bertram, you know – he's a good man."

"He is very good," she croaked, sounding raspy and far away, not quite as if she were speaking to Jane so much as to herself. "I am lucky to have him for my husband; I'm most grateful for him."

"Everything will be all right." Mrs. Bingley put an arm around her. "Come, let us get you dressed and down to breakfast. Mr. Darcy – you'll remember him, you danced with him last night – has already had his breakfast and gone, but Charles' sisters are with us today – I don't believe you've met them yet."

"Thank you, Mrs. Bingley," she said, after a long pause while she meandered behind a screen and watched through a small wooden chink as Jane – shyly seeking to be usefully employed – walked over and picked up the ballgown off the floor, shaking it out and folding it neatly over a chair. Discovering the chain and cross underneath, she – after running an admiring thumb over the amber and remarking to herself, "My, but what a pretty trinket this is," – set the necklace upon the seat.

"You might call me Jane, if you like; we're nearly sisters," she called to her. "Tell me, would you think it very presumptuous of me to call you Fanny?"

"No, I should like it very much if you did," said she, stepping out from behind the painted screen wearing one of her better casual daytime dresses brought along from Mansfield.

"Would you like me to help you with your hair? I used to help my sisters with their hair all the time at Longbourn; I'm very careful."

Conscious of what a tangled mess of matted curls her hair currently was, Fanny breathed, "Oh, yes, please. If it wouldn't trouble you."

There was nothing to alarm Fanny at breakfast. Even Mr. Bingley's rather haughty sisters, Caroline and Louisa, both bearing unimpressed expressions not dissimilar to how the maid-servants at Mansfield first looked at her when she'd arrived as a child, did not cause her to shrink back. They were icily polite, and took very little notice of her, perhaps because they judged her to be Mrs. Bingley's friend and meant to slight their brother's wife by their disinterest in her, and subsequently – after being polite back to them and learning that Louisa was married and Caroline, the prettier and steelier of the two, who had flame-red hair like her brother's, was not – turned her attention to a little niece of one of Bingley's other friends, a girl of no more than twelve, to prevent having to keep looking inward and tormenting herself about the previous night.

Louisa – Mrs. Hurst, as most of those at the table called her – did not think the girl ought to be sitting with them at all, since she was not out; her brother reminded her a causal breakfast amongst friends could hardly be called 'dining out' or be considered a breech in etiquette for an innocent child.

"Even Darcy did not mind her asking him questions when he had his breakfast an hour earlier than the rest," Bingley said cheerfully. "And you know he is uncomfortable with children and a stickler for propriety. He doesn't care for children in general, though I daresay he will like his own when has got them at Pemberley."

"Charles, it cannot be right to subject your guests to being a child's diversion," put in Caroline, with a tilt of her head towards Fanny. "Mrs. Bertram does not wish to play at governess instead of eating her breakfast. Is it not so, Mrs. Bertram? Wouldn't you rather eat in peace?"

"I do not mind," insisted Fanny, feeling sorry for the girl – she was not an especially timid child, not like she herself had been at her age, but she had turned very red at all this talk in her disfavour. "I have younger brothers and sisters – and I had kind cousins who were forced to stop what they were doing and secure my happiness at mealtimes when I was the youngest at table." The plural 'kind cousins' might have been a stretch, unless there was a second Edmund somewhere in existence nobody knew about – Tom, Julia, and Maria had certainly never done anything of the sort – but Fanny was determined not to give any hint of familial vulnerability in front of this cold, proud woman who had all of her brother's natural beauty but none of his natural affability. "Besides, I find I like to talk with her and look at her."

"Yes," said Mrs. Hurst, "your cousins must have been very kind indeed – though, it is only natural your uncle would insist upon their being so, if he meant to bring up a wife for his eldest son."

Fanny's cheeks heated and she was about – through blood-drained lips – to say, to say, she was not sure what, for she had at last been provoked, and surprisingly not by the sister she most expected to manage it, when the little girl at her side put her hand over hers so gently her sudden anger melted away as quickly as it had come upon her.

After the meal was cleared away, Fanny found herself playing with the child, chasing her as much as her limited energy would permit about the house, straight into the library where the girl laughed and squealed and ducked behind chairs with cries of, "Can't catch me; you can't, can't!"

But Fanny was still some ways off when this delighted cry was first uttered, for the girl was stronger and faster than her, and it was not Fanny who answered.

A small man who had been reading by the nearest window rose from a chair and glanced at the child with an air of frustrated disdain – at only a dozen years, she was too young yet to have piqued his genuine interest rather than be an encumbrance – before he perceived who it was she was playing with.

Quick as anything, the girl was bribed with gingerbread to make herself scarce, to quietly take herself apart, and it was not a giggling child who greeted Fanny when she came to peer behind the furnishings, breathlessly calling for her, but rather –

"Mr. Crawford!" She put a hand to her heart, nearly convinced the shock had done for her this time.

She hadn't any notion of Mr. Crawford's still being in the house – there had been no evidence of his being one of Mr. Bingley's overnight guests, he had certainly not been at breakfast – unless he had chanced to take his earlier with Mr. Darcy, perhaps – and yet his clothes appeared fresh and unrumpled, and they were not the same as what he'd had on at the ball last night.

"I've startled you, that was unforgivable, though I beg your pardon for it all the same." He held out a hand as if to assist her; she did not take it. "Pray, let us sit down and talk."

Fanny began to shake her head.

"That shake of the head, no – no, I do not accept it – I can and will, and shall, not." Her lips parted in protest, but he did not give her a chance to cut in. "I want only a word – a quick word, Miss Price, and we shall have done."

"Mrs. Bertram," she corrected him.

He blinked rapidly. "What?"

"You addressed me as Miss Price, sir."

"Ah – well, now you see what silly mistakes I make in my speech whenever I make up my mind to try and avoid calling you simply Fanny, as I always do in my own head." He smiled, all fine, white teeth and disarming dimples. "I do it very badly."

His charm was quite wasted on her, however; Fanny was unmoved. She only wished Mr. Darcy was not gone away so soon and could rescue her from this gentleman a second time.

"Mr. Crawford, please, we can have nothing to say to one another."

"Nothing to say," he cried. "How can you? To an old friend such as myself."

Fanny should have liked to say he was not her friend, had never been her friend, for indeed she had never desired his good opinion, but found – recollecting William and what had been done there – she couldn't say such a thing with an entirely clear conscience, she only stared. She meant her stare to be defiant, but she had had a very poor school for defiance in her life both at Mansfield and in Portsmouth, and it did not come through in her expression which remained soft.

"The matter is, I believed – I wanted to believe, though I scarcely convinced myself, as no woman I could meet in town was equal to a tenth of your merits and virtues – I had forgotten you, made myself indifferent, only seeing you last night–"

"No – don't talk so! Don't! You distress me."

But Mr. Crawford would not be induced to stop until he had said all which was burning within him. "Do I distress you? Oh, we are alike – I distress myself a thousand times over."

He had, Fanny realised gloomily, mistaken her meaning quite wilfully.

"You are not like other women, you have some touches of the angel in you, and under other circumstances – knowing I had lost you in marriage to another – I should be forced to give up hope, for one of 'your stamp' – as my sister would say – could never be induced into what you believed to be wrongdoing."

Her eyes widened – whatever could he be on about? His words seemed to be a bunch of blustery, busy nothings and yet he spoke them as if they were of the utmost importance, with all of his finest skill for speech-making upon display.

"But the Bertrams have made a slave of you – you are their slave as surely as if they had bought you before the abolitionist movement began. I can count only your cousin Edmund as an exception – and what can he do for your happiness? And now, in addition to waiting on the lot of them, you must play pretend wife to their eldest son and waste all your God-given gifts and beauty."

Fanny's teeth were beginning to gnash together; she was growing angry, despite her increasing fear. Her pulsing, hot blood seemed to thrum in her ears.

How dare he! How dare he say such a thing!

And then she thought of the stained linens and the tenderness of the night before, and thought, Mr. Crawford knows nothing of it – he presumed to make horrid assumptions, but there is nothing pretend about my marriage!

"But," she burst out in a raspy voice, mortified, surprised she could speak at all, "what is it you want? You are not clear, Mr. Crawford."

"I know propriety would prevent you from being my mistress in name, since you can never be my wife, which would have been infinitely preferable, but I wished to make you an offer – an offer of chance meetings, of regular flirtation and happiness. All would be discreet, but I would bring you joy, and it would be the completion of my own happiness to know I am the doer of it. As Mr. Bertram's so-called wife, you are dependant, helpless, neglected. See yourself now, in town, in a great house, and where are your real companions? With our stolen time together, you would have a release, you should feel the difference and have always my discreet protection–"

Nearly taking sick before him in her revolution, Fanny began to shake her head vigorously.

"No one," he pressed, reaching for her, "would know."

"I would know," she gasped, repulsed. "I! Oh, never, never!"

"I understand the resistance put up by your gentle modesty and grateful heart" – still reaching for her as she backed and backed, nearly upsetting a low footstool behind herself – "but how can I stand by and leave you as a slave to the Bertrams forever?"

Fanny thought she should be infinitely happier as a slave to the Bertrams – they all might have been a great deal less pleasant to her, Tom grown less dear, and she would feel just the same – than she would have been as Mr. Crawford's wife, with all of Everingham at her disposal.

But at last, she tripped over the stool and Crawford was obliged to catch her by her waist and was not, after, disposed kindly towards releasing her from his grasp.

In spite of herself, a bleating scream emanated from her and Mr. Bingley – hearing her cry out in wordless alarm – happened to come bursting into the library expecting to find some manner of terrible accident had occurred, someone was hurt and bleeding or–

But all he happened upon was Fanny in Mr. Crawford's arms, gone rather limp, her grave face white as paper.

"The lady swooned," Henry said at once. "I thought she would faint. I simply made to catch her before she could fall and hit her head."

Mr. Bingley was not disposed to think ill of anyone and would certainly have believed him, even thanked him for his attentiveness, if not for the smallest, almost indiscernible shake of the head from poor Mrs. Bertram when he chanced to look at her face.

Freed, Fanny sank to the polished wooden floor of the library, tearless but obviously in great shock from which she could not quickly be brought back to her sensible, coherent, rational self.

"Sir," said Mr. Bingley, "I will ask you to leave my house this hour, if you please."

With one last glance at Fanny, hoping she would defend him as a friend if not as a lover, finding she would not even look at him, staring blankly at the dust motes on the other side of the room, no expression whatever upon her face at present, there was no help for his bowing and leaving disappointed.

Bingley would have helped Fanny to her feet himself, but – unsure how far Crawford's attack had gone, what had actually transpired – was a little worried she be driven only further into her state of shock if a man made to grab at her, so he went to fetch Jane. He kept it from his sisters as well as he could, and indeed they showed no interest in all in the goings on of the house when he took his wife apart and whispered into her ear, urging her to come to the library at once.

Fanny was nearly recovered and able to get up herself by the time Jane finally came to her, but she acquiesced to the offered kindness and leaned on Mrs. Bingley all the same, graciously accepting a cup of tea – the steam from which tickled and burned her nose – and letting them settle her in one of the upholstered chairs in Bingley's own study.

"Did he hurt you?" asked Jane, after a few minutes' silence, once some colour was in Fanny's cheeks and lips again.

"No," she said distantly. "No. He did not hurt me."

Mr. Bingley watched from the doorway of the study, observing her condition with anxious flickers of his blue eyes. "Rest assured," he said gently, "after such a display, Mr. Crawford will have no further admittance into this house. Most shocking!"

Wondering if she dared tell, Fanny at last turned to Jane and murmured, "He asked me to be his mistress." Not even that, technically, for there was no real establishment possible in his offer – there was no proper word for what he'd wanted her to be for him.

Well, whore, perhaps.

A doxy, as Tom or her aunt Norris would have said.

"He tried to urge me," she sniffed; "and I refused him."

Bingley, his usually upturned mouth gone very flat and sombre, came fully into the room and crouched sheepishly before her chair. "Mrs. Bertram, as your friend, I would advise you to say nothing of this unfortunate incident to your husband."

She goggled at him, stunned. "Y-you think I ought to keep it from him?"

His expression, free of malice or self-interest, was earnest. "I have never seen Bertram – dear fellow! – look at anyone the way he looked at you when you danced with him last night – I suspect he would hang for your sake. I shouldn't like to see him tempted into rash behaviour over a foolish offer – which was interrupted, besides." He added, then, a little agitated, his expression conflicted and miserable, "Oh, I'm useless as an adviser! How I most heartily wish Darcy had not gone already; he should know what would be for the best."

Jane put her hand over Fanny's. "But I think Charles is right, Fanny. Think how you should feel in Tom's place. If there was to be a duel–"

"Mr. Bertram would never duel," said Fanny, setting her teacup down onto a tray, her free hand beginning to shake too badly to keep on holding it by the handle. "He isn't so foolish." Drinking and gambling were temptations to him, but a duel? No, he wasn't stupid. "And it's illegal, to be sure."

Bingley sighed. "Even a law-abiding man would duel if the cause were important to him."

"You're mistaken," Fanny told them both, looking from the husband to the wife with an innocent, bewildered expression. "You're very much mistaken. I can never be so important to anyone."

"Mr. Bertram loves you," Jane exclaimed. "Didn't you know it? Why, that much is quite plain! And there can be no doubt of your being important to many persons."

"There is no reason to tell him," Bingley insisted. "I believe him troubled enough by his curse without the added burden."

"We know it is asking a great deal," put in Jane, with a sideways glance at her husband, "to keep silent after such a scene – but as friends to you and your husband both, we're only hoping you can be brave for his sake."

There was a long pause, then Fanny nodded. Yes, she could be brave for him – for Tom. It had not gone far enough, technically, to warrant his knowing, if there was to be no good by his obtaining such knowledge, though she was loath to keep such a grave secret from him; she would say nothing when she saw him again this evening.

When Tom first entered the bedroom before they were to go down to dinner, Fanny felt certain some look of hers – some unhappy twitch, made without her conscious consent, or some lingering shadow of sorrow, some extension to her natural seriousness – would betray her.

Indeed, he did halt; she fancied his beaming expression – what was visible in the low light and was not concealed by his mask – dimmed slightly, her anxiety supplying what details the eye could not itself reach, and his first words to her as she rose guiltily from her place by the fire and turned to greet him, were, "Poor Fanny! What can be the matter?" Then, laughing, "Oh, well! I daresay you were missing me a good deal!"

Oh, she realised, caught between wishing to laugh and wishing to cry, he believes my added gravity is all because I was pining for him all day!

She wished it were so! How she wished it!

If she could have begun the day with no doubt, no guilt about the night before, no uncertainty over what they'd shared, what they'd inexplicably become to one another seemingly from nowhere at all – if she had never been in the library and been solicited by Henry Crawford – and his absence was the only cloud over her, she imagined she should be a very contented woman indeed!

Tom strode across the length of the room which was still between them and grasped her by the waist, lifting her and spinning her about before settling her back into place, and she managed a smile before he kissed her.

"Good evening, mousy." He grinned as they broke apart.

This near to him again, close enough to feel his heartbeat through his clothes, she suddenly felt sure he could make her forget Crawford – make her forget everything which transpired anywhere excepting in this one room – and, exactly as if nothing were troubling her apart from his being away so long, she threaded her fingers through his and led him towards the fireplace so they could sit together.

They did not take the chairs but reclined on the rug like lolling children, and well before Fanny knew quite what had come over either of them, most of their clothing was shed and she – her eyes dutifully closed, since he had removed his mask again as well – was lying atop him with her head on his rising and falling chest while he held her and rubbed at the rising gooseflesh on her bare arm.

"There is something," he said, craning his neck slightly downward to kiss her brow, "I need to inform you of, Fanny. I suppose you won't much like it, and that it's ungentlemanly to go back on one's promises, but there's really nothing to be done."

"What's that?"

"I know I told you if you married me and broke my curse, I'd let you go live in a cottage with your brother someday – if it was what you wanted – but, well, dash it all, I'll be hanged before I willingly give you up now."

She rather wished, given the day's events, he had chosen another phrase to express this sentiment, but said nothing; he did not know, after all, and it was her fault he did not.

"Like it or not, you're living with me at Mansfield until one of us pops off, and there's an end to it."

Fanny nuzzled against him and stifled a laugh.

"Of course, naturally, I want you to be happy – so if William ever does retire and you yearn for his daily company, he can come and live with us – I'll give him Edmund's room." He reached with his other hand and began rubbing her chin with the base of this thumb. "But you're not leaving me – not ever – are we understood?"

"Yes," whispered Fanny, and gave him an agreeable little kiss in a space she vaguely judged – guessed, more accurately – to be well beneath his neck but above his chest.

"Yes? Yes, what?"

"Yes, I shan't leave you."

"Oh." He was mollified, his breathing relaxed. "Capital."

A/N: Reviews welcome, replies may be delayed.