Thank you as always for the reviews! Here's a little glimpse of Edith and Anthony alone together. This is the first of three chapters (each one focusing on one of our lovely couples) that will wind things up.

Anthony drives them home as usual. It's not that Edith's not a good driver, as he explained to her years ago after their third date; only that he's not a very good rider. Too much of a nervous Nellie, bit of a control freak. Rather fond of keeping arms and legs intact and trousers unsoiled.

Of course, he didn't say that last part. He'd wanted a fourth date, after all.

They make a brief detour to drop Matthew and Mary at their hotel. Anthony was ready to park in a disabled space and go up with them—Mary is, after all, temporarily disabled—but she waves him off, saying "For God's sake, it's only a sprain. From all the fuss everyone's making you'd think I'd had it amputated at the knee." But her eyes are warm and her lips curve upward. They harden to a determined slash as she maneuvers toward the hotel entrance on her crutches, Matthew following like a blond hen in pea coat and muffler. In Matthew Anthony sees the outlines of his younger self, the man who, twenty-odd years ago, saw nothing to be ashamed of in carrying Maud's handbag for her every so often. He's never felt close enough to Matthew to tell him this, but he does approve of a man who's not afraid to show affection (in a decorous way, naturally) and to take care of his partner.

Anthony's rather amazed that Edith offered a lift at all. Ordinarily he'd have to be the one to do it, else her injured sister and her brother-in-law would be left to navigate the vagaries of the late-night taxicab market as best they can with one of them on crutches. But the desultory talk in the car on the way to the hotel was, in the main, friendly. The miasma of tension that fills the air whenever Edith is with Mary (or talks about her, or seems to be thinking about her) was curiously, and happily, absent. And by God, if they don't nearly embrace upon parting. Well, they look each other in the eye and smile and say with apparent sincerity that they simply must get together again soon, which for them is almost as good as falling into one another's arms crying happy tears.

Anthony sets off toward Belgravia and home. A small smile warms his face as he drives and listens to Edith "prattle on," as she so disparagingly refers to it. He likes her so-called prattle. He's often thought that she would be taken a good deal more seriously by others if she could only believe the truth, that she has plenty of value to offer. He's tried to tell her that on multiple occasions, only to be pooh-poohed. She cranks out those romantic novels by the ream even as she sighs about being consigned to the genre author's ghetto.

Ah, well. Lead a horse to water and all that.

Just now the topic on Edith's lips is not her professional life, however, but her personal one. Her relationship with her sisters, to be specific. "I do wish we could be closer," she sighs. "Sybil and I live in the same city, and the last time I saw her was when she was seven months pregnant."

Anthony does not ask what brought this on; whenever Edith gets a bee in her bonnet, his general policy is to refrain from more than sympathetic hms and prompting ahhs until she's wound down enough to leave a space for him to reply. Then he'll ask a few leading questions.

He asks one now. "Sybil and Mary have always been close, have they?"

Edith nods. "It used to make me positively green when we were growing up." Anthony doesn't need to ask why. He's learned from multiple sources about Mary's utter rejection of Edith during their childhood and adolescence, and what he hasn't been told he's observant enough to infer. This is the first time she's admitted to being jealous of her sisters' bond, though.

She has admitted to him that Mary's current enmity against her is deserved, and why. After the first agonizing Christmas they all spent at her parents' house she could hardly do otherwise. From the mountaintop of relative maturity, Anthony wondered aloud whether it weren't all a bit of juvenile silliness blown out of proportion: so rumors had been put about, so a few people had said some nasty things that weren't true. Edith just gave him a sidewise look and told him he'd obviously never been a teenage girl. But since then he's become better acquainted with the nuances and peculiarities of the relations between Edith and Mary, and realized that Edith's petty crime is not what's kept them from being able to get on. They've always been each other's main antagonists, simply by virtue of personality, and it was just their bad luck to be born into the same family.

It hasn't kept Edith from hankering for Mary's approval, though. It's almost tragically obvious, and Anthony thinks that's half the reason Mary treats her so unkindly. So when she tells him about their breakthrough at the hospital, he is only cautiously optimistic.

"Sounds as though you cleared the air," he says noncommittally.

"I think so. It felt…" Edith gives a shake of her head and a little laugh. "I'm not so naive as to think we'll be best friends now, but it really did feel as though we'd dropped some baggage."

They arrive home, to the delight of the dogs. "Hello, lovelies!" Edith sings out, scratching their quivering heads as their nubs of tails wiggle rapturously from side to side. "Have you been good girls? Have you been on the sofa? You have, haven't you? Who wants a biscuit?" The fat little bodies convulse with excitement and the dogs dash into the kitchen, toenails clicking and scratching on the polished floor. They really are dreadfully spoilt, but Anthony enjoys watching Edith indulge them almost as much as she enjoys doing it. He wonders whether they'd do the same with a child: produce a ghastly little hybrid of Veruca Salt and Augustus Gloop.

Edith shakes the biscuit tin to make it clatter, which whips the dogs into a frenzy. "Does Rosie want a biscuit? Does Gildie?" Officially they're named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but nobody ever calls them that. She tosses the biscuits for them to gulp out of the air, after which they lower their hindquarters to the floor and watch her with expectant eyes. "No more, my dears," Edith says. "The vet says you're too fat as it is."

Tonight they get ready for bed straightaway. Anthony is exhausted: between the baby and the excitement of Mary's injury, it's been an unusually taxing evening. He can only imagine how Edith, who routinely gets up at first light to write, must feel. They settle in, her head pillowed on his shoulder. After a minute she says, "I haven't even asked how your night went. How self-absorbed of me."

He chuckles. "It was fine."

"The baby wasn't too difficult?" Her voice contains a teasing note and her hand steals over to give his side a little tickle.

"Between the three of us, we managed well enough. She's quite fascinating to watch, actually. I daresay she's got more personality than some fully grown people I know." That gets a giggle out of Edith. "I don't remember my sister's children being so interactive until they were older."

Edith gives a light laugh. "Maybe you just weren't paying attention."

"You could be right." A few minutes go by, during which Edith's breathing and her slight movements tell him that she's as wide awake as he is. "Edith?"

"Mm?"

"I know we haven't talked much about it. But a baby… is that something you want?"

She's silent for a moment. "I always thought I would. But then I got involved in writing, and we got together, and… I've always thought you weren't very interested. I suppose the desire to have one has never really been strong enough for me to press the issue."

This describes Anthony's feeling just about perfectly. He wonders how many other unspoken agreements between them are based on assumptions about what the other wants. "But you wouldn't mind?"

"No, I wouldn't mind." He can hear the smile in her voice. "A child out of wedlock, though? Granny would have a heart attack." She's teasing again, though Anthony knows she's not wrong.

"We could get married."

"I suppose we could." She tickles his ribs again, making him jump. "Was that a proposal, sir? As an expert on love stories, I must say that it's not the most romantic one you could have made me."

Anthony laughs. "I don't agree, my dear. We are in bed, after all." He's usually not given to innuendo, but her tickle has become a caress, and it's making him feel less and less tired every moment.

"Well, if things are really about to get romantic, then we're going to have to do something about these pajamas."

He captures her hand before it can start working at the row of buttons down his chest and brings it to his lips, kissing each knuckle lightly. "Do you really want to, then?"

She laughs. "Get married? Or have a baby?"

"Well, first things first." He leans over so he can press his lips to her cheekbone, the corner of her mouth.

"It is about time you made an honest woman of me." She's joking, of course: neither of them has ever been particularly keen to marry, though they're as committed as a couple can be. But somehow it feels different with a child in the mix.

"And don't worry that you'll have to tell your parents I proposed in bed." His fingers tangle in her hair; he is definitely not tired anymore. "I'll do it in the more traditional way at some point." He smiles. "When you least expect it. There have to be some surprises, don't there?"

"My goodness, I may die of the excitement." She speaks in a way she often does with him: indulgent, intimate, making fun a little. I wouldn't want you any other way, that tone says, and if she ever stopped using it on him he should be quite worried about the condition of their relationship. She laughs then and rolls on top of him, leaving him in no doubt as to the present state of the union.

"So," she murmurs, her hair brushing his cheeks as she leans down for a kiss, "I believe we were saying something about romance."