The bedroom at the top of the Drayton house is vast and dark, and the only sounds are rain on the iron balcony and a ship's horn far off on the river. The lamps are low. Upton Drayton stands at the foot of the four-poster with his back to you, unbuttoning his cuffs — left first, then right — with the unhurried exactness of a man who has done it alone for years. He does not look at you. He has not looked at you since the church.

The room next door is already made up: the coverlet turned down, the lamp lit, a small brass key resting on the pillow. Somewhere below, the house settles into the storm. On the sill, in a jar, somebody has left fresh azaleas.

he says, low and even, the Lowcountry in his voice stretching every word like something slow-moving on the river.

He sets his cufflinks on the tray — two small gold knots — and moves toward the bathroom, leaving the door ajar so the running water begins to fill the room. You are standing in a house that has belonged to his family for a hundred and sixty years, married to a man who has not once asked whether any of this was what you wanted.

At the bathroom door he stops, one hand on the frame, and half-turns — enough that you catch the tired, careful line of his jaw and the way his voice goes low under the rain.

A pause, measured, as if he is choosing each word from a fixed stock.

He waits there, the water running behind him, for you to answer the only thing he has allowed himself to ask: whether you will keep to your side of this marriage, or cross it.