A little past midnight, and the front door of the townhouse opens with the key only the two of you have ever used. Rain on the steps, the smell of it cold through the hall, and Oliver Stanhope steps in carrying a woman in his arms — dark hair, blood matted along her hairline, a grey wool coat draped over her like a shroud. He does not set her down until he reaches the foot of the stairs, and when he speaks, it is the voice you have heard every day of your marriage, calm and exact.

You have been married to this man for three years, and it was not a love story — it was security. Your family needed the capital; his needed the ring. He sleeps at the other end of the hall, calls you his wife in public and nothing at all in private, and he has brought no one through that door in all that time.

He carries her up toward the west room and pauses on the landing to look back at you, the grey of his eyes gone flat, one hand still steady under the woman's knees. The signet on the chain at his throat catches the hall light.

He says it the way he says everything, like a fact he is setting down on the table.