Adelaide sighed, thinking of the child within her and what might have been if she and Basset hadn’t found this quiet accord between them, this friendliness with moments of blistering light, this comfort with each other, even if nothing was said. She knew full well he would never send her away, but he would allow her freedom to go if she wished it. He made no demands of her, likely never would, and no matter what she did, how she acted, how her temper flared, he would treat her with respect.

He might get a few barbs in, but ultimately, there would be respect.

Was it so impossible for other couples to find the same when they did not marry for love?

“I would have thought having children would bring a couple together,” Adelaide said in a low voice, looking at her friend in some confusion. “My mother… she told me that Basset and I would come together over our children, if nothing else.”

“My aunt and uncle did so, to be sure,” Julia told her, pulling the needle and thread through the fabric with a more steady hand. “They came together and disagreed. They came together and criticized. They came together, well, I suppose they came together to create their children, but other than that, I’m not entirely sure. There are four of them and only one boy, so my uncle probably wanted another, which was why Honora was born. Incomprehensible how they managed it.”

Adelaide frowned, biting her lip, picking up the slippers, then putting them down again. She had questions, and this time, she did not have to wait for an opportune moment with her husband to have them answered.

Pressing her tongue to her teeth, she formulated the question in her mind, then turned to her friend. “My mother told me that being with my husband would be unpleasant, and you said it was incomprehensible that they had so many children. Am I missing something, Julia?”

She knew the question was forward before it came forth, but the widening of Julia’s eyes and the closing of her mouth told her it was perhaps shocking as well.

It was all she could do to avoid hastily apologizing and begging her to forget she had said anything. She needed to understand this now that she knew a little.

A very little, perhaps.

“So you disagree with your mother’s estimation, then?” Julia began carefully, her voice as stiff as her posture at the moment.

Adelaide nodded a rapid series of bobs. “I do. I rather enjoyed it, once I got over how vulnerable I felt. I was dreadfully confused in the morning. I thought perhaps my mother did not understand, or never quite managed the way of it.”

Julia clamped down on her lips, a wrinkle appearing in her brow. “It is fairly straightforward, all things considered.”