Alasdair pulled down the sash window in his own compartment and stuck his head outside. A rush of cold, smutty air hit him and he closed his eyes and let the rain fall on his face.

A week had passed since he had gone to the hospital and if Verity still lived, he did not know. This not knowing, it was an iron hand at his throat, its fingers slowly squeezing.

And three days had passed, too, since Eleanor had flung her accusation at him and he had countered her with his own accusations. There was no part of that encounter he wished to relive. That his wife knew of his most private dealings with Verity—his love-making! It was horrifying to him.

As horrifying as knowing of her liaison with another man.

And this astonished him! That he had, at last, found the courage to charge her with it and her deceit, a thing he had nursed and carried in his heart for eight months, was finally made real. It seemed incredible to him that he no longer bore it alone. That she now must assume the burden.

But she had not assumed it. Eleanor had denied it with a vehemence and a simplicity that had shaken him. He had long ago abandoned the possibility of her guiltlessness. Now—

He pressed his hands into his eyes to scour out the image. This new burden. A groan escaped his lips, to be whipped away by the wind.

It could not end well and this extended train jaunt into the interior was merely putting off what seemed inevitable: there could be no happiness for any of them.

He was stunned for a time at this revelation: that what he sought was happiness, a thing so intangible, so elusive, he had hardly believed in its existence before. Now he sought it with all his being but in the bitter knowledge it was denied him.

He opened his eyes to utter darkness, no light showed. If there were settlements out there no lights burned, and the cloud cover meant no moon and no stars. A perfect void. The rattle and hiss of the steam engine and the straining of the wheels and the couplings as the train negotiated an incline filled his head, the smoke filled his nose and his eyes. He slammed the window shut and sat on his bed.

He knew he would not sleep.

Their train was due in to Junee at two in the morning. They would be met at the station, have an early breakfast and go directly to their first engagement. It seemed monstrous, this two am arrival. If one was arriving somewhere at two in the morning one at least wished it to be Berlin or Vienna or Geneva, not this unknown place, this Junee.