Mrs Grieves & The Abandoned Husband

She lay sprawled on the hot smoking ground, the sword still in her hand. The hilt was hot too, and felt molded to her fingers. But it was quiet now, and that had to be of the good. Her leg ached, but it was the leg that was gone, so she ignored it. The rest of her muscles were singing, the high-pitched song of the battle well-ended.

"You did it." Willow's voice from somewhere above her head; Buffy tried to crane around, and caught an upside-down glimpse of her friend crawling towards her.

"We did it. God Will, that was amazing. I never ever thought I'd get to slay again, especially not like that. The heat that thing gave off was—"

"That was a lot of magic I pulled out of myself. We've never done anything like this before. It was like being inside your mind." She paused, her eyes seeming to give out psychedelic sparks into the soft early-evening darkness. "Your mind's a kinda incredible place, Buff. But I hope we never have to again. Ouch."

Buffy was up on her feet. Woozy, muscles turned into overstretched rubber-bands. Brain burnt. Willow's spell allowed her to accomplish the one thing that was paramount to her at the moment of its casting—slaying the Zorthrax before it pulled half the world into its maw. A slip in concentration for either of them would've been fatal.

The lights of Sunnydale glimmered below as they helped each other down the hill.

"You okay?" Willow murmured.

"This prosthesis still chafes when I wear this shoe, darn it. Why don't you have any magic for that?"

"Sorry. But hey! You got to save the world again. That's got to feel good."

"It really really does. Should we—" A yawn caught her, stretching her mouth as wide as it would go; Willow caught it, and they leaned on each other, laughing. "Was gonna say 'should we get some mochas?' but I think I'm just ready to crawl into bed."

"Me too. Let's go home."

She lay beside Spike in the flickering glow of the candles, the breeze from the ceiling fan making her aware of the heat of her cheeks and forehead. Magic hangover. Not unpleasant. Nothing but nothing was unpleasant right now.

He took her hand. "You looked so happy when you walked in the door tonight, my queen."

"I was. I am. I'd say I wished you were there to see me do it, but . . . I was able to do it because I knew you were here looking after Jem. And . . . and because Willow did that amazing spell, so I could accomplish the one thing that was most important at the moment she cast it." She rolled over to face him, tracing his profile with her fingertip.

"Still tinglin' a bit," He caught her finger in his teeth, gnawed it gently. "Luscious lil' magic hand."

"You didn't mind it too much—not helping me fight? I know you adore a fight, but you adore Jemmie more, don't you?"

"S'true," he said. "Anyway, I knew you wanted to do it on your own. Prove to yourself that you could still slay. Which you did."

"Yeah, I did."

"Things're better now, since you went off an' we brought you back."

"They are. So much." She glowed with the pleasure of this, being with him, touching lightly, talking in the dark. It was so peaceful, not to feel angry, not to feel all bottled up. "Spike . . . I've been thinking . . . about what you said when we had that big fight. About wanting another child."

"Never mind that, Buffy."

"But I do mind it. I mind everything you say, and think, and feel . . . and I'd like it too. I really would."

He was quiet. Then, "Surprised you'd say that. Now, just when you got your slaying mojo back."

"Well, yeah. But I keep remembering how nice it felt, being pregnant. Well, not at the end when I almost died. But that might not happen again. I'd like to have another baby." She sighed. "I wish it could be yours. You have no idea, how . . . how miraculous that was for me, knowing Jemmie was ours. Everytime I look at her, I see you, and—"

He began to kiss her, gathering her close. "Love you when you're like this, all soft an' tender an' girly. Gets me all hard an' ambitious."

"I like you hard and ambitious . . . ."

His fingers slipped between her thighs. She gasped and parted her legs.

"Don't worry 'bout anything. We're all right, we are, the three of us. We're just enough."

"I know, only . . . ."

"You're a good girl. You're my good loving girl. We'll talk about it more, if you want. But fuck me now, yeah?"

She curved against him in the dark, opening wide to pull him in.

Afterwards he held her, his face buried in her hair, breathing his come-down gasps against her neck. She knew he'd fallen asleep when the breaths stopped, and he was still.

Half asleep herself, she let her hand drift south. He'd come inside her twice without withdrawing; she was awash. So odd, so sad, that he could make such buckets of jizz, and all of it empty.

Willow was so powerful now; some of the magical zing still sang through her sinews. Wouldn't it be great, Buffy thought, dozing off, wouldn't it be great if somehow she could make it so they could have . . . just one more, together.

Then the long grass swayed in the soft breeze, and the aroma of wildflowers was ascendant, so rich it was almost unreal, their colors brilliant in the clear light. The coffee gave off its curl of aromatic steam from the metal cup without a handle she held in one gloved hand. Her glove was a tight, delicate one of yellow leather, turned back at the wrist. The wind played again, and she caught another scent, that of her own body, rising up from between her breasts.

She heard the soughing of the fragrant wind in some nearby trees, and the laughter of moving water nearby, and something else—a scratching. Turning her head, she saw that this came from the quill pen moving across the page of a leather-bound notebook, and that the ink-stained hand which held this pen was a man's . . . a man who also reclined in an easy manner, half-propped against a large carpet bag, in a grey suit and a shirt open at the throat, without a collar. His face was obscured by a wide-brimmed, shaggy straw hat; when he raised his head, the sunlight struck the two little rounds of glass before his eyes.

She was startled. The world dipped and whirled again. She blinked, stared. Was this—was this what she expected—?

He smiled, and reached for the metal cup.

"Thank you, my dear. I was apprehensive lest you'd forgotten to order the flask. I can't think after luncheon without my coffee."

"Be—be careful William, it's hot."

He sipped at it, then set it down beside him and resumed his writing. A square glass inkpot set in the grass glittered mightily as the light struck it. Some small books with soft foxed leather covers were scattered nearby, along with the remains of a picnic on a rough cloth near her spreading skirts: heels of bread, scraps of ham, a few tumbled peaches, a dark bottle mostly empty of wine, and the vacuum bottle near to her hand from which the coffee came. Another straw hat lay on the grass between them, also obviously home-plaited, like the one William Grieves wore, except that the brim was circled by a pink trailing ribbon. She had a strange feeling, sort of like déjà vu—but not. It spread through her, like a dream of falling. To shake it off she sat up fast. Her corset creaked.

He glanced up. "All right, sweetheart?"

The warmth of his voice startled her again. Sweetheart. We were never sweethearts, that wasn't what it was about at all. It was about me needing to survive, and him wanting to get over on someone before he coughed his lungs out. But even as she thought this, she felt a leap of pleasure inside at the sound of his voice, his endearment.

It was all so familiar, so safe and comfortable and good.

Wasn't it? Surely. Only—she felt kind of unreal, or not that—too real. Everything was maybe just a little too real. As if she was high.

Bit by bit, her body came into focus. She looked down its length. Her dress, fitted and rather low in the bodice, gave way to a festive amount of skirt, the whole thing a pretty cornflower blue that couldn't have been more different than anything back at Penelope Terrace—except for that eccentrically painted front door, the one that set the Grieves house apart. Her feet were encased in tight brown kid boots with shapely heels, which seemed altogether too restrictive and urban for this place. This place—she looked wildly around again—this was not England. England couldn't have this kind of extravagant light. This blue to the sky that made her feel at once hungry all over and yet deeply satisfied just to be gazing at it.

She didn't know where this was, and she couldn't remember putting these clothes on, or picture the bed she'd gotten out of that morning. Which was—well, it was so strange. Because she knew she belonged here. Everything around her was familiar, and where else would she be but with her husband? How could she feel both completely at home and entirely strange at the same time?

"Do you wish to rise? Shall I help you?"

"N-no."

"Are you done with your studying for now? I should think so. You've been working very hard."

Studying?

Her eye alit on a couple of the books near to her elbow—one was an Italian-English dictionary, and the other looked like some sort of grammar. Oh, of course, her Italian lessons. He'd insisted she learn, so as not to be so helpless with the servants.

"Why not have a little sleep, then?" he suggested kindly. "I think that would be best. The doctor said you ought to be just as idle as ever you can, while you wait for your strength to come back."

She wasn't aware of lacking strength—except that her corset was on too tight, and that made it hard to take a really deep breath.

"Here, darling." He'd drawn a large paisley shawl out of the carpet bag, and was rolling it now into a semblance of a pillow. "Lie back. That's right." He tucked it behind her head and neck. For a moment his face filled nearly her whole field of vision. He looked better than she remembered him in London—why was it that she seemed to have no other mental image of him but that London one?—that was some time ago, she knew it was, only somehow she couldn't get a handle on her memory. He was not so thin, and brown from the sun, the curls that fell nearly into his eyes almost flaxen from the same source. He must not wear that hat all the time. His breath smelled of wine and coffee as he loomed closer, and his lips, when they touched hers, were a little chapped but deliciously warm and pliant. Before she quite knew what she was doing, she found herself kissing him. He responded hungrily. His technique had improved.

He started to withdraw, but Buffy threaded an arm around his neck to keep him. He smiled at her, a smile that was all softness, but which had an edge of anxiety. He smoothed her hair. "How good you are," he murmured, "my little wife. But you know what the doctor said . . . ."

What? Buffy wondered. What had the doctor said? That they mustn't touch each other until the baby came? But she didn't feel pregnant—and why should being pregnant make her any less strong? Of course in those days—these days—everything was supposed to make a girl less strong. So . . . but she didn't feel pregnant.

She tugged him closer. He avoided her mouth this time, and kissed her on the cheek, then firmly withdrew. "He promised us we would have a family, you know, even as soon as the winter after next, as long as we are careful to let you recover from . . . from our disappointment. We mustn't spoil things through impatience. You have shown yourself to be sadly delicate in these matters . . . and are too precious to me to risk."

"Yes, but—" Where had this sudden desire come from? It rushed in on her with all the force and mystery of her confusion at finding herself here, in love with her husband, William Grieves, who had brought her to live in the Italian countryside. This confusion confused her. Where else should she be? Hadn't she long ago gotten used to the idea that her life was here now? That Sunnydale and Spike and her friends were so far off in time that she would never regain them?

She had. Of course she had. The hot sun made her skin moist all over; she was liquid especially between her legs. Liquid and twitchy. She squirmed, panting.

" Prenda un pelo, mia moglie cara," he murmured. A moment later she heard the scratching resume, of the pen against the paper.

She folded her hands across her firmly restrained belly, then, becoming unpleasantly aware of the warmth of the gloves, tugged them off. There, on her hand—was the same ring Spike had given her, when . . . when . . . she couldn't remember when. Spike had never given her any ring. She must've had too much wine, too much sun, to be so mixed up. She tugged the ring off to read the inscription.

The etched script was so flowery it was hard at first to read. W.G. and E.S. My own, my life. 1880.. Well, that was right. Yes, she remembered that. Didn't she? Except she'd expected to see FMN engraved in it. For forsake me not.

"My love! What are you doing?"

Startled, she let the ring fall. It slid off her bodice into the grass.

"My dear! Don't you know that's—what very bad luck—!" He was on his knees now, looking for it with a startling anxiousness.

"It's okay, it's okay, it's right here, Spi—William. I've got it."

He insisted on slipping it back onto her finger himself, and held her hand afterwards between both his own, as if some disaster had been narrowly averted.

"Whatever possessed you to take it off?"

" . . . my hands were sweating. That's all. I was going to slip it right on again."

"My treasure." He pressed her palm to his lips. "Do not frighten me like that again . . . not when I so nearly lost you so short a time ago."

Not pregnant. Not pregnant and not allowed to risk pregnancy now because . . . there'd been a miscarriage. Had he married her, she wondered, before that, or afterwards? Had that been what changed his indifference in London to love? And what were they doing here? Where was his mother? These were things she ought to be certain of. This sudden inability to grasp the basic details of her life terrified her. What was happening?

She remembered then, the time Spike had spoken of something like this. Should've run off with you to Italy, his lungs might've healed there. And she'd told him she preferred him the way he was, after all. Loved him better than she ever could've loved William Grieves, who never did love her at all.

When when when had Spike said that? She could hear him, see him, so clearly in her mind's eye—as if she'd been with him just an hour ago, instead of three years. It was that, three years. She knew it, knew she'd dealt with it, accepted it. So why was his voice echoing in her head right now? Talking in a low fond way about . . . about dancing? She could feel his hand curled round hers, his arm around her waist, she had a slight limp, some slight hesitancy in one leg, but they were moving together round and round the living room while music played, skirting the coffee table and the TV, twirling faster and more fluidly as he murmured That's it, slayer, you're gettin' it. Always knew you'd dance with me like a dream.

Dream. It must've been a dream.

"My dear! What's the matter, where are you going?"

She'd darted to her feet, and was starting for—she didn't know where. Now that she was upright, she could see that they were in a magnificent valley; at their backs were tiers of cultivated terraces, dotted with an occasional red-roofed white villa and lines of poplars swinging in the breeze, and far below a succession of slopes, the blue Mediterranean glittered.

He was on his feet now too, catching at her. "Darling, what is this? Are you ill?"

"No . . . no." She let him settle her again on the ground.

"Did something frighten you?" He glanced around for what it might be.

"No, nothing. William, it's all right. Really, I'm all right. Relax."

He was terribly worried about her, poor man, her constitution beset by mysterious female troubles he couldn't understand, and deprived of the best way he—William—Spike—knew to soothe all trouble between them, interior and exterior. Perhaps, she thought, his anxiety for her health was so severe that they weren't even sharing a bed. No wonder he was so tense.

She reached for him again, knocking off the straw hat, and kissed his mouth, which was hot and coffee flavored.

"My dear—"

She moved in on him, undoing the buttons of his shirt, running her fingers through the silky curls on his head. Must wash his hair in rainwater, came the surprising thought. With her knee she prodded gently at his crotch and found him already half hard. "There's no danger of anything . . . it's the wrong time of the month," she said, hoping he had no reason to know differently.

"But—but Dr Romney distinctly informed me that I mustn't disturb you—"

"I think creating a little disturbance here would be a good idea." She laid a hand on his tented erection. Undid the fly buttons as he made a feeble gesture to push her away.

"My dear—consider—someone might see us."

"There's no one around."

"Someone—up there—" He pointed to indicate the terraces above. "The men who are working amongst the vines—"

"No one will think the less of us." She had his cock now in her fingers, radiating such amazing heat against her palm. Spike's cock was never that, never hot and glowing. Why was she thinking about that now? She was happy here, with him. It was him she wanted, he was the reason she was so flushed and excited. Wanted him more than she wanted to know why she felt so off. Wanted him as if he was going to save her life.

But he moved her hand firmly away. "My dear, we mustn't. I am surprised you would even wish to."

"Surprised!"

He sighed. "Sometimes I forget . . . what it is that you were unfortunately made to be used to, in your former existence. The coarsening influence of—"

"Never mind that," she said. "That's got nothing to do with this."

"But you are a lady, and shouldn't—"

"Shut up," she said tenderly, "and fuck me. I need you."

His whole demeanor changed, brightening like the sun emerging from cloud. "My sweet wife—do you? Do you really?"

"This minute." Buffy tugged up her blue skirts. He, without pausing to question her further, wrestled off his suit coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves. Her white cotton drawers, that modestly covered her legs down past her stocking tops, turned out to have no crotch. Huh, she thought, well, that's convenient.

She was startled now at the intense heat of William's skin, the little of it that was exposed—his throat, where his pulse fluttered beneath her lips, his forearms, his mouth, all further warmed in the sun, and its smell, which was tangy but not, as she breathed it, unpleasant.

"I don't wish to crush you," he murmured, drawing her closer by the hips. "However, I think in this way . . . allow me to lift your leg . . . we may effect . . . the necessary . . . there. How wet you are! You do want me, don't you? Oh —sweetness, is this quite comfortable for you too?"

The corset robbed her of some freedom of movement, she felt a bit like a statue that had been tumbled from its plinthe, but she tugged him little by little on top of her, until she had both legs wrapped around him.

How long had he been restraining himself? She kissed him, over and over, and he gasped into her mouth; she had the odd feeling that he was swimming on her. She flexed around him with each of his thrusts, and he moaned. "Oh Buffy—when you do that—"

"Like it?"

"Your dear quim . . . I am convinced . . . is singular . . . ."

His movements, unlike Spike's, were nearly uncontrolled—this erratic quality could've been annoying, except that it wasn't—the sense that he was helpless against his own desire, against the power of her body, inflamed her. At the back of her mind lurked the misgiving that she was being unfaithful to Spike—but that made no sense. Spike was gone. She'd done this with William so many times already. This was just her life.

Slipping a hand down, she caressed herself, but a moment later his own hand displaced hers. "Allow me . . . I shouldn't like to think you had to perform any of my duties . . . my privileges . . . for me . . . ."

She bucked, ground herself against him, breathing his pungent scent and the sweeter one given off by some blossom they'd crushed beneath them. The breeze sifted her loose hair across her face, and the sun bearing down brought out the sweat under her arms and between her corseted breasts, which felt heavy and full with a need to be touched. There was no way to free them now, and William sucked instead on her mouth, long breathless kisses that brought her, each one, closer and closer to her pleasure.

"How you wriggle," he whispered. "You really do like this, don't you, naughty girl?"

"I do—I do—don't stop or I'll die—!"

She looked again, to find him smiling in his appreciation, his eyes unfocused. "Oh, yes— oh, your dear cunny . . . . spend for me, treasure. Spend for me now—yes—yes—there—" She began to shake, coming with a helpless convulsion.. Then he gasped, seized up and expelled a long groan.

For a few moments they lay where they were, panting and motionless. Birds twittered, and the water plashing nearby sounded so peaceful. Everything here was peaceful. There was nothing wrong, nothing to be anxious about.

He kissed her again, a kiss that replaced passion with satisfaction.

"Are you quite well, Mrs Grieves?"

"I am." Smiling, she ran her fingers through the long curls that surrounded his face. "And I think you feel better now, don't you?"

"I admit, I . . . yes. Thank you, my dear." He paused, shifted to prop himself up on an elbow and look at her. "There is one thing I should like now, if you'd permit it?"

"What?"

"I would ask to be allowed a glimpse—in this bright sunlight—of the source of all my delight—"

With a laugh, she pulled the skirt up out of the way, and parted her thighs. Had he really never looked at her in natural light? This seemed difficult to believe, but perhaps . . . well, perhaps it had been a while.

"You are dainty and pretty here as in every other way," he said, shifting closer. "Do you know," he murmured, bending over her, "that often I dream of you like this? I hope that does not discomfit you."

"No. It's coo—I mean, it's all right. Kiss it, Spike. Go on."

He looked up. "What did you call me?"

She started. "What?"

"I—I didn't quite hear what you said just now—what was it? Was it 'Spike'?"

"It's nothing, it's a—I didn't mean to say that out loud—"

A smile, composed half of shock and half of pride, formed on his lips. "A private designation—? Oh my wife, you flatter me . . . ." Still smiling at this explanation, he lowered his head to do as she'd asked.

When, an hour later, they were climbing the steep path back towards their villa arm in arm, all the things once more crammed into the carpetbag dangling from his right hand, they passed three of the young workmen he'd been worried about, sitting by the trellises drinking wine from a bottle they passed around. At the sight of them, the three rose, nodding and smiling, doffed their caps to her, and said something that Buffy couldn't understand, but which made William blush and hasten his steps.

When they reached the door of what proved to be a far more broken down villa than it had appeared from the romantic middle distance, she asked him what they'd said.

"Nothing my dear, nothing, only . . . they congratulated me."

When she found herself alone in her bedroom, which had a magnificent view of the valley and the sea beyond, but no facilities more advanced than a washstand and a chamberpot under the bed, Buffy's uneasiness returned.

Something wasn't right. She couldn't pinpoint it, but . . .

Only . . . God, it was so beautiful here. The view from the window drew her again. There was such a sense of serenity, and order, and the kind of beauty that just made you stop and stare and wonder how it could possibly be. How lucky they were to be here, away from foggy dreary Penelope Terrace! The late afternoon sun threw long purple shadows behind the trees and trellises, tinting everything in shades of gold and pink that seemed to sizzle at the edges. This was Italy. She'd always wanted to come here, and known she'd probably never get a chance to see it, never be able to get away from the hellmouth and travel like a regular person. Until she got thrown back into the past, and . . . there it was again. She must've lost some time. Because she remembered London, the ugly things that happened there, and she didn't remember falling in love with William, or marrying him, or making the journey to this villa. Couldn't remember the events he'd alluded to just now—a miscarriage, was it? Yet he was her husband, she loved him, knew he loved her just as she'd known that Spike loved her. And they could lie out in the sunshine and pleasure each other and no one caught on fire. What she didn't know—vanished from memory as if she'd never known—was how it came to pass. She looked around for clues. The press contained three other dresses of similar cut to the one she had on, one a soft rose pink, the next a pale fawn shade, and the last a delicate yellow. What a far cry from all that crepey, ill-fitting mourning she'd worn in London! There was a traveling suit in dark brown tweed. An evening frock, too, in tea-colored satin—no, it was a wedding dress. She pulled it out. The skirt hung in loops and bunches—there had to have been a bustle underneath to make sense of them, and there was a train with seed pearls sewn to the edges, and the waist was so tiny that she couldn't imagine what sort of corset she'd been squeezed into to get it on. Unlikely that she'd been pregnant when she wore this—unless wearing it was what killed the baby. Buffy dug deeper. Besides the dresses she found undergarments and nightgowns, all handmade and trousseau-ish, with her initials worked in tiny embroidery stitches: ESG. Who'd made them? William's mother? She couldn't imagine she herself had had anything to do with these delicate constructions. When she'd gone through nearly everything in the room, she realized what she wasn't finding. Stakes. Crosses, holy water, swords. Wasn't she the slayer? She felt like the slayer—all the power of her calling coursing through her the same as always. She'd have to figure that out later.

A little box on the bedside table divulged, besides some neglected-looking jet earrings and a mourning brooch, a short string of tiny well-matched pearls and a gold bracelet with her initials engraved on it. Why wasn't she wearing them? She started to slip the bracelet on, then paused. What if these were magical? There was so much she didn't know, that she ought to know. Perhaps they were dangerous. She put them back and went on looking. A small bible lay beside the box, bound in white leather. Inside was an inscription to her from William, on the occasion of their betrothal. When she turned the pages, notes and pressed flowers fell to the floor. More of a place to keep mementos, then, than an object of devotion, which was pretty typical. She'd never been able to take religion seriously. Kneeling, she retrieved what she'd dropped. The notes were all from him.

The first one said:

And the one following:

Reading these, Buffy laughed out loud. Maybe she'd crashed that dreadful party and done something to quash Miss Cecily Addams forever and ever, and he'd been so flipped out and amazed that he transferred all that bottomless devotion to her, installing her right up there on Miss Addams' vacated pedestal. So of course, no more creeping into her bed at night once he'd decided to actually make an honest woman of her.

But . . . the queasy feeling came over again. Party? She didn't know about any party when she lived with him and Mrs Grieves in London . . . she was sure of that. But she knew all about it now, Spike imparting it to her as a great confidence, after she promised never to tease him about it.

Except . . . when could he have told her? It seemed as if . . . no. No. She couldn't remember. Everything was jumbled up. She hadn't seen Spike, her Spike, her home, her sister and friends, in over three years. She'd been removed from it, and placed here, she'd never know why or how, and she'd made the best of it, until . . . until she fell in love with William, and then she was even happy. That much was certain, she was a happy wife. At least, until today when it became so confused. What was this? Spike waltzing her around the living room, she could feel how they'd done that, it was so fresh. They'd danced, and she was afraid because . . . because there was something wrong with her leg, something was missing or broken, but . . . but it was all right. And there was someone else there, someone who crowed with laughter and clapped hands and called them—

"Buffy—! My dear—what's the matter? Oh, I knew we shouldn't have—it was too much for you—"

She was crouched on the cold floor tiles with the bible in one hand and some of the pressed flowers she'd gathered up—crushed and moistened now—in her other, shaking with sobs.

William helped her up to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Darling, do forgive me—my lack of self-control earlier—reprehensible—have I done you an injury?—do calm yourself—"

Shaking her head, she forced her tears back. "It's not that, William, really, it's—it's—"

"Do tell me, sweetness."

What? What could she tell him? "I— I just— I was thinking about our little baby."

He squeezed her hands, unable to look at her. He was blushing; she could feel his sadness.

"William—there's no reason for us to wait any more. Let's try again."

He glanced up. "That's not what Dr Romney said. His instructions to me were quite clear."

"What does he know? I'm well, I'm perfectly strong. And I don't want to be separated from you anymore."

She pressed herself against him, seeking comfort and relief from her mind's turmoil in resting her head on his shoulder.

William's arm went around her; they rocked together. "It isn't natural, is it," he mused then, "for a husband and wife to be apart. Surely that can't be correct."

"It can't. It isn't. Stupid doctor, trying to come between us. Don't leave me alone tonight."

Kate turned out to be a small pale girl who looked at first glance to be about twelve, but proved, as Buffy got a closer glimpse, to be nearer to eighteen. She glanced nervously at Buffy when she came into the room, carrying a can of hot water.

"Were you feeling unwell again, mum?"

"No, not really."

Buffy stayed where she was on the bed and watched Kate move around; pouring the water into the basin, putting out a clean towel, taking up and folding the shawl that was half crumpled under her.

Kate. She knew Kate. Didn't she?

Sure. She had an air of familiarity, now Buffy watched her move calmly from task to task.

"Shall I fix your hair when you've had your wash, mum?"

Suddenly it occurred to her that this girl, her maid, must know what she and William had done that afternoon. Had she been watching from a window, or the terrace? Blushing, Buffy hastened to the basin. When she was seated again and Kate began to comb her hair, the girl said, with an air of satisfaction, "Mr Grieves seemed so very much more cheerful just now."

"He, um, got a lot done this afternoon," Buffy said.

"What shall you be doing tonight?"

This question froze her. Okay, she didn't know much about how servants talked to their mistresses, but wasn't it a little forward, for her maid to ask a question like that?

Before Buffy could formulate a reply, Kate, still combing, said, "I prepared more stakes as you asked me to, mum. I wondered if you were feeling well enough to patrol this night. They are in the box near the door in the garden wall, just as usual. Your stout boots are there too, and I ventured to put your macintosh out as well, in case there's a shower."

"That's good. Thank you. I . . . I don't know if I'll go tonight."

"Very good mum. Will there be anything else now?"

"How many stakes?"

"Mum?"

"How many stakes did you carve for me?"

"Seven, mum, as you asked for. Seven good stout ones."

"I go through them at such a rate," Buffy murmured.

"I wouldn't say so. Of course, when we first came here . . . you said there'd been no slayer in these parts perhaps for centuries. But you cleared them out right quick didn't you, even delicate as you was . . . but then you did say it cheered you up, like, to do that duty well when you couldn't do your other."

"My other duty?"

"Yes, mum. You know . . . of presenting Mr Grieves with an heir." The girl paused in her brushing. "Of course you shall, mum, there'll be ever such a jolly lot of babies soon, and you did promise, mum, that when that happens you'll send for my sister who'll be as good a nursemaid as ever was."

"Yes. Yes, if I promised . . . well, I promised."

"You are so kind to me," Kate said. "To think if I'd never met you when I did—I might've been one myself!"

What? A nursemaid?

Oh. A vampire.

"I feels so fortunate to get to serve you, mum, after you saved my life . . . an' then, in a lit'rary gentleman's household, and in such a lovely place as this!"

"You like it, do you?"

"Oh yes, mum. I miss London, a bit . . . but less and less as time goes on."

"Yes," Buffy said, struggling with the blank in her memory, "Yes, me . . . me too."

She spent the evening losing to him at backgammon. Her ineptitude at a game she had to figure out as they went along surprised him, increasing her sense that she'd undergone some serious change. Maybe she'd had a stroke? Except that she felt perfectly well. So it couldn't be that.

William carried the kerosene lamp to light her upstairs, and paused at the door to her bedroom. He glanced around at the door opposite, which led to his own bedchamber. She'd peeked into it earlier—it was smaller and rather plain, even compared to hers, with a bed too narrow for two.

"I'll wait while you get a light," he said.

"Aren't you coming to bed?"

"There's some work I have yet to do, another hour . . . but I don't think . . . after all, you cannot, after this afternoon, so soon want—"

"William . . . " She pushed up against him, rose on tiptoe to bring her mouth near his jaw, murmured, "When we were first married, didn't we fuck every night? Didn't we do it during the day too?" She was guessing, but knew it was an accurate guess when, in the deep yellow glow of the lamplight he held near his face, she saw him blush. How sweet, how strange, that he was still shy like this, a married man.

"Mrs Grieves . . . when you say that word, I do not know what to think . . . ."

"Yes you do . . . ." She giggled.

"I do not like to imagine where you first learned it—"

"I learned it in school like all the other girls." She drew more tightly against him, bent her leg to press against his. "I know it gets you all hot'n'bothered when I say fuck." She pronounced it so the 'F' was soft as down, the 'K' quiet like the tiny click of the clasp on the backgammon board.

He stiffened, but not in the way she wanted. She'd displeased him. He hated anything that reminded him about her months on the game—and how he'd used her himself, in the beginning. Surprising, how easily she'd forgotten about that time. It seemed so much less important than what had happened before and since.

"Don't scowl at me like that. You still don't understand anything about women, do you? I want you. I don't see why we have to be so shy about it. We're married."

William cleared his throat. " . . . it's just that . . . my dear, a man perhaps likes to coax his wife a little . . . the consummation perhaps is all the sweeter for being not quite so freely given. Even between married people, modesty is a . . . and there is an air of mystery . . . which, preserved, adds an ineffable—"

"William, I don't know what ineffable means. I'm not sure you even know what ineffable means."

"Of course I know what it means! I must say, I do not care to be mocked, in my own home, by my own wife, who is as ignorant and silly a lady as any I ever met with!"

"Oooh, Mister Grieves, them's fightin' words," she grinned and danced back, popping the air with her fists.

For a moment he looked more appalled than before. Then, the lamp still held in one hand, he grabbed her up sharply with the other, pressing her hard against the door, opening her mouth with his insistent kiss. They stumbled together into the room, pausing only long enough to deposit the flickering lamp safely on the table, before throwing themselves across the bed.

When she was sure he was asleep, Buffy slipped out of bed and felt her way downstairs in the dark to William's study. Here she lit the lamp and began to look around. With all the writing he did, there had to be a diary that would fill in the story that was somehow blotted out of her conscious memory.

On the round table near the window she found some magazines—serious journals, many of them, their tables of contents printed on the cover, his name on each one. Had he managed to publish that horrible verse? No . . . these were essays . . . about . . . about . . . issues. And some of them were short stories. She hoped they were better than the poems. They must be, since they were printed. The point was, he seemed to be making a living by his pen, which was a good thing, if it let them stay here. She hoped he wouldn't expect her to be up on everything he'd written, though. She always failed a pop quiz.

On the desk she found the diary, a small leather bound book with covers soft as a dog's ears. He'd written a few lines about their day before coming to her bed.

From this last entry she looked at the first. The diary had been begun early in '80. Twenty pages in she found what she was looking for.

She read a description of a party. Humiliation heaped upon humiliation, leading him to flee the house and take refuge in an empty stable, where, as he tried to pull himself together, he was approached by a strange young woman with a mesmerizing gaze, who spoke as if she knew him, although he'd never seen her before.

Buffy frowned over this, the blankness roiling in her head, giving up little dabs of memory that somehow didn't fit.

She knew this story, although she couldn't, strain as she might, dredge up a real memory of being there, of making that slay. She knew it . . . because Spike had told it to her. That was Drusilla, who'd sired him that night—he'd not been rescued, of course, by her or anyone, and Drusilla was still out in the world somewhere. But that was another place, another time, as distant and unreachable to her now as Spike's reminiscences of his own 19^th century were to her in Sunnydale.

The account continued: how they'd made their way back to Penelope Terrace together in a cab; how, when she'd taken sick in the night, and a doctor was called, he learned that she was miscarrying a child.

A few days later he wrote:

There was no new entry for five days, then,

Nothing then for a nearly a week, but the next entry was different. Even the handwriting seemed more spritely.

Three days after that, he wrote,

The next entry was written in a bright blue ink, where all the previous were in black:

Buffy pressed the diary to her face as if it was his cheek. The intense emotion of his words had a physical effect on her; tears started up, her heart raced. His ability to love—at once so wild and so unswerving, man and monster, either or both—still had the power to amaze her. Here was the underpinning of this new life, what made it possible for her not to pine unceasingly away for the other one. This marriage might be a consolation prize, but it was the most precious and genuine consolation prize anyone had ever had.

She riffled the pages of the diary, her eye alighting here and there on a sentence or two. They'd married as soon as the banns could be put up—she still quite pale and thin on her wedding day, in her hastily constructed dress—that accounted for the tinyness of the waist, then—but not so languid as to deprive either of them of the pleasures of their honeymoon.

That made her laugh; tears dried, she read on.

But an entry a couple of months later, set in a black box, told what she'd already gleaned that afternoon:

Then a week later:

The hour—three—chimed from the nearby church. Blowing out the lamp, she returned to their room, where William stirred and opened his eyes as she tiptoed in.

"Where have you been—?"

"Drink of water." She climbed back into the high broad bed. He gathered her into his arms and pressed a kiss on her forehead.

"William . . . ?"

"Yes, Treasure?"

"Are you happy?"

"I'm surprised that you should ask me that. Do I keep a secret of my happiness?"

His pulse beat beneath her cheek; his moist skin smelled musky and warm. Spike's body, when he lay motionless, was so still; sleep did not make him warm and sticky, but tended instead to cool him off, and he had barely any odor at all, except after lovemaking, when he smelled like her. These things which should have been disquieting were instead simply aspects of the man she loved; but clasped now against his living form, aware of the movement of his heart, the in-and-out of his breath, Buffy was confused. It wasn't normal, was it, wasn't right, to compare the company of an undead creature to this—and to miss it so?

She didn't want to think about it. Why was she thinking about it so much—she was sure she hadn't before, before this muddle came over her. Why then could she feel the pulsing in her muscles of that dance she'd never done with Spike? Waltzing round and round the room—she could hear the music, see the glow from each lamp they whirled by, and hear also the laughter of— she didn't know who. It seemed like girlish laughter, but it wasn't Dawn, wasn't Willow or Anya or Tara. The more she tried to grasp it, the more elusive it became.

"Dearest," William whispered, smoothing her hair beneath a patient hand, "something is troubling you. All day you have been disquieted. You think I do not notice, but I do. I wish you would tell me what it is."

She shifted, pressed closer to him, the reassuring thub of his heart. "It's . . . it's nothing. Really, nothing. What should trouble me, when I have you, and our home in this beautiful place?"

"This is a lonely spot, I know. And you're longing for a child . . . that is only natural. We both are. Soon now, darling."

He kissed her then, and subsided almost at once into sleep. Buffy lay awake, listening to his breathing, which was even and quiet.

Was Spike asleep, she wondered, back in Sunnydale? Had he given up looking for her since her disappearance? Years ago now. Perhaps he'd found someone else to love.

Could be.

But she doubted it.

She glanced up from the Italian books. What she could've sworn was an hour of "study," or at any event, staring, turned out to be just five minutes. William's pen only left off scratching when he consulted one of the books or periodicals spread all around him on the table, held down with various small rocks and teacups against the breeze on the terrace where they sat.

It was so quiet here, you could practically hear the flowers growing. The katydids chirping and the soughing of the wind in the poplars were the loudest sounds. She'd have liked to turn on the radio. And it would've been kind of great to take advantage of all this golden sunlight by getting into a bikini to work on her tan. Neither of those things was possible. She supposed she'd never stop missing those things, no matter how far and permanently removed they were.

Her corset was cutting into her hip, and her shoes pinched.

At her feet, a large lacquer workbox with a Chinese design divulged a panoply of spools of thread, needles, stork-shaped scissors, tapes and buttons and neatly rolled lengths of piping. A wicker basket beside it held garments needing mending. She glanced at them with distaste. Couldn't she get Kate to do these jobs? Where was she now, anyway? Buffy glanced around.

"What do you seek, my dear?"

"Nothing. Just . . . nothing. I think I might go for a walk."

He smiled at her then with a strange fondness, as if she'd proposed something entirely demented. "Have you forgotten Kate is helping Maria and the others with the laundry? She has no time to walk with you today."

"Uh—"

"I will take you myself but you must wait until my work is completed."

"When will that be?"

"Well, some hours. Longer if you keep on distracting me."

"I wasn't the one who spoke first! And why can't I—? I'm a married lady now, I thought that was supposed to have some privileges with it."

"If we were in London, of course you would be at liberty to go about, shopping and visiting and so on. But we are not in London."

"No one's going to bother me here. Why would they?"

William frowned. "Perhaps in California you could walk abroad without fear of meeting with disrespect or molestation. But I assure you, my dear, that such is not the case here. Think of—think of those workmen we encountered yesterday. I should not like you to run across them unaccompanied."

"As if Kate would be much good if we did. Stupid rule."

"Those low sort of men will not hesitate to interfere with a lady on her own, which they should never dream of doing if she is accompanied—even by a servant. Besides, it is my rule as well. I should think you would be willing enough to obey me, my dear."

She sighed. He went back to his work. She pretended to look through the basket of mending, and was surprised when her fingers came upon a small paper-bound book tucked under the knickers and socks. She pulled it out.

The picture on the cover was certainly eye-popping enough. A woman in her nightgown, half dragged out of her bed by a hairy, medieval looking vamp with his fangs at her throat.

Nothing, Buffy thought, she couldn't slay in a heartbeat. Still . . . it was something to read. The cover said this was part 7, but maybe there was a synopsis.

As soon as she was immersed, a shadow fell across the page. She glanced up to find William standing over her.

"My dear . . . ."

"What? I'm not distracting you!"

"Surely you cannot want to read this tripe. It's Kate's, I suppose. I would prefer, for that matter, that she not read such stuff herself. Quite unsuitable for the female mind, of whatever station in life." He took the book from her hands, and tore it into three. "These will be fine spills for Maria when she lights the fires."

He walked off into the house. Buffy sat blinking after him. Jeez.

She rose, and wandered up and down the long terrace. The view spread out before her was just as marvelous as yesterday, but she couldn't sit here all day admiring views.

What was she supposed to do? She wondered if she'd been so restless all this time. The struggle to get her mental legs under her felt futile; the more she tried to piece together the last few weeks and months, the vaguer it all became. And yet Spike, who was so far off in time and space, seemed fresher in her mind than any of her current surroundings. A painful freshness, the reopening of an old wound.

When he returned, William carried a stack of books under his arm, which he set down on the low table beside her chair. "You might like to read one of these, my dear."

She recognized, on top, the small volumes of Keats and Shelley that Spike had carried with him for a century, that lived on his bedside table at Revello Drive, next to the framed picture of her. Sometimes in bed he'd read aloud, and though the sense of the poems often eluded her, she loved to hear his voice intoning them.

She set them aside with a pang. Underneath was Sketches by Boz, the first volume of a novel called He Knew He Was Right (Is that a joke, she thought), and—no way! The Daisychain. Not that again. Never never never.

She picked it up, drifted back towards the parapet, and let the heavy brown book fall from her hand. Down down down it dropped, to disappear amongst the vines.

Smiling, Buffy went back to her chair, and set out to find out who knew he was right about what.

Later, bored with sitting still, she wandered into the wash-house, and watched the laundry operations—they involved a huge iron tub set over a fire, wooden paddles to stir the clothes and linens as they were boiled, and much scurrying, groaning, and shouting in Italian. This, being different, absorbed her for a time, until she realized that Maria and the other Italian servants were darting nervous glances at her. Kate drew her aside.

"If you please, mum, they think you don't trust them."

"Oh! I just . . . I was just going to ask about the dinner."

Kate's eyes went wide. "There's no dinner on washing day. I'll be up in plenty of time to dress you to go into town."

Town! The suggestion perked her up. "Right! Silly me, I don't know what I was thinking. Well, uh . . . carry on." She beat a retreat back to the terrace, where William still worked away over his papers.

After a while he said, "You might write to mother, my dear. I won't have time, if I hope to get this in the post today."

She smiled. "I could do that."

"I've put fresh paper and quills in the desk."

"Okay . . . ." She started into the house.

"My dear?"

"What?"

"The desk is right here."

"Oh? Oh." The wooden box with the slanted lid that sat at the far end of the table was, apparently, a desk. Who knew? She sat and opened it.

Although she'd never had a stationary fetish like Dawn did, there was something to be said for the fitted insides of the desk, with elegant malachite compartments for the creamy paper, the square glass bottles of black, blue, red, green ink, pens and quills and pencils, a tiny folding knife for sharpening the pencils, a gum eraser and a velvet blotter. She took everything out and arranged it around her, with the pleasing sense that she was giving a tea party to dolls. Then she dipped a pen into the green ink, and immediately made a large blot on the paper.

"Ooopsie."

Taking another piece, she managed to write Dear Mrs Grieves without making too much of a mess. Then it occurred to her that now she was her mother-in-law, perhaps she didn't call her Mrs Grieves anymore. But what? This really was starting to be ridiculous. Could she have had a stroke without feeling any after effect? What else could make such swathes of consciousness go blank?

She started fresh on a new sheet, wrote Dear Mothe— when the quill spluttered and left another large blot.

"Damnit!"

William glanced up.

"I meant—drat. Big drat."

"You are uncommonly clumsy today. It's very naughty of you. Paper costs money."

"Sorry. Look, I can just fold this, and tear it off, and now the paper's like good as new. Except it's an inch shorter. But that doesn't matter, does it? I don't have a lot to say, anyway."

What was she going to say? The servants think that I think they're purloining my underwear? Your son and I have just resumed our sex life and it's really great?

Dear Mother:

I hope you're well. William and I are fine. We've been having very good weather . . . .

They'd eaten at the small trattoria on the piazza, and were starting for home again arm in arm in the soft evening air, when music drew Buffy's attention. On the other side of the large paved space, beyond the fountain with its equestrian statue, a man with an accordion was playing outside the cafe. A few couples moved about in the low yellow flare of gas jets.

Sound! Movement! She'd never have thought an accordion would be anything other than an object of derision . . . yet now she yearned towards it with her whole being.

"Look—"

William gave one glance, and walked a little faster. "Come along."

"But why? It's early. Let's stay and dance."

"My dear, those people . . . they're the locals, i contadini, you know."

"And your point is?"

He gave her an incredulous glance.

Wow, he really was a thorough prig, just like Spike said. "Don't tell me you wouldn't like to dance with your wife. It'll be fun." She tugged on his arm. "Afterwards I'll let you have your wicked way with me."

At that, he allowed her to pull him across the square.

The last time she'd danced like this was in a London gin-joint—or no, it was with Spike. But that was impossible . . . she'd never danced with Spike like this. So why was there this memory again, stronger each time she revisited it? He was waltzing her around the living room, teaching her how, Lemme lead, Slayer, that's the man's job. It was so much sexier than dancing without touching. Dancing had definitely regressed, Buffy thought. As the music got more sexed up, the actual dance got less. Where was this memory coming from? It brought with it a certainty: if not for that, she wouldn't know how to do this dance now, with her husband.

It made no sense. No sense at all.

William was smiling now with unselfconscious pleasure. She smiled back. This was perfect, the same way it was perfect when he made love to her, and the static between them, of forms and etiquette, dissolved to pure feeling and sensation.

She'd always found her consolation, her salvation, in movement and touch.

She was giddy from being whirled about when she got the feeling, creeping up the back of her spine, making the fine hairs on her nape rise. Uh-oh. The crowd, which had swelled since they began, definitely held at least a couple of members who didn't have a pulse. As William led her around again, she scanned the people over his shoulder. In the shadowy yellow glow they all looked the same, the men with their black moustaches and slouch hats, the women with shawls crisscrossed over their chests, shiny dark hair pinned up. The feeling flickered and died. But she was sure of what she'd sensed.

She pretended to yawn. "Let's go home now."

"But—we've barely started!"

"I shouldn't over-exert myself. You said so yourself, yesterday."

"Of course! Forgive me. I hope the uphill climb won't be too much for you—"

"I'm sure I'll make it. But let's go now."

As they strode towards the villa, she was already making plans. Get William off to sleep, and then dress again—not in these clothes, perhaps she'd borrow some of his instead—get back to the piazza before the cafe shut, and . . . go hunting for wabbit.

When William's breathing was deep and even, she stole out of bed, went quietly into his room across the hall, and dressed herself in his shirt and trousers. The freedom of wearing trousers again, and no corset, made her high. That and the anticipation—of running in the night air, of finding her foes and slaying them.

In the box by the garden wall she found the stakes Kate had whittled—quite admirable, solid ones, too—and the boots, as well as a man's rough coat and hat. She stuffed her hair up under the brim. All that remained would be to blacken her upper lip with cork. Not really necessary, but she giggled as she stole out onto the road and retraced her steps towards the village.

The locals were still out, drinking and talking and dancing on the piazza. She made her way quietly, in the shadows of the loggias, keeping to the edges of the knots of people. Just the way the vampires did—like those two there. Two males, both young-looking and handsome, going about their quiet working of the crowd. One, who seemed to be just in his teens, was picking pockets, while his more mature mate kept an eye out for some likely victim, someone on the margins who'd be easy to cull.

Buffy made herself into that person.

When she was sure they'd seen her, she limped slowly towards a dark narrow lane leading off the square.

They gave her a fight.

A good fight.

God, was it good.

Good to work her muscles, good to break a sweat, good to quip at them even if they didn't speak English. Good to show off.

Good to slay.

She was bending to retrieve her hat from the ground—it had landed in some kind of muck she didn't want to inhale too deeply, and she was half tempted to just leave it there and chalk it up—when a shadow fell at the mouth of the lane, and a quiet voice said her name.

The voice had such a cool familiarity that she sprang around in glad surprise. "Spi—! Oh."

"Spying on you? Yes. You have given me sad cause," William said.

She couldn't see his face, it was nearly dark here and the shadow of his hat brim hid it entirely. But his voice contained a dangerous calm.

"I would not have believed it of you, had I not seen it with my own eyes. Mortimer tried to warn me of course, beforehand. But I believed—insisted—that you were a lady, first and foremost, that your misfortune had not tainted you. Yet now I see that I was mistaken. Now I see that you rise from my bed, dressed in this disgusting fashion, sneak out into the night, and . . . and . . . ."

At first his words made no sense to her—what did slaying have to do with —but then she grasped it. "You—oh my God! You think I was—? No! You don't understand—!"

"Do not bother to deny it. I saw you attract those men to your side, saw you lead them in here. Of course they have gone away now out the other end, having had what they wanted of you. That I could not bear to watch. What did you do it for? A few lira you now hide behind your back?" She'd instinctively concealed her stake when he startled her; he grabbed now for her arm.

Dashing the stake from her grip without taking it in, he plunged his hand into her jacket pocket. "Where is it? Where is the filthy money, you whore—?"

He yanked the pocket inside out—some small copper coins inside bounced into the mud. He stared after them for a second, shuddering in disgust, then fastened on her arm.

He was gasping with rage. Buffy wrenched free, and blocked him when he came at her again. They were positioned now at the mouth of the lane; a nearby gas lamp showed her his face, white, shocked, rigid.

"Stop it! You've made a mistake! Listen to me, William!"

"How could you do it. You filthy, disgusting, lying doxie—I give you my name, my heart, my home—and you repay me with this!"

She noticed now that a few people had gathered under the lamp, attracted by their raised voices. He followed her gaze. Seeing them, he gave a grunt of annoyance and shoved her further into the lane, marching her out into the next street. She decided not to resist for the moment, and let him pull her in a violent silence, back to the villa. The walk took twenty minutes, in which he did not let go of his crushing grip on her biceps, nor glance at her. She tried to figure out how she was going to deflect his anger, even as the strange shame of being falsely accused make her cheeks burn.

When they reached her bedroom, lit by the glowing kerosene lamp on the nightstand, and the remains of a fire on the hearth, he shoved her into a chair.

She rose from it immediately. "William, listen to me—"

"You slut—! There is nothing you could say, nothing—"

"Those weren't men you saw. They were vampires. I lured them into that alley in order to slay them. That's what I do. I'm a vampire slayer."

He was silent for a moment. She opened her mouth to say more, but he cut her off with a wild laugh.

"Vampires? Ah—like that foul book I took from you this morning—! You think to distract me from your disgusting conduct with such an absurd and pathetic fantasy? Has your depravity already affected your mind—?"

"No! You've seen me slay a vampire before. The only reason you're alive right now is because I slew that one that was trying to kill you in London!"

He gaped at her.

How could anyone be so wilfully obtuse? "She was already biting you when I got there. I stabbed her through her dead heart with a wooden stake—like the one I had in that alley just now—and she fell to dust. I know you saw it, William, even if you didn't understand. You wrote about it clearly enough in your diary!"

His face, already pale with anger, went paler still. He took a step back, as if her proximity hurt him.

"You have been into my private papers as well."

Seeing her blunder, Buffy tried just to forge ahead. "I've been a vampire slayer since I was fifteen years old. It's what I was put on this earth to do—my sacred duty . . . but I'm not supposed to talk about it. I haven't tried to deceive you—I mean, I have, but not for the reasons you think. If you'd sit down and be calm, I'll explain it to you so you'll understand."

She went close to him, meaning to maneuver him into a chair, when she saw the tears tracking silently down his cheeks.

"William—sweetheart—don't—I'm not what you think—"

"I am ruined," he murmured. He seemed dazed, and wouldn't look at her. "I have been deceived into marriage with a worthless trull . . . ."

"No no—that's not true! I love you with all my heart, and I haven't been unfaithful to you! You mustn't think—please—" She laid her hands on his lapels, reached up to kiss him.

He knocked her down with one sharp blow. The stone floor seemed to rise up to strike her too. For a moment she lay stunned. As she sprang up, she heard the sound of a key being turned.

She was alone. He'd locked her in.

The door was a thick wooden one, with a stout lock, but nothing she couldn't beat down as long as she didn't mind rousing the servants with the noise. Not feeling quite up to creating that kind of commotion, she went to the window instead.

From this side of the villa there was a long sharp drop to the cultivated terraces below. She could survive it, but it would leave her banged up. Not to mention penniless in a country where she didn't speak the language. She decided it wasn't time yet to flee. He'd have to believe her, if he'd just let her explain. He'd seen her slay Drusilla. He couldn't deny that, at least, not indefinitely.

Keeping the slayer thing from him was a stupid miscalculation, she got that now.

Instead, she took the opportunity to wash, comb her hair, and take off William's clothes. She hesitated then: ought she to put on her nightdress and peignoir? Or should she dress herself, be ready for anything? It was nearly two in the morning. Would he leave her here all night? Or return for another round of recriminations?

Better to be ready. She didn't think she'd be able to sleep anyway. She tried to dress herself, but found that it was difficult, without Kate's help, to fasten her corset, which hooked up the back, or reach the buttons on the back of her dress, which would not fit without the corset underneath. The small bustle that went with her day dresses was beyond her altogether.

When she'd done her best, she sank again onto the bed. What now?

What was he doing, thinking? Poor man, she could imagine it. Remembered how she'd felt when Angel betrayed her, denied everything she'd thought he felt along with her. Some part of her had never recovered from that first massive displacement of trust.

He'd be asking himself how he could've trusted a girl he'd taken off the streets, who'd gulled him, who was really just a hardened whore.

It certainly looked bad.

She realized then that the room where he worked and read was just below. She went to the spot above where she thought his armchair sat, and tapped on the floor with the heel of the stout boot she'd worn earlier. She didn't want to make too much noise—the Italian servants were at the other end of the place, near the kitchen, but Kate slept in a tiny room nearby.

She stopped and listened. Nothing. Tapped again. Her cheekbone ached where he'd struck her. He never looked like the kind of man who had a blow like that in him.

He wasn't Spike. Then she heard a sound at the door.

"What's the matter?"

His voice, a harsh whisper through the thick wood, didn't seem as angry as before.

Hope rising, Buffy flew to the door, knelt to put her eye to the keyhole. A glimmer showed through from the lamp he was carrying.

"William, please don't leave me here like this."

"I must determine what's to be done about you. You've betrayed me, ruined our life, and now it is my duty to make a plan."

"I haven't betrayed you. I swear I haven't. If you'd just let me out, we could talk about it."

"You ought to pray God to help you repent of your wickedness, and not disturb me."

"But I want something to drink," Buffy said. "There's no water in here but what was in the pitcher, and I used it up washing."

She listened hard, and thought she could hear him breathing.

Then he walked away. The glow was gone from the keyhole.

She sagged against the door.

Some ten minutes later she was roused by the scraping of the key, and sprang up.

He came in, carrying a fresh pitcher, and a glass. He thrust these at her with an obstinate gesture, like a sulking child.

"I would not let you thirst."

She took them, and went to the table. "Thank you."

He stood where he was, just inside the open door, and stared at the floor while she drank down one glass of water, and part of another.

"William . . . vampires are real. You yourself were attacked by one—"

He held up a hand.

"I am half convinced that you are mad. How else to explain a female who would give herself, in the street, to—to such ruffians—and without even the common excuse of needing to earn her bread—!"

"No—listen to me—!"

But he'd backed out of the room, and locked her in once more.

She was awakened by a rattling at the door, and leapt up.

"William?"

"Oh—Mum—it's only Kate with your hot water. But I can't open the door. Is it stuck?"

"No, it's—" She didn't know what to say. But then she heard the door across the hall open.

"Kate, your mistress is poorly this morning, and prefers you not go in to her."

"Poorly? Oh, but sir, she will want her tea, an' her wash, all the more if she's—"

"Kate, she wants nothing."

Something, perhaps the expression on his face, must've alarmed the maid, because she knocked once at the door, calling out "Mum? Mum, is all well with you?"

Buffy didn't quite know what to answer. As she hesitated, Kate's voice pitched higher. "Mum? Oh sir, I think I had better go in to her. Perhaps she's in a faint!"

William laughed. "In a faint? If she is, it's only to win sympathy that she doesn't deserve! It's only another lie, she lies with every breath."

"Sir!"

"If she's in a faint," he said, louder now, "it's to convince me I'm an ogre for refusing to believe the rot she foists upon me—rot about killing vampires, when what she was really doing was—"

"Vampires? Oh sir! Don't you speak mockingly of such monsters! Don't you know it was Missis Grieves what saved me from one her own self? If not for her, I'd've been killed—an' worse! I'd've been made into an unholy thing!"

"Kate—!" Buffy called. "Don't try to intervene for me, just go back to the kitchen now, and—"

"And what? Abandon you in your time of need, mum? I will not! What is this?" The doorknob rattled again. "Have you locked her in, sir? That ain't a fit thing for a ge'mun to do to his lady wife! An' her a great heroine an' all! I happen to know she rescued you, too, from a fierce one! She must be let free, to do her sacred duty!"

"I see she has recruited you to abet her filthy deceptions. Perhaps you believe her lies as well? You're simple enough to buy such stories. Don't you know what she really does when she steals out into the night? Your mistress is nothing but a low-down—"

There was a crash then—the can of hot water falling to the stone floor—and Kate began to weep. "Sir, sir, I helps her, I do, I whittles the stakes! It's my poor contribution to the glorious work! You should be thankful, sir, that you have such a good an' selfless lady for your wife. I knows my place, an' I knows I'll have to go from here now, but I'll say out my piece first, an' it's this! She's the slayer an' she must be let free!"

The little maid's crying became wilder then. Buffy pressed herself against the door, crazy to comfort her—this defense, from an entirely unlooked-for quarter, brought tears to her own eyes.

For a minute there was no sound but that weeping. Then William's voice again. "Do you—look at me, and tell me! Do you really believe you're speaking the truth?"

"Oh sir, I swear it! On my life, that would've been snuffed out like a candle-flame, if not for her! I seen it with my own eyes, just as you did!"

Another moment of silence, then he said, in quite a different tone, "Take this, and go back to the kitchen now, Kate. Go on. Wash your face, and go about your work."

The key scraped in the lock. Buffy stood back just far enough to allow the door to open. In the fresh morning light, William's face was haggard. She knew that, unlike her, he'd not dozed at all.

He stared at her hard. Buffy waited, watching him. Then he lifted a hand to his neck—he wore no collar, and his shirt was unbuttoned at the top. His fingers probed the faint scar of Drusilla's attack. "She . . . that strange woman, who spoke to me so hypnotically about what I wanted . . . she was a vampire?"

Buffy nodded.

"They are real?"

She nodded again.

"And you—how did you know . . . ?"

She couldn't tell him the entire truth about herself—and she still didn't remember slaying Drusilla. But it was simple enough to put two and two together from the account in his diary. "I went after you that day because I had to speak to you, about the child we were going to have. When I learned that you'd left the party I set off to walk back. I hoped I'd overtake you on the way. I was very anxious, because of . . . and you seemed to be avoiding me. But that's neither here nor there. Then I . . . I sensed there was a vampire nearby. I can feel them, it's one of my slayer powers. Last night, while we were dancing, I knew there were vampires in that crowd. That's why I went back there after you'd gone to sleep."

He continued to stare at her, without reacting. At least he wasn't hurling epithets.

She went on. "William, when we met on the Haymarket that night, I was selling myself. I was alone in London, I'd been unfortunate, I had no one to help me, no other way to stay alive. That's all true. I didn't like it, and I was very glad to stop. I didn't tell you about being the slayer because I was afraid you'd try to keep me from doing what I have to do. My watcher . . . a sort of mentor I used to have . . . taught me to keep my slayer powers secret. I didn't want to deceive you. I don't want to hurt you. But I have a duty apart from what I owe to you as your wife."

He stepped forward, and she thought he was going to look into her face, maybe even take her in his arms. But he moved past her and threw himself into a chair, and curling forward, held his head in his hands.

Buffy crept up to him. Touched his shoulder. He flinched and wouldn't look up.

"Sweetheart . . . do you understand? I think you do."

"This is madness."

"No—I swear to you. You must believe what you saw yourself—!"

He started up then, his eyes wild and sad. "Oh, I believe that now! God help us all, I am a rational man and I know what happened that night!" He began to pace, tugging at his hair. "What's madness is that I thought I married a lady—one who would grace my home, make my life sweet, be a fine mother . . . . Now I find I have joined myself to a—a—a sort of Amazon, whose loyalties are divided, who has appetites which are—which I fear are beyond my ability to . . . and who cannot even bear me children!"

Buffy blinked. "Cannot . . . who says—?"

"You fought that creature, yes—! And saved my life! I must always be grateful for that . . . . but at the expense, that same night, of our poor child. And when next you were in—in the family way—the same occurred again! I suppose you were out fighting with vampires all the time then too! And now, when I have tried so hard to help you get strong again, or so I thought, so that we might try anew, I find— I find—"

Her first defensive impulse was to assure him that the two things—the miscarriages and the slaying—were unrelated. But she didn't know that. His argument, she had to admit, was pretty solid.

William seized her by the shoulders. "Tell me—if, as you say, this strange obligation has been yours since you were fifteen—how did you imagine you could give yourself to be any man's wife? How did you imagine it was fair to come to me, who took you in good faith—and not tell me what you are?"

Her heart hammered. "I . . . I didn't . . . I was afraid to find myself lost again. Homeless. I couldn't go back to living that way."

"No, of course not." He dropped his hands into two fists at his sides. "So you did not tell me about this thing you are . . . a grievous omission . . . and you did say, what I see now is not true—that you loved me. You don't. You just wanted the shelter of my name, a home. Well, what woman so circumstanced as you were would not?"

"No—! William how could you say—?"

He turned on her a face whose naked wretchedness made her gasp. "Because I know I am not lovable. I know I am nothing a lady could want. None would choose me who had the power to choose at all."

His words—the look of hopelessness on his face, flooded her with so many memories and images—of Spike, of William, of misunderstandings and griefs half-glimpsed or wholly experienced, both inflicted and borne.

She blushed, picking her way across the rocky surface of the truth. "You weren't so kind to me before that night of the party. I was dependent on you, and you used me. I know you had a change of heart afterwards, when you were sick. It took me some time to trust that your change was sincere. It's true, I didn't dare refuse you when you asked me to be your wife, but I was so hopeful that it would be all right." She put a hand out, touched his face. "And it is. You made me fall in love with you. I'm yours, William. Don't doubt me, and don't be angry anymore."

He snatched her into his arms. She clung to him, relief expanding her lungs, making a catch in her throat. His anger and disappointment in her had been awful, terrifying.

He kissed her hard, backing her towards the bed. She let him topple her over, helped him pull up her skirts, blushing all over with the anticipation of his pleasure, and her own.

"You darling creature, I cannot resist you. You have it in your power to make me the most miserable of men—or the happiest."

"Happiest," she gasped, parting her thighs, reaching for him. "I want you always to be the happiest." Between her clothes and his, there was an awful lot of extraneous fabric bunched around them, but it was sexy, finding his rigid cock in the midst of flies and shirttails, pulling it towards her cunt, laid open amidst all that froth of linen and lace. He sank into her with a sigh, pressing a firm kiss into her neck under the ear.

She wriggled from the ticklish-hot sensation. That was Spike's favorite spot too, but she'd always thought it was because he was a vampire.

He gnawed at her there, and the sensation shot straight down to her groin.

She gasped—her corset made it hard to take a really deep breath, and he'd pushed her knees up, which made it more difficult still. But that just heightened everything—seemed to bring all the blood down where she needed it, made her parts tender and exquisitely sensitive.

"Sweetheart—my God—your quim—when you nip me like that, I am in heaven—"

"What, like this?"

"Oh, Buffy—Christ!"

"That's a slayer thing too, y'know. All part of the package. I'm. Very. Strong. Inside and out. Not so bad, huh?"

"You . . . your desire . . . you're not like other ladies."

"You've never been with anybody but me."

"Still, I know that—"

"Sssh, you. You don't know anything about women. Women like to fuck just as much as men do. Are you worried that you're not enough for me? Don't. I can't get enough of you, but that's different. Right? We can't get enough of each other."

He rose up on his elbows, to look at her. His expression was grave, but also rather tipsy. It struck her as funny suddenly that he was wearing his spectacles. She let out a peal of laughter, and gave him another internal nip.

"You—" He frowned at her, not in anger, but rather in awe, "you are a mystery. You are a most delicious mystery."

"Yeah?" She smiled. "You're not a mystery to me, though."

"Am I not?"

"Nuh-uh. I know you love me. So I know all about you."

"I do . . . most deeply. You . . . you must understand, I was so angry because I adore you so. I hated that you seemed not to be what I thought."

"I know," she assured him. "I know, sweetheart."

His face cleared, became, for a moment, radiant. Then darkened again. "But you—wicked girl—you have been reading my diary. You know that is very wrong. I shall have to punish you."

"Punish me with kisses," she giggled.

He did, until they had to breathe.

She was glad she hadn't been able to get the bustle on.

All the while they talked and kissed, he was still fucking her, sometimes in short sawing strokes, and then shifting to long loose ones, a hand hooked behind each of her knees.

He wasn't Spike, it was true—and he lacked, of course, Spike's supernatural prowess and recovery. But his way of moving, of touching her, kissing her, the things he said, his glances and expressions . . . were uncannily alike. These things were, she supposed, instinctual.

Funny to think she'd taught him everything he knew about making love. When, with Spike, he'd been the one to teach her so much.

"Why did you do it?"

"What?" She panted. "Read your diary?" Okay, this had better be good. She couldn't tell him about her confusion, about her strong sense the last couple of days that something was out of sync. "I only ever looked at it once. I know—I—oh—if you do that I won'tbeabletotalk—!"

He slowed to a near stop, poised over her. "You were saying, my dear?"

"I know it's wrong. It was just one time. I wasn't sure . . . I wasn't sure how you really felt about me. I thought . . . maybe you only proposed to me because you felt, y'know . . .bad. About what happened."

"I did feel bad about what happened. I was in torment. I'd used you disgracefully, and caused you to suffer—"

"I wanted to be sure you really wanted me because I'm me, not because you felt obligated. I thought you might not tell me the truth, but you wouldn't write things in your diary that you didn't really feel."

"And then—?"

"And then, I read them, your beautiful thoughts, and I knew I didn't have to worry. I knew I could place my trust . . . my heart . . . ."

"Dearest wife. Tell me again," he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers just the way Spike always did, "tell me again that you love me."

"I love you William, so much . . . so much . . . ahhhh—!"

"You are so pretty, and you smell divine, when you spend." His hand found its way between her thighs, palm pressed against her. She remembered how he'd do that, back on Penelope Terrace, that strange possessive gesture. It felt different now, she didn't mind it any more. "They say," he went on, his voice dropping to a whisper, "that when a lady spends with her husband's spunk inside her, it means she'll conceive."

"Yeah? Who is this they who don't know what they're talking about At All?"

"I . . . I don't recall."

"Uh-huh." She laughed, and undid another button on his shirt.

"You are so very good," he murmured, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "I do apologize, most sincerely, for being rough with you earlier. I was so angry, I could not control myself, But there is never an excuse to strike a lady. I swear I never shall again."

"You've always had a temper," she mused. "So do I. But we shouldn't hit each other. That's no good."

"No good indeed, sweetheart. But we must make a new beginning now, Mrs Grieves. When I think that you took Kate into your confidence, and not me! Your husband, from whom keeping any secret, no matter how small, ought to be anathema! There must be no more deception, no more secrets."

"I promise, no more deceptions." Except the one about how I'm really in the wrong century altogether, because, okay, we just can't even go there. It makes my head hurt, and it'll do yours in for good. "And I swear—I swear I'll give us a child. As soon as I know I'm pregnant again—I won't take any chances until its born. Scout's honor. I don't want to go through another miscarriage either."

It was a giddy relief to be in his arms again, to feel his heart knocking in his chest as he pressed her to him. She wanted just to cleave to him, to promise anything, to kiss some more and get him hard so they could fuck again. But he put her back and looked at her, his eyes full of incredulity and the beginnings of resurgent anger.

"As soon as you know—! Mrs Grieves, I cannot accept such an answer. From this moment forward, I cannot permit you to endanger yourself. To endanger our child."

"William, it's not a question of your permission. I have to do what I was put here to do."

"But you must remember that you are my wife, and be ruled by me, as you promised at the altar."

She sat up then. I promised that? Shit. "I'm the Slayer. No matter what else I am, I'm the Slayer first and foremost."

"You are Mrs Grieves first and foremost! In the eyes of God, and in the law of the land. Why must you defy me, and threaten all our happiness?"

"I'm not defying you! I mean—I am defying you, but you're not listening to me, and you're not being reasonable!"

"I've heard everything you said. Do you imagine I am going to smile and give you leave to do again what you did this night? I would be a very poor sort of husband if I did! And I would wish you to be more cognizant of your duty to me, if the love you claim to feel is not enough to make you abide by my decision in this matter!"

"But—you don't understand—I have a sacred duty to—"

"To me!"

"Yes, all right, but also to my calling! It's not something I can walk away from—!" She tried to hold them back, but the tears came anyway, springing warm and viscous from her eyes, making his face swim before her. "Please, William—I'm the slayer, and I'm used to having my friends around me, my family, but they're gone now and all I have is you—I can't fight vampires and you too. Be my friend. Please be my friend and don't make it all harder than it has to be!" Images crowded into her head, of the people she loved and who were separated from her by an unbridgeable century of time. Spike, and Dawn, Tara, Giles, and—and—she struggled towards another memory, there was someone else, terribly important.

William was talking, but she barely heard him. "Be your friend? Is it not the duty of a friend—your best friend in the world—to keep you from doing all that is foolish and wrong and bound to make us both miserable?"

Who was it whom she missed so terribly without being able to recall or name or—or—or—

She got it then; the merest glimpse, like a reflection of an impression—a small, pretty, earnest girl-child, big-eyed and intent, always in motion. She watched and clapped and laughed as Spike waltzed her around the room.

Jemima!

It came at her with a sickening whirling rush, all the missing time—she'd spent it not here, but there, at home with Spike, and their daughter—Oh God, Oh God, something was very very wrong. She wasn't supposed to be here at all, this was a mistake, a mistake—!

Her head throbbed as if the veins would burst her skull. Lights popped and squiggled behind her eyes, the room turned. She sat up, and was violently sick.

Until the last couple of days she'd been too ill even to get out of bed, and even now she knew she wasn't up for slaying. By nightfall she'd feel too gauzy and unraveled to do anything but crawl between the sheets. Doctor Romney said she'd had a brain fever, whatever that was supposed to mean. She'd had it for ten days, and couldn't remember most of that time—William said she'd been delerious, talked a great deal of nonsense while the sweats and chills wracked her, cried and thrashed about when she wasn't in a deep still sleep. She had to take his word for it. The last thing she could remember with any distinctness was the fight they'd had beforehand, although just what they'd fought about eluded her. Slayer stuff, she knew that much.

His quickness to judge her, to make rules for her, rankled. This wasn't what she'd signed up for, when she married him. Okay, she knew women weren't free in the 1880s, William was a man of his time. But what about partnership and understanding and unconditional love? What about a little simple gratitude? She'd saved his life.

Reaching the end of the parapet for the umpteenth time, she turned listlessly and made her way back. When she came parallel to the table where he sat at his endless work, William glanced up.

"Must you do that? It's a distraction, seeing you pass to and fro from the corner of my eye."

"I would go for a walk with Kate away from your so-sensitive eyes, if only you hadn't forbidden it."

"It was the doctor who said you are yet too delicate to walk out. You may easily fall ill again if you overexert yourself, and Kate could not carry you back."

"I could walk up and down just outside the villa, then."

"The road there is so dusty."

She rounded on him. "That's bullshit and you know it!"

"Mrs Grieves!" He was on his feet now. He opened his mouth to shout, then visibly reigned himself in. In a low even voice, he said, "I am sure it is merely the after-effect of your serious illness which makes you so forget yourself. I will overlook it. But perhaps you ought to rest now. You've been walking too long."

She was tired, but tired too of being spoken to this way. "I'm fine. I'm not a doll you can put on the shelf when you're bored of playing with her."

His face fell; he came towards her. "My dear . . . I did not mean . . . ."

She turned her back. "Oh, I know you did not mean! You never mean . . . ."

"Don't be cross with me, Treasure. I have been so anxious about you these last couple of weeks—indeed, I am always anxious about you, because I do love you so and you are so full of . . . of unaccountable surprises, and—and—indispositions."

"I can't help the indispositions. I never used to be like this . . . ."

He touched her shoulder, and suddenly he'd swung her up in his arms. "Perhaps we would both be better off for a little rest . . . in your room."

He sat her gently down not on the bed but in the deep armchair near the window. "Now, if I do this, you must promise not to exert yourself . . . ." He knelt at her feet. She pulled her skirt up into her lap, threw one leg over the chair arm. "Promise me, my dear, that you will be very quiet and good."

"I promise."

When his tongue touched her, she shuddered and sank lower in the chair. He licked her softly, it was like a kitten lapping milk, but the very lightness of his touch made her shake all over, and it wasn't two minutes before she came with a sobbing groan, heaving her hips up to press against his mouth.

"I believe you will feel calmer now." He got to his feet, bent to kiss her. She threw an arm around his neck, slipped her tongue between his lips.

He broke first. "I always used to think it was only the male of the species—and those without much in the way of Christian fortitude—who required such frequent release in order to maintain an even temper."

"Why do you always say stuff like that? I was going to reciprocate, but suddenly I think I'd rather leave you to your Christian fortitude."

"But—"

"According to you, everything I do—or say—or am, is wrong!" She sprang up, shaking her skirts down. "Don't you get how fu—how messed up that is? I can't believe you're chiding me because I want to have sex with you! You say you love me, but everything you ought to love me for—my strength, my desire, my energy—you keep trying to stifle!"

He gaped. "I—I do not know what you're talking about. I see this was a mistake—indeed, you are over-exerted, and now—and now—I must return to my work."

He spoke at dinner about the article he was writing, and afterwards read out loud his mother's latest letter, but Buffy said as little as possible, and went to bed alone immediately after.

In the middle of the night she rose to use the chamber pot. Although the window was open, she could barely breathe; the air in the room was stifling, spent. Stealing downstairs, she went to the front doors—a tall immensely heavy set of double wooden ones banded with iron as if to withstand siege. Usually the great key stuck out of the lock, but tonight it was not there, and the doors were firmly shut. She went around to the kitchen door that the servants used, and found that locked from inside as well. The only way out was the glass doors onto the verandah. The verandah that had no means of egress except a sharp drop of many many feet into a thicket of nettles far below.

She tried, with Kate's help, to search for the keys that kept her shut in, setting the maid to distract him while she rifled his study. William walked in and found her with both hands sunk into the pigeonholes of his desk.

"Ah, I see," he said. "Kate does not have the tooth-ache, and so she will not need the money I came in here to get for her, so she could have it seen to."

"Why—why are you treating me this way?"

"Until such time as your unaccountable urges to be abroad in the night-time pass off, I believe it is best. The entire time you were ill, come nightfall, you grew quite lively—like the vampires you are so obsessed with—and kept trying to escape your room, and the house. We had to restrain you."

Jeez. She couldn't remember that, but it sounded plausible enough. "Okay, but . . . I haven't tried to go out since my illness."

He tilted his head, gazed at her through his spectacles in a way that made her feel small and stupid, childish. "Have you not? Why then do I find you searching for the keys?"

"I—"

"I wonder now whether you're even aware of how you fib. You must be so very unused to telling the truth, that you cannot distinguish—"

"Stop it! Stop talking to me like that! I'm not crazy—! I'm not a liar!"

She didn't realize she'd meant to hit him until he was already sprawled on the floor, his hand clapped to his bleeding mouth. His broken spectacles were on the other side of the room, beneath the credenza.

"Oh—! Oh God—William—Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to—" She reached to help him up, but he shied away from her, his eyes dark with suspicion and shock.

"Please—I didn't mean to hurt you. You've got me so boxed in, I don't know what to do—! I can't live like this. Even if I wasn't the slayer, even if . . . no one can live like this."

He backed away from her. "It's worse than I thought—!"

"Don't be afraid of me. Please, please, I won't ever do that again. William . . . what happened? Things were so lovely for us, and then—I don't know what happened."

"You don't know—!" He shuddered, and left her.

That night, he again locked her bedroom door against her.

What was this? She was sure she wasn't insane, even if everybody was treating her so. But she'd had so many illnesses—the two miscarriages, and then the brain fever. Clearly William thought there was more wrong with her than delicate physical health. Walloping him hadn't helped her case any.

Dr Romney came every other day now, examining her with the hearty cheerfulness he must put on for frightened children. He didn't answer any of her questions, and spoke to William out of earshot. Back in Sunnydale she'd always been strong—barely sick a day in her life. Able to go days and days without rest, fight enormous battles, save the world. And now she couldn't hold her own against one merely mortal husband.

Well, she could. She could overpower him in the night easily enough without rousing the Italian servants, tie him up, turn the house inside out until she found the keys, her passport, and the ready money. Pack a bag and walk down to the town, hire a carriage to take her to the nearest place with a railway station. She could manage on her wits better now than she had back in 1879, and even if he alerted the police, hired a private detective to search for her, odds were good she could elude them. She could return to London on her own, contact the Council. Better to be beneath their thumb, and doing what she was Chosen to do, than to languish here with a husband she was coming to loathe.

She would do that. The next night, before he had a chance to shut her in here, she'd turn the tables.

But in the morning she felt listless, and threw up in the chamber pot.

It was like that every morning for a while—he'd stopped expecting her to accompany him to church, so unless it rained, there was nothing to distinguish one day from the next. They took their usual places on the veranda, he at the table with his papers, she on the wooden chaise, with her workbox and books. She poked languidly with the needle at some monograming on handkerchiefs Kate had begun. It was as if they were guests at the same small hotel, who had been introduced for politeness' sake at the table d'hote. Meals passed off in near-silence. She had little appetite. William worked for long hours. Once he said, "You might make a fair copy of this article if you'd like to be useful," and she replied, "Who says I'd like to be useful?" He didn't ask her again.

At night she cried. How could she go now? The Council wouldn't know what to do with her in this condition.

This condition . . . she couldn't remember her other pregnancies. Since the brain fever, she felt there were many things, events, whole passages of time, she couldn't remember. Somehow she knew that the first trimester was supposed to be the worst. She'd have to wait until she felt better, stronger . . . A long journey alone by train and boat would be too difficult now.

But what if she never felt better? What if she was always going to feel sick, and weak, and give birth over and over to dead babies? What if this baby killed her?

After a while he stopped locking her indoors. Her pregnancy rooted her to the spot without bolts or keys. She was too queasy and tired most of the time to even go with him for his daily late afternoon stroll to the market square, let alone to venture out anywhere alone. But at night she could wander around the downstairs of the villa—there were many rooms they didn't use at all—and out onto the veranda to look at the stars. Could pretend that Spike might be looking at those same stars too—the ones you could see from California. She wasn't sure if the sky there and here would be exactly the same—probably that was covered on one of those days at school when she was out chasing nasties through sewers.

Sometimes she hoped that Spike was being faithful to her, that he was keeping his hopes up for her return. Other times she found herself wishing he'd find comfort elsewhere . . . maybe with her sister. Dawn always did love him, not in a carnal way, true, but, she was getting older. They might take good care of each other. After all, he'd promised always to do that, and she knew that wasn't a promise Spike would forget, or let lapse. Without her there, what was to stop him following Dawn to whatever college town she wound up in?

Looking up, her hands splayed out on her burgeoning belly, she talked some nights to God—she didn't call it praying, because there was nothing she could bring herself to believe in. Still, she asked for things. She asked to survive this pregnancy, asked for a son born alive, so he'd have something left when she went away. She asked for strength to leave them both, because she couldn't remain in this marriage, not for life, not even for that child. She'd never make William Grieves happy; at the rate they were going, he would drive her mad. If nothing changed, they'd end up hating each other, and soon.

Nothing seemed to change, except the phases of the moon, and her own body. Gradually the nausea receded. She grew round, and felt better.

William sensed it, and took it as a signal for general amnesty. Suddenly he grew chatty and chivalrous as of old; he found her a new English-speaking maid, took her out for long walks, bought her presents: a fancy embroidery frame. A cameo brooch. A music box. Read aloud to her in the evenings as they sat by the fire.

One night, instead of merely lighting her up the stairs, he followed her to her bedroom.

"My wife . . . you've grown exceedingly voluptuous."

"Is that the four syllable word for fat? Because—"

"No my dear. It means—"

"I know what it means." The sense of humor, clearly, was an aspect of the demon.

"I did not think it wise to disturb you when you were so unwell, but I think now—"

She rounded on him. "You think now? What do you think now?"

"Why . . . that . . . ."

"That I'm gonna surrender the pink because you've bought me all that pretty embroidery silk?"

"Mrs Grieves, it pains me deeply to have to remind you so often to curb your vulgarity, which betrays the ways in which you have fallen—so precipitously, so irretrievably—from the right to be called a lady."

"Are you trying to crush my spirit? Because it's starting to work." Tears rose to her eyes, and she blushed in embarrassment—these days she had so little control over her responses, the least little thing made her weep like a lost child.

"Crush your . . . No. Oh no—" His voice cracked, his face swimming in close to hers in the golden lamp light. "Mrs Grieves—Buffy—do forgive me—I'm a stupid, angry, frightened man, you bewilder me sometimes so that I do not know what to do— I miss lying with you, I thought you missed it too. We have been at loggerheads but surely we may forgive one another and make peace?"

"I don't know what you think you have to forgive me for."

He shook his head. "Nothing, nothing, you are right. I only want you to be a happy wife, and to have harmony in our home."

She was beginning to dislike his earnest mildness as much as she did the colder manner. Either way he spoke to her like they were in a stupid old play. She'd never get used to this, to how he talked, his prim expressions. And what he meant by harmony was that she do everything he expected of her without kicking up a fuss.

Suddenly she saw Spike's face superimposed on him—how those two faces, the same flesh, could be so different! Even in his most doubtful moments, Spike had never looked so boyishly lost. It came to her—that's what William was. Probably always. Lost, and unsure of himself, awkward and earnest and riddled with error. He was begging her pardon now, but she couldn't bring herself to trust that anything much was going to change. At least, not unless she could tamp herself permanently down into being quiet and good as he wanted her to be. No sudden moves to disquiet and thrill him. He might enjoy thrills in the moment, but he always regretted them afterwards.

"I have tried to be forceful, to guide you and correct you as a good husband should—but . . . God help me, the last thing I want is for you to cry and despise me. Not . . . not when you have done me such a kindness as to love me, and bear my child. You do love me still, don't you, Treasure?"

He looked so abject, wounded, wary, clueless.

She kicked the armchair. "This is stupid! It's pointless! This isn't my real life!"

He gaped. "Not your real life! What else could it possibly be?"

"It's a magical mistake! I was sent here by my enemies to get me out of the way!"

"My dear—calm yourself—what on earth are you saying—?"

"Where I come from, I'm free! No one makes decisions for me, I don't have to wear a stupid corset, and no one would even think of locking me up! I slay and I dance and I shop and I have friends and a sister and a lover who is everything to me! This—you and me here together—it's a cosmic joke! I won't be born for another hundred years, and you should've died two years ago!"

"Mrs Grieves—!"

"I'm supposed to be with him! My tailor-made demon lover, my right hand man, my beautiful monster."

His mouth opened and closed like a fish. "Your . . . your . . . ."

"A vampire, who went around the world for a hundred years wreaking havoc, killing two slayers, coming to kill me. And then . . . falling for me instead. And becoming . . . something else. Something good. Good for me. He keeps me going, helps me slay, makes me happy with his body and his loyalty and his gorgeous insane-o total perfect love. I don't want you . . . you're nothing to me."

". . . nothing? . . ."

"I want him. I want my own life back, and I want Spike."

His face darkened. "Spike! But . . . once I heard you call me that . . . ."

"Because for one sweet little second I forgot! How I was torn away from him—how I'll never see him again!" She couldn't look at him, whose very features mocked her longing and made it worse. "Don't you get it yet? Spike is—"

William's hand flew to the bite scar on his throat, the color draining from his face. "Oh Jesus—Spike is me." He grabbed for the bedpost to steady himself, and sank down. "I—I would have died there—that she-demon would have killed me—if not for you."

"That she-demon is Drusilla. She made Spike, and he was faithful to her for a century, until he came after me, and nothing was ever the same." Inside her, the baby kicked, a reminder that some things were irretrievable. "I should've let her take you."

He gazed at her in disgust. "What sort of female are you—that you could wish me dead and love what you describe—an unclean thing without conscience or scruple or soul?"

"The sort you're never gonna understand even if I explain it to you all night."

The next day he didn't emerge from his room at all. Buffy took her usual place on the veranda, pretending to read while glancing up every few minutes from the shelter of her hat brim, to his window. Sometimes she thought she saw the draperies twitch, and once that she caught a glimpse of the white disk of his face. On and off, the child moved inside her, sharp kicks like hiccups. She felt sorry for it. Who would look after it when she'd gone? Her new maid? She didn't like Sarah, felt no urge to confide in her. Probably she was spying on her for William.

The people she missed seemed to be crowded around her as she sat alone, and yet their ghostly presences made her more lonely. How excited Dawn would be about her having a baby, having a baby with Spike. If such a thing were possible! And Tara! She hoped Tara was still there, living in her house. She'd help Spike feel less sad, less abandoned, she was good at that.

Spike wasn't lost. He had her friends.

She was the one who was friendless now. She had nobody but William in this world, and she'd said things to him he'd never forgive.

Still, she couldn't bring herself to regret it. Whatever it was that had her convinced she was in love with him was used-up, like an expired glamour.

"Sarah, I have some business today that takes me from home. Tell your mistress when she wakes."

The maid stared at him. It was a moment before she remembered herself and curtsied. She was an insolent little baggage, not like Kate at all, but Kate had had to be dismissed, and finding maids here in the countryside was no easy business. This one clearly was attuned, or thought she was, to the unhappiness of the household, but was far too new to be anything like a comfortable buffer. She wanted gossip, and chances were she would have it. It was obvious she saw, despite how carefully he'd brushed his clothes and his hair, that there were deep grey circles under his bloodshot eyes—the mark of a troubled man.

That was the least of his worries.

He walked, with a strange furtive feeling, into the post-dawn stillness. The heavy atmosphere of his home seemed to dog his steps, even as he rounded the first of the curves in the dusty road that hid the villa from view. He hadn't slept since she told him the horrifying thing. How sleep, how work, how plan, when he could think of nothing but the trouble he'd clasped to his bosom, all by pausing to hear out the addresses of a street whore in Haymarket on a winter's night!

He was too weak, too susceptible. A pretty girl had always aroused him—his chivalry, his affection, his sense of fair play. His . . . sex. Any little charmer might've had him for the asking, at any time—but none would. The Mammas whose homes were open to him were not eager for their precious daughters to encourage the attentions of a poor clergyman's son whose pallor was often lit by the antic flush of consumption, and he'd always lacked the charm to overcome that instructed resistance.

Miss Addams was not, he knew, instructed. No one instructed Miss Addams about anything. She was repulsed by him quite off her own bat.

Yet how sure he was that Providence was guiding him to fairer shores when Miss Summers appeared! True, he'd begun by sinning against her . . . with her . . . but those nights were so cold and lonesome, death breathing hard on his neck, obsessive thoughts of sensuality plaguing his fevered brain. To die young and unaccomplished was sad enough, but for a man to die without having once touched a woman—!

What did Providence mean by it—putting that she-vampire in his way, the punishment for his iniquities—then snatching that punishment away and replacing it instead with new compre