He realized he had stopped moving, his thumb at the corner of her mouth. “Not at all.” He tried to smile. The feeling was gone now, but it had left something in its wake-a sort of lifting up, a yearning toward something undefined. He had sometimes felt like this when he heard the opening chords of a favorite piece of music. He had read a poem, once, that almost described it: a shaping and a sense of things beyond us.

That was how he felt when he looked at Penelope just now. As if something were happening to the two of them, just beyond the reach of his understanding. “Thank you. I think that was the most marvelous thing that’s ever happened to me.”

She looked away. “No Spanish coin.” She spoke low enough he hardly heard it.

His hand dropped away from her face. “It’s not. It never has been. Why don’t you believe me?”

“Perhaps because I’ve seen your mistress,” Penelope said dryly, and then looked as if she wanted to cut her tongue out.

How had he forgotten Amy?

“What did you mean?” she asked. “When you said, ‘If that had been you-’ ”

It took him a moment to remember what she meant, and a moment longer to frame an answer that made any sense. He started refastening his clothes. “I just-you know how one gets the strangest thoughts when someone is sick, and I thought-her mother knew your mother when they were children. What if you were the actress and she were the heiress? Then you would be lying there-” The idea was too unthinkable even to say.

“I’m fine, Nev, I’m right here.” Penelope leaned her face against his shoulder, and the idea that someday he might not be able to reach out and touch her was almost a physical pain. “I’m so sorry about Miss Wray.”

“She didn’t tell me. She must have thought I wouldn’t be any use.”

There was a pause; Nev wondered if Penelope was silently agreeing with Amy. “There’s no use blaming yourself,” she said. “We won’t know why she didn’t tell you until she’s well enough to talk.”

If she’s ever well enough to talk. He knew they were both thinking it. “I never realized how much she didn’t tell me. I was with her for a year, I saw her every day-I even told myself we were friends. And I never troubled to find out.” Now he might never have the chance to ask. Everything that Amy had felt and thought and never told him might be gone forever. He looked down at Penelope’s closed expression. “And you-there’s so much you don’t tell me. I never know what’s going on in there. I don’t know how to reach you.”

That, he thought, was why he had needed to pleasure her, to see her gasping and flushed and hear her prayers and curses-to prove to himself that in that way at least he could get to her, in that way she opened herself to him completely.

A minute passed, and she hadn’t answered him; he could tell she was thinking over what he had said and that she wouldn’t voice her thoughts aloud.

“See, you’re doing it right now,” he said with something like despair. “Damn pennies; I’d give a hundred pounds for your thoughts right now.”

“A hundred pounds is a lot of money.”

“I know that.” He did, and it was a hard-won knowledge. A hundred pounds was plows and horses and seed and food for his people’s children. He would still give it, to hear Penelope’s thoughts.

“I-” she began, and stopped. “I’m not keeping secrets. I just don’t see why you should have to listen to my complaints when none of this is your fault.”

It was all his fault; Penelope was too generous, as always. As she had been at the Baileys’. “You left me alone with her.” He had been so grateful to be left alone to promise Amy that now, finally, he would take care of her. So grateful that Penelope was there to shoulder part of the burden. So weakly, selfishly grateful.

“You were hardly going to ravish her in the state she was in. Besides, I didn’t want a scandal, and you would have created one if you were in that nurse’s presence one moment longer.”

In anyone else, he would have said they were trying to be cruel, trying to give him a set-down. With Penelope-well, perhaps it was partly that. But not all. “You just won’t admit you did it to be kind,” he said. “You don’t want anyone to know how softhearted you are, but it’s in everything you do. Penelope-”

“Please don’t. Do you think a compliment from you can give me any pleasure when your mistress is here? It’s cruel of you to say it, when you know I want it to be true.”

“It is true! What do I have to do to convince you?”

“Don’t. You said it yourself; if things were different, I would be lying there and Miss Wray would be here, and you would be saying these things to her. There’s nothing special about me, nothing at all.”

She seemed so sure, and she was cleverer than he. But he said, “You’re wrong.” He knew it. “Penelope, you’re-”

She ignored him. “And then when the Baileys work out she’s saying ‘Nev,’ and not ‘never,’ everyone will know she’s here, and that she lost your child, and they’ll pity me-God! Do you think a single one of them will believe that you find anything special about me? That I gave you the most marvelous experience of your life?”

Nev felt sick. He had wanted her thoughts; now he had them, and he did not know what to do. He had been too distraught to think about the consequences of Amy’s delirium, but now he realized that Penelope was right. They were about to be the subject of a major scandal. And Penelope was right too, about what her role in it would be-the dull wife, losing her husband’s interest after a month of marriage and too stupid to know it. The thought of it made Nev furious, the thought of people looking at Penelope like they knew her. Of people not realizing how wonderful she was.

He ignored his pang of disappointment that Penelope was worried because of the scandal; of course she wasn’t jealous, it had nothing to do with him. It was unjust for him to want anything else, not now. Even insisting that she believe him, trying to tell her how much he had missed her these last few weeks, seemed suddenly selfish, a plea for a forgiveness he didn’t deserve.

There was nothing he could say except, “I’m sorry, Penelope. I’m so sorry.”

Penelope thought they were going to make it out of church without having to talk to Mr. Snively, but at the last moment he appeared from behind the pillar at the end of the family pew. “So I hear you have become as ministering angels and adopted a sick woman as your own charge.”

“Her mother works for my father,” she said, still startled by how fast news traveled in the country. “The poor woman was at her wits’ end. The London air, you know, is quite harmful to invalids.”

“ ‘The greatest of these is charity,’ ” said Mr. Snively. “And yet I fear that, as the guardian of your souls, it is my duty to remind you that the young woman in question is ill because she opposed God’s plan to make her a mother. Perhaps the danger to her body is but a shadow of the danger to her immortal soul, and so one may question whether in such a case-”

Penelope stared.

“Perhaps it would be more Christian to let her die, is that what you’re saying?” Nev demanded.

Mr. Snively shrank back. “No, no. I suppose your generous hearts have the right of it. Tell me, how is Jack Bailey?”

Nev did not answer, so Penelope said, “His leg looked dreadful to me. I do not see how he can work for at least a month if he wishes to be really healed. Do you think the parish might add to his allotment for that time?”

Mr. Snively frowned. “Alas, the parish is groaning under the relief that is already needed. His leg is very bad, you say?”

Penelope shuddered, remembering. “He not only broke the leg in falling from the ladder, he also fell on the pitchfork he was using to thatch the roof. His leg is quite frightening, with a gaping hole straight through-”

“There, there.” Mr. Snively smiled and patted her arm. Penelope hated his smile; it was like a snake’s. “Your ladyship must not distress herself. I consider it very ill-advised to have allowed you to see the wound at all. Your husband, I presume, did not condone such a thing.”