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The smell was abominable.

Temperance pursed her lips in a thin smile. "Thank you, Whitlow, I shall sleep now."

As soon as the door closed behind him, she pinched her nose, took the cup, and carried it as far as she could from her bed.

She returned to her bed, then stared at the offending cup.

She still wanted chocolate, but she did not want to get sick from the taste of laudanum.

There was only one solution.

She draped the dressing gown over her shoulders, tied the sash, took the cup, and set off to the kitchen.

Humming to herself, she poured the chocolate-laudanum mixture out the door, washed the cup, and made herself a fresh batch of chocolate.

Mmm...

Much better.

She returned to her suite, climbed into her favorite chair, her feet tucked beneath her, and drank it slowly.

It was thick, sweet, and still hot.

The room was warm and comfortable, the rain tapping at the window of the little sitting room she had not seen in a month.

She was tired after the long journey, but she was not in pain. And she was not about to swallow some concoction she could not name while she might be carrying a child. She did not want to upset her stomach, or worse.

Besides, if Sutton wanted her to take medicine, he should have brought it himself.

She was still furious with him for exiling her again.

He had said it was not an exile, and that it had nothing to do with their agreement. But how was she to trust his words when his actions said otherwise? How was she to believe his feelings had changed when he had not once shown her they had?

She took another sip and scowled into the cup.

She should not have gone. She should have dug in her heels and demanded to stay, Everly be damned. She could have sat shut up in the London house for a month, so long as it was beside Edward, safe and secure. Or he could have come with her.

She had spent two days in the carriage composing every argument she ought to have made instead of leaving. They had been very good arguments. Several of them had been devastating.

And now? What was she to do now?

She drained the last of the chocolate and set the empty cup beside the little brown bottle.

Sutton had been in the saddle for the full day and almost the entire night.

He had changed horses at every posting inn, never stopping longer than it took to saddle a fresh mount and gulp a cup of coffee. Once, he had choked down a heel of bread.

He had made a stop for a brief nap. He had to sleep or he would have fallen over, but three hours were enough, weren't they?

Sutton Hall was only two days' ride away at a leisurely pace.

Except he had no time for leisure.

The rain had started somewhere past the last village, and by the time the Hall rose out of the dark at the end of the drive, it was falling in sheets. The house was long and gray and almost entirely unlit.

He had not seen it in more than three years.

He had come every summer until Temperance took up residence and asked him, through her letters, not to trouble himself with visiting.