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Ronan let out a short laugh at that.

“Does it cure the particular ailment that you have?” Ronan signaled for a glass of his own, settling in with the unhurried patience of a man who intended to get to the bottom of something whether or not his friend cooperated. “I’ve heard that you’ve not been present anywhere this week, let alone at fencing. Dare I ask why you’ve been fleeing?”

Gregory studied the amber of his glass with great attention rather than meet his friend’s eye. “I am not fleeing anything.”

“You are the worst liar I have ever had the misfortune to fence with,” Ronan’s tone gentled. “What is it? Truly. I have heard through the grapevine that you might have been avoiding your wife.”

“What grapevine?” Gregory gritted his teeth.

“I suppose your wife speaks to mine,” Ronan shrugged. “What’s going on? I wouldn’t ask of you normally, but you seem rather miserable as well.”

“I suppose we haven’t had the chance to see other in a while,” he said finally.

“And do you have any plans to amend that?” Ronan replied. “I mean, it is different now than it was before. You are a married man now, and can’t always disappear as you please, which I know that you have a knack of doing.”

“Isn’t it so much easier that way?” he replied.

Ronan pursed his lips, “I would tell you to speak to her. It’ll help you clear your mind.”

“I’ll consider it.”

The time for consideration came sooner than expected.

“Since you cannot seem to find your way to us,” said Phillipa, from the small settee that had been dragged, with what he could only assume was considerable effort, into the middle of his study, “we thought we would bring ourselves to you instead.”

Gregory stood in his own doorway and took in the scene.

There was a tea service arranged on his desk, pushed to one side of his correspondence with a carelessness that would have appalled his secretary. There was Phillipa, perfectly composed, pouring a second cup as though she had been doing precisely this every afternoon of their marriage. And there, on a blanket spread across his good carpet, was the baby.

For a long moment he could not think of a single thing to say. Then, entirely without his permission, he began to laugh.

“What in the heavens is going on here?”

“I do not see what is so very amusing,” she said, though her own mouth had begun to twitch.

“You have invaded my study to arrange for a tea party?”

“I have brought tea to my husband, who could not be troubled to fetch it himself.” She lifted her chin, entirely unrepentant. “If you find that amusing, Your Grace, I begin to wonder what passes for tragedy in this household.”

“Fine,” he said, still fighting the last of his laughter as he came further into the room and dropped into the chair across from her. “You win, I concede the field entirely.”

They managed, for a little while, the small foolish talk of two people determined to be pleasant.

“I’m glad that you’ve agreed,” Phillipa said. “I was beginning to think that you never will.”

“Agree is putting it lightly I suppose,” he conceded. “You’ve taken me by surprise but I cannot let your effort go to waste.”

“I would say that is considerate,” she replied. “Why have you been avoiding me?”

Gregory’s hand stilled on his own cup. “I wouldn’t use the word avoid.”

“Please do not tell me you have not, Gregory. I have asked you to tea three times this week, and you have refused me, always with a different excuse and always with the same look on your face, as though I have asked you to walk into a burning building rather than sit in your own drawing room for half an hour.” Her voice was gentle, but it did not waver. “I would like to understand why.”

He was quiet for a long moment, looking not at her but at the small kicking form on the blanket. When he spoke, it was without any of his usual armor of charm.

“It is not you I have been avoiding.”

“Then what?”