Thanks for your patience peeps, this has been all written bar the birth scene for weeks now! Just couldn't make myself sit down and write it. Sorry for keeping you all in suspense!

The very moment Mr Fitz had launched into his heart-rendingly beautiful and evidently long-planned speech, the bitter cold of the Scottish midwinter had crashed over Jemma like a wave.

To her mind, Mrs Hartley's interruption could not have been more ideally timed but afterwards, as she rushed through the house to her chamber to change out of her impractical finery, she cursed herself for having failed to see what had been so patently obvious to her aunts, to Philip and Audrey, and most likely every other person but herself.

She pushed her way blindly through her chamber door and, having closed it behind her, fell back against the cool wood, finding her stricken reflection in the glass opposite. Beyond even her own mortification was the pain she now knew she would have to cause her dearest friend. The very thought of refusing him almost broke her heart.

She had begun to struggle with the fastenings of her gown when the door opened again and Maria appeared.

"But the baby!" Jemma protested. "And poor Daisy!"

"Mr Fitz just appeared in the nursery," Maria explained. "He told me that he would spend the rest of the evening with Jemima and that you would have need of my help."

Jemma's hand involuntarily flew to her breast. "So thoughtful," she whispered to herself. She turned to her companion, keeping her tone as light as she could. "Was he… Did he seem quite well to you, Maria?"

Maria kept her face averted while she was busy gathering work clothes, for which Jemma was extremely grateful.

"I must admit, Mr Fitz did look a little haggard. And it was the strangest thing, Miss Simmons, one knee of his breeches was utterly sodden! He came in ever so quietly, so as not to wake little Jemima, whispered that you were in need of my urgent assistance and then simply leant his forearms on the mantle piece and buried his head. I didn't like to disturb him after that so I quickly gathered my things and tiptoed out."

Jemma could imagine her friend's precise pose and could guess at the state of his mind. Her heart went out to him.

"Do you have reason to be concerned for his health?" Maria enquired mildly as she approached to free her from her dress.

Jemma did not immediately answer.

"Miss Simmons?" Maria repeated.

"Mmm?"

The girl was holding out one of Jemma's day dresses and by the look on her face, had been doing so for some moments.

"I ran into Mrs Hartley on my way to your chamber. She said Mr Gill is in quite a desperate state," she added. "You will let me come with you, will you not, Miss Simmons?"

The reminder of the labouring woman at the centre of all this activity as well as the prospect of seeing Maria in action centred Jemma and within minutes the two women were rushing down the stairs into the servants' hall below, hurling their thick cloaks around them.

Mack reclined in a wooden chair with the newspaper, his enormous feet propped against one side of the stone fireplace. Jemma noticed he was dressed for the weather. At the sight of the two women, he sprang to his feet.

"I sent Mr Gill home to his sister ahead of us," he said. "An open sleigh is no way for ladies to travel on a night like this. I've harnessed the four best horses to the coach and assured him we would be along directly."

"Thank you, Mack," replied Jemma gratefully.

"You might want to cover your heads," he added in his low voice as he led them towards the servants' entrance. "The snow has just begun falling quite heavily."

Jemma pulled the hood of her new cloak from Daisy up around her face and was again thankful for her friend's thoughtfulness. Once bundled into the carriage, the sparkling snowflakes that rested on the dark wool reminded her forcibly of the minutes just past in which she had naively allowed Mr Fitz to spin her laughing into the snow, alone, without anticipating the hurt it would ultimately force her to cause him.

As Mack spurred the horses on and she and Maria surrounded themselves with the blankets he had thoughtfully piled into the carriage for them, she looked up at the house, searching for Fitz's form in a window.

…

Jemma did not see him, for the nursery light was dim, but Fitz watched with a deep ambivalence as the carriage rumbled away.

He had never before found himself in love enough to propose, so he had little notion of what to expect in this specific set of circumstances. Had she had it in mind to accept him, wouldn't she have done so without hesitation, right there on the spot?

Fitz had heard from university friends that sometimes the lady had no words, she simply burst into tears of joy, or, far more appealingly, threw herself into her lover's arms and accepted him with a kiss.

He almost wished he had never heard the latter anecdote. It had occurred to him more than once during the anticipation as a possible and very pleasing outcome of his own venture.

Perhaps it had simply been the sudden presence of Mrs Hartley and the pressing call to duty that had held her still and silent? Perhaps she had been too overwhelmed with delight to speak? Perhaps she could not simply whisper the Yes that would forever cement his happiness because she wanted to accompany that Yes with a pouring out of what was in her heart – a reply of sorts to the pouring out of his?

Or perhaps, and in his sombre solitude he increasingly believed it more likely, she could not pronounce the Yes for which he yearned because what she intended to say, with pity and with explanations and excuses, was, in fact, No.

He could not have guessed at the amount of hours that passed in which he stared into the fireplace vacillating between optimistic conviction and pessimistic desolation but when Daisy returned, beaming, to the nursery and found her brother in place of Maria, he at last twigged to the echo of the grandfather clock some distance down the corridor (it would never do to have a booming clock directly adjacent to the nursery door).

"Have you and Antoine been dancing all this time?" Fitz asked, waiting for the next nine chimes and realising it ceased its clanging after two.

Daisy fluttered her fan coyly. "We danced our two, drank punch a while and made conversation and then, after enough time had gone by and enough wine had been consumed by the general assembly, Antoine proposed we pretend the earlier two dances had never happened and take to the floor afresh!" She stifled a giggle behind her hand at her scandalous behaviour. "I honestly do not believe that anyone noticed, though I suppose we shall find out tomorrow!"

She tiptoed across the rug to look in on little Jemima who slept sweetly on.

Turning back she fixed her curious eyes on Fitz. "What of you, brother? Antoine said you and Jemma disappeared out into the snow and we haven't seen hide nor hair of either of you since! You must have a story to tell."

Fitz nodded soberly. "But, Daisy, you have long expressed a preference for stories with happy endings."

"You cannot be serious, Leo." His sister stopped short, eyes wide. "Jemma refused you?"

"Not yet," he sighed. "She received an urgent summons – a guest of the Gills' had gone into early labour. I had just stammered out the question, Daisy, and there was Mrs Hartley calling her away."

Daisy went to her brother's side, drawing him away from the mantelpiece for the first time in hours, and leading him back towards the recently reupholstered sofa. She sat beside him and gently took his hand. "She left you with not so much as a whisper?"

"Believe me when I say I almost begged her," he laughed bitterly. "But she was not to be drawn. She said that a single word could not suffice, that I must let her say more and that we would speak tomorrow."

Daisy chewed on her lower lip thoughtfully. "Had I received a proposal this evening," she began cautiously, "I should have shouted an immediate yes, even if I had found myself being pulled away from the gentleman in question."

Fitz smiled at what lay beneath her words and then realised it compared rather unfavourably with his own experience.

Daisy saw his face fall and squeezed his hand. "But I am not Jemma, as well you know, Leo. She is a creature quite beyond my understanding. Just because that is what I would have been compelled to do, it does not mean she would behave the same."

"I don't suppose that she has ever confided in you at all?" he asked tentatively.

Daisy shook her head. "Not with regard to her feelings for you. Jemma is too wise for that. She knows I could never keep it from you if she told me she loved you." His sister paused thoughtfully. "She is without a doubt the most independently-minded woman of my acquaintance. I suppose it may be that she had intended to remain single. But surely she must have changed her mind upon meeting you, Leo. How could anyone not love you?"

Fitz shook his head grimly. "I am grateful for your efforts, Daisy, I am, but nothing can be done to alleviate my suffering. I stand poised on a precipice and there I shall remain until the duchess draws me tenderly back to safety in her arms or pushes me, alone, into the abyss. So," he said, forcibly brightening, "let us instead talk about you. All I know is that you did not receive a proposal this evening, but that, if you had, you should have shouted your acceptance."

Daisy's face was once more transformed by an irrepressible gleefulness.

Fitz couldn't help but smile back. His sister looked happier than she had since the day of her ill-fated wedding.

"I must caution you, Daisy, Antoine has a terrible passion for the mud and the rain," he warned playfully. "He's always reciting poetry and I have never once seen him partake of a decent breakfast."

"Go on!" laughed Daisy. "By all means, provide me with the complete catalogue of his faults!"

"Well, he also reads a ridiculous amount of theology."

"A grave short-coming indeed!" She suddenly sobered. "These deficiencies of character you perceive in our beloved Mr Triplett serve only to recommend him in light of my recent experience."

Fitz grasped her hand in earnest. "Daisy, of course Triplett will love you the way you deserve to be loved. He has been dogged and loyal to both of us from infancy and though he has kept silent about it, I believe he has loved you ever since then."

Daisy nodded, her eyes sparkling. "I believe we have a chance at making one another happy," she whispered. "But if only I could see you so happy."

Fitz's vision immediately filled with Jemma in her silvery gown and then he once more recalled his position on the precipice.

"If only," he sighed.

…

On arrival, Jemma had learnt that Mrs Smith's contractions began in earnest on the fateful cart ride back from the morning's Christmas service. By her reckoning, the lady had been in active labour now for sixteen hours but still seemed calmly disinclined to accept the inevitable, clinging to the four or five weeks she had calculated to remain. Her husband, Peter, as well as her brother and sister-in-law were thankfully far more willing to accept the facts as they perceived them.

Mack had huddled in the stable with the horses for a time to stop himself taking up vital room in the cottage but when it became apparent that there'd yet be some considerable hours to go, Jemma had asked Donald to go out and send him back to Manderston. Donald himself tried to take responsibility for the ladies' transport but Mack would have none of it, insisting he would return at daybreak.

So adamant was Rose that she could not in fact be in labour, not for at least three more weeks, that she had unearthed a box of her sister-in-law's ginger root and was determinedly mixing a batter for parkin. The slim form of the expectant mother's wrists belied an impressive strength that Jemma felt confident would serve her well in labour. Occasionally, she would stop, leaning on the rough-hewn wooden bench for support, and groan in what she seemed to believe was a subtle fashion through her increasingly intense contractions.

Jemma was, of course, delighted by Rose's practicality. So often had she encouraged a labouring woman to take up some activity that would absorb her mind and busy her hands, but it was a suggestion rarely taken seriously. She allowed herself to take advantage of Callie's hospitality, accepting with a smile her hostess' whispered apology for Donald's unnecessary panic over his sister's health.

"You could have stayed and enjoyed your celebrations for another few hours, Miss Simmons, had Donnie not gotten it into his head to fetch you," she murmured, as she handed Jemma a much-needed cup of hot tea. "What a way to end your Christmas Day!"

Jemma shook her head, remembering with a pang the reprieve Donald's call had allowed her. "Nonsense, Callie. Though Rose denies it, she may well need our help eventually." She looked over at Donald watching his sister as she rode through another contraction. "And I think our presence at least makes your husband feel better."

Callie snorted. "Anyone would think it was Donnie expecting the baby!"

…

Though Fitz embodied exhaustion, he could not seem to find the strength required to halt his body from its ceaseless pacing. He had paced in the nursery until Daisy had felt forced to turn him out. He had paced along the corridors until one of the guests flung open their chamber door and glared at him. Now he paced around the library, once his sanctuary, but now a poor choice of location given that every fibre and filament of the room seemed to whisper to him of Jemma Simmons.

The yawning question was eating away at him and he wondered how he had come to the confidence to make his offer when his insecurity around her acceptance was now so complete.

He slumped into the window seat where he had once knelt at a weeping Jemma's side and surveyed his estate, transformed as it was by its silvery blanket of snow.

A flicker of movement at the top of the horse chestnut drive drew his eye. He shot to his feet, recognising the family carriage in an instant. They were returned already!

Barely remembering to spare a thought for the sleeping guests, Fitz careered out of the library, sprinting along the interminable corridors as fast as his legs could carry him.

In the shadows of his traitorous imagination, he saw himself out in the snow as the carriage drew up, opening the door to Miss Simmons who flung herself into his arms whispering Yes! A thousand times, yes!

But when he finally escaped the confines of the house and found himself in his shirt sleeves in the bitter cold, the carriage had already been sheltered and there was no Miss Simmons to be seen.

Fitz ran for cover in the stables where he at last located Mack, brushing down the horses and blanketing them for the night.

He looked frantically around for a sign of his beloved.

"Her Grace?" he asked Mack, knowing he must sound desperate. "Is she returned?"

Mack wore an expression Fitz had come to know well over the years. It somehow combined equal measures of amusement and sympathy and convinced the young master all the more that the groom had the ability to read his mind.

"She remains at the Gills' for the night," Mack replied, looking him over knowingly. "You're up late."

Taking up a brush, for there was no idleness tolerated in the stables, Fitz went to work.

"There shall be no sleep for me," he responded melodramatically.

"Alright," sighed Mack. "What have you done?"

"I offered myself, body and soul, to Her Grace, the Duchess of Argyll," Fitz replied.

Mack grinned. "Then I must offer my congratulations! No wonder sleep eludes you."

Fitz shook his head. "I cannot accept your congratulations. Not until Her Grace has accepted me!"

"She left you without at answer?" Mack asked.

"She was called away!" Fitz huffed. "It's not as though she has refused me. Yet."

"You believe she will refuse you?"

Fitz leaned his forehead against the horse's warm neck. "Truthfully, Mack, it hadn't occurred to me as a possibility until the moment I asked her," he admitted. "Until the moment I said the words, I was certain she would accept me. Her behaviour towards me has been more genuine, more warm, more affectionate, more candid than the behaviour of any other woman I have ever encountered. She and I are friends and our friendship, as you know, has been refined by the fire of some not inconsiderable trials. I know she values me. I know she trusts me. I know she loves me! But, alas, I do not know if she will accept me."

Mack stood silently by his side, continuing to run his brush thoughtfully over the horse's flanks.

"Either way, Mack," Fitz murmured, "I shall never love another. If she refuses me how shall you tolerate me moping around the estate like a kicked puppy?"

Mack scoffed. "I shall put you to work," he said flatly. "Miss Simmons is a woman of industry, is she not?"

The young master nodded. "That she is."

"Then no indolent brooding on your part shall win her over. If she refuses you, you must grieve, of course, and then, if it is true that you will never love another, you must reconcile yourself to a productive single life and pray that God shall continue to cause your paths to cross."

Fitz looked askance at his friend, his head still resting against the horse's sweet-smelling mane. "Since when have you been so wise with regard to love?"

Mack sighed, placed his brush on the worn bench behind them and reached into his pocket to draw out a battered watch. He clicked the clasp and opened the silver case to reveal a portrait of an elegant looking woman with dark hair, dark eyes and an enigmatic smile.

"Who is she?" Fitz asked.

"Miss Elena Rodriguez," Mack replied, his voice soft and reverent. "The woman for whom I continue to live a productive single life and for whom I fervently pray, petitioning God for her health and flourishing. Perhaps one day the Lord might see fit to allow our paths to cross again."

How Mack managed to make his unrequitedness sound so noble was beyond Fitz's ken, but somehow he left the stables with equilibrium. He wandered back to his chamber quite dazed but no closer to the possibility of attaining sleep than the moment he had woken to the day's dawn with all of its exhilarating potential.

He undressed in a stupor, casting his evening clothes haphazardly onto his dresser. Shrugging on his night shirt and once more allowing his mind to dwell on his uncertain fate, he almost resumed his pacing but he knew nothing was to be achieved by it. And as Mack had reminded him, he was seeking to woo an industrious woman. He strode purposefully over to the reading chair he'd long ago had moved into his chamber. Once he'd cleared the cushion of its piles of books, he sunk into it, and though he knew it to be a futile effort, took up whatever volume was to hand and attempted to lose himself in it.

When his eyes at last focused themselves on the text before him, he realised he had taken up his Bible and flopped it open to the closing chapters of The Epistle to the Ephesians.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.

Mr Koenig had carefully and repeatedly instructed his pupils in the Sunday School not to liken the falling open of a bound book of paper to the phenomenon of God speaking specific instruction to Moses out of a bush that burned but yet was not consumed. Fitz now sought to cling to that teaching and not let his mind gallop to the territory it so yearned to explore. Instead, he read the words to himself afresh, forcing himself to heed the challenge entailed therein.

To be a husband was no easy undertaking. A husband was to lay his own life at the feet of his beloved, to put her first in every aspect of their shared existence. But to be called to love this woman, to be joined to her, to put his body, his mind, his energy, his resources entirely at her disposal – this was a quest he longed to be given the chance to embark upon, though it cost him all he owned.

…

While Maria hovered at a respectful distance from Mrs Smith, now almost certainly entering the second stage of labour, Jemma sat back and observed her new colleague's approach. She was encouraging without being overbearing, attentive without being suffocating, friendly without being overfamiliar. Jemma found herself increasingly confident that Maria would prove to be an efficient and trustworthy birth attendant.

With the birthing mother's care in the capable hands of another and the birthing mother herself remaining strictly in denial, Jemma took the opportunity to also observe the interaction between the husbands and wives in the room. She had long admired the healthy partnership she'd discerned between Callie and Donald but now she saw them through the critical eye of a woman looking to justify her decision to refuse a proposal. Was their something cloying about the sweetness of the husband's affection towards his beloved?

Rose and Peter Smith similarly aroused her suspicions. Though the husband had come alongside his wife to assist in the increasingly slow-going parkin-baking and to surreptitiously offer the support of his own strong body when her strength seemed to waver, Jemma wondered if his attention was actually what his wife desired or if she yearned to be left alone and free to move through her contractions unhindered yet felt prohibited from saying as much.

There was such a symbiotic-seeming attachment between the siblings and their spouses. On one level it was undeniably attractive; each pair had whole-heartedly committed to one another for better or for worse. Yet in Jemma's addled emotional state, she saw stifling where there was only affection, condescension where there was only reassurance, assumption where there was only attunedness.

At long last, there could be no more pretending. Rose's baby was insistently making its debut and no strongly-voiced objection of the mother could hold it back.

"I'll admit, Miss Maria," she said in one of the dwindling moments of reprieve between contractions, "I was quite determined to be home at Holling Hill before this child arrived."

Maria smiled indulgently. "Rose, I am almost as surprised as you are. If anyone could have held back the birth of a full-term child by the means of their own sheer bloody-mindedness, I genuinely believe that it would have been you."

Rose laughed good-naturedly at this until the next contraction claimed all her concentration.

Jemma watched with some interest as Maria encouraged Rose onto all fours and invited Peter to join them on the floor.

"See this place right here, Peter," Maria said, indicating the centre of the birthing mother's lower back. "As her contractions continue to grow in intensity, Rose might find some relief in you pressing the flat of your hands just on this spot. Listen to your wife, mind," she cautioned. "You'll know by the sounds she makes if you're helping or hindering."

Peter looked back at the midwife with a mix of apprehension and resolution. He nodded and attempted to mimic Maria's stance, the flat of his hands pushing gently against his wife's sacrum.

There was an immediate change in Rose's vocalising. There could be little doubt that she was experiencing the promised relief.

When the force of the contraction faded, Rose turned to smile at her husband. "And here I was thinking I had to manage all of this on my own," she said quietly.

"I was helpful to you then, love?" he asked.

Her body seemed to rise up into the next wave. "Please, Pete," she pleaded, and her husband was quick to oblige, applying once more the pressure that seemed to so aid his wife as she rode through the waves.

Jemma exchanged a satisfied nod with Maria and began to quietly question Callie and Donald as to how equipped they were to accommodate an unexpected newborn. In the activity of the evening, neither of them had given it a moment's thought. Jemma focused her attention on assisting the pair make space for their new niece or nephew and did her best to gather the swaddling cloths and various other bits and pieces the new mother and baby would require.

By the time Donald had shuffled some furniture about in the room where his sister and her family were sleeping, and Jemma and Callie had assembled a satisfactory pile of linens, Rose was thunderous in the final moments of her baby's crowning. Maria deftly caught the little child and invited Peter to make the announcement to his exhausted wife.

"It's our Robert, Rosie!" he cried. "Our little Bob! You've done it, love! We have a perfect strapping son!"

Strapping was the word for it. The baby, having been gently lowered into Rose's ready arms, most certainly took after his broad-shouldered father rather than his slender mother.

"We did it, Pete," the new mother declared generously, just loud enough for Jemma to overhear. "You were by my side all that time. I can't help but feel that you aided me in pushing him out."

Peter's eyes glistened in the firelight as he pressed a proud kiss to his wife's brow and then to his son's tiny hand.

"Come and see my son!" he roared tearfully to the hovering family. "My son and my beautiful wife!"

It was some hours before Jemma and Maria had done all they could to aid the recovery of the mother and the settledness of the newly expanded family and by the time those hours had passed, the sun had begun to show itself behind the heavy snow-filled clouds and Mack had returned, drawing the carriage up to the door of the Gill's small cottage.

"Are you sure you'll be alright?" Jemma asked Callie as Maria gave some last minute feeding assistance to an exhausted Rose.

Callie nodded. "We'll be fine. Donnie has always been a wonder with our babes. I think he's quietly excited to show Pete the ropes."

"You'll make sure Rose gets some rest, won't you? She strikes me as the type to throw herself straight back into action given half the chance."

The lady's sister-in-law laughed. "You've accurately taken Rose's measure in only a day!"

"One gets to know a person when one watches them give birth," Jemma agreed, smiling.

Maria got to her feet and crossed to the door, handing her bag to Mack who took it straight out to the carriage.

"Thank you, Maria," Callie said, grasping her hand. "You were just the midwife Rose and Peter needed."

Jemma beamed. "I absolutely agree," she said.

Maria flushed prettily.

Mack came back in to fetch his charges, helping them quickly through the snow and into the carriage, encouraging them to surround themselves with blankets before he drove away.

Where Maria dozed against the window within moments of the carriage lurching away, Jemma found herself somehow wide awake, alert to the painful task ahead of her. She could not put it off. She must go and discharge her responsibility to the young master immediately upon her return.

…

Jemma knocked quietly on Mr Fitz's door in the dark corridor.

She heard nothing.

She knocked again, this time slightly more insistent.

Still no response.

At last she turned the handle, pushing the door open and slipped inside, quietly pulling it closed behind her.

"Mr Fitz?" she whispered, just making out his slumbering form on the large bed in the middle of the room. She walked quietly across the lush carpet, parting the brocade curtains a little way so she could see.

She couldn't help but smile at what the glimpse of pale dawn revealed. Beside the comfortable looking armchair at her elbow (which had clearly been positioned precisely to make the most of the reading light) and on every visible surface teetered towers and towers of books, places marked here and there with poking out letters or bits of torn up newspaper or, in the case of one of his brand new ornithology volumes, a crumpled claret-coloured cravat.

Turning back to the bed, she was struck by the prone figure of Mr Fitz in the early morning light, serene and striking in his repose. He lay flat on his back with one arm thrown above his head, his breathing slow and even, the rise and fall of his chest mesmerising.

Jemma tiptoed to his side and, looking down, found herself admiring the way his long, dark eyelashes pressed against his cheek. His head was tilted a long way back on his pillow, exposing once more the full expanse of throat and clavicle which had so affected her only months before. His ginger-red stubble glowed gold in the sun as did his tumble of soft curls. To her dismay, all the physical evidence suggested she had gained little in the way of equilibrium as a result of her prior exposure.

"Mr Fitz," she repeated, louder this time, her hand hovering above the curve of his almost bare shoulder.

His eyes opened slowly, taking time to drift into focus. Of course, their piercing blue focused directly onto her, leaning over him in his bed. A lazy smile spread across his face at the sight of her, and she felt her own breathing grow somewhat ragged.

Perhaps this plan to wake him had been even more unwise that she had initially allowed. He was so beautiful in his loose-limbed languor, one hand pushing back his unruly curls, the loose sleeve of his flimsy nightshirt falling back to the elbow and exposing the compelling contour of his wrist and forearm.

"I know that this is very untoward, Mr Fitz," she stammered from above him, "but I have not yet slept and I could not in good conscience fall into my bed for the rest of the day without having given you my answer."

Fitz's somnolent smile grew broader as he gazed up at her and when he spoke his voice was deep and husky with sleep. "You will marry me, Jemma?" he whispered incredulously, his eyes sudden wells of emotion. "I am dreaming, am I not? I must be. I have been so anxious for your answer."

Without any warning he wrapped an arm about Jemma's waist and, to her extreme shock, pulled her down onto the bed beside him. She was stunned into speechlessness as he folded her against him, his limbs warm from slumber. "You have visited me in my dreams so many times before, Jemma," he whispered into her hair, "but never with such aching verisimilitude! To think that one day – it must be terribly soon if you'll only agree – you might become my wife!"

He had propped himself up on his elbow so that he gazed fondly down at where she lay stiff in his arms. He reached up to stroke her hair back from her brow, the melting tenderness in his gaze silencing her with its intensity. "I intend to love you so very well, my darling," he whispered as he lowered his face towards her.

Before Jemma could quite harness her wits to act with any of the strict decisiveness she knew the occasion demanded, Fitz's gaze flickered from her startled eyes down to her lips.

The soft brush of his mouth over hers weaved a spell, enchanting her into his own dream-like state. Jemma's eye-lids fluttered closed as her will power began to fade, but then she remembered precisely what it was she had come to tell him.

"Mr Fitz!" she cried, pushing herself off the mattress and away from him.

Fitz's eyes snapped open at her words and he stared at her in some horror, one hand flying to his mouth.

He sat bolt upright, wrenching his hands away from her, swinging his legs onto the floor. His loose night shirt had gathered itself around his upper legs, exposing his well-formed thighs and calves.

Just the sight of his bare feet against the rug seemed so indecently intimate but, of course, that paled in comparison to what had just passed between them.

Jemma backed quickly away from the bed, forcing herself to avert her gaze. It took more than one attempt to find her voice. "P-perhaps you would like to dress, Mr Fitz? Mrs Hartley has kindly agreed to serve us some tea in the conservatory."

Fitz looked down, wide-eyed as if seeing himself for the first time. His shocked silence communicated volumes.

Jemma fled.

Mr Fitz appeared in the conservatory only minutes later, still fumbling with his neck cloth, his features tortured.

"Duchess," he croaked, his tone strangled. "You cannot imagine my relief in finding you here. I fully anticipated that you would have abandoned your plan to give me a civil answer and publically accused me of lechery. It would be deserved. I have had to apologise for my indecent behaviour once before and you ever so kindly forgave me then. I cannot imagine you could possibly be willing to forgive me for–"

"Mr Fitz," Jemma interjected. "Once more, it is I who must apologise. It was very wrong of me to intrude into your personal space…"

"What do I care about personal space where you are concerned?" he replied forcefully. "If I have not yet managed to make myself clear to you, it is the dearest wish of my heart to open my every private space to you, my love, to give myself over to you entirely – body and soul."

Jemma's whole person began to feel pleasantly strange at his words. Once more, she couldn't bring herself to interrupt.

"I should never have attempted…" he glanced quickly from left to right, checking that they were entirely alone in the conservatory. He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. "I should never have reached for you. I should never have tried to draw you into my arms just now. It is inexcusable, but overnight as I awaited your return, I confess, Jemma, I loosened my grip on my self-control. I allowed myself to imagine that you would accept me – that you would agree to become my wife. It is no justification for my behaviour. It was very wrong of me but…" he took one step closer, lowering his head so that his blue eyes gazed intently into hers. "Oh, Jemma, should you take me as your husband, how I shall luxuriate in your closeness."

As though hypnotised, Jemma again felt herself drawn toward him. Her hand drifted to her bosom where the hammering of her heart was palpable. How could he have such power over her? All her consciousness was required for the simple act of drawing breath, quick and shallow, and the blue of his eyes seemed to make up the only horizon she could see. But as she felt herself lean closer, desperate to once more feel the sweetness of his soft lips on hers, her fingers felt through the fabric of her fichu the silver pendant of her mother's that hung between her breasts. She dug into the neckline of her gown and yanked it out, unwittingly inviting Mr Fitz's heated gaze.

Clinging to the unyielding metal and stone, Jemma found the strength she needed. She stepped right away from him once more and took her seat at the little table by the fire, taking up the teapot to pour.

She kept her eyes fixed on her task but sensed him moving hesitantly to take the seat safely opposite.

"Mr Fitz," she began, handing him his cup and saucer with trembling hands. "I am..."

She drank deeply of her own cup a moment, trying to gather her addled wits. Feeling the invigorating draft doing its work, she steeled herself to say what must be said.

"I am deeply honoured by your proposal, Mr Fitz. If ever I had thought to marry, I imagine that to be your wife would be the very height of domestic felicity. But you shall not be entirely surprised, sir, to know that I have long made my choice."

His blue eyes, watching her intently over the rim of his tea cup, now dropped to the table between them.

"These women I serve are my life, Mr Fitz, and I have devoted myself to their aid. To step back from my calling for anything, even for the great honour of becoming the mistress of Manderston, is not something I can even consider."

"Jemma!" Fitz stammered, frantically reaching for her hand across the table. "I would never ask you to step back from your calling! Of course, you must go on exactly as you are now. And I shall lay myself and all of my resources at your feet to ensure you continue to provide your mothers with the very best of care!"

Jemma shook her head sadly, her fingers evading his grasp. "I have been granted unique insight into many a marriage, Mr Fitz. As you know, I am daily inside the many and varied homes that constitute our parish. If you knew what marriage looks like in practice as I do, Mr Fitz, you would know that what you describe is impossible. You would consume me, sir, and if I agreed to marry you, I would be giving you the right. I see my work as my calling, Mr Fitz. That right was never mine to give."

"Consume you?" he echoed.

"What else would become of all the energy and the passion you have so admired me expending on the women and infants I serve? Loving you would channel all of that energy and passion away from the ones who need me most."

"The very idea of my consuming you appears to me abhorrently violent. I do not think of love the way you do. But I cannot argue with you, Duchess," Fitz replied, his voice breaking with emotion. "Nor do I want to press upon you an unwanted suit. You must pursue your calling, of course you must. I will not allow myself to deprive the women of Berwickshire of their devoted guardian and advocate."

He pushed his chair back to stand but Jemma made a grab for his hand as it lingered on the tablecloth.

"Your friendship, Mr Fitz, is one I value over all else," she whispered, her upturned eyes welling with hot tears. "Please assure me that, though I cannot marry you, you will not withdraw your friendship. Never before have I found someone with whom I am able to share so much."

Fitz's eyes roved across her face a moment, his own tears spilling over. A muscle jumped in his tightly clenched jaw as he contemplated her plea.

At last he nodded – once, twice – then got to his feet, swiping at his wet cheeks with the back of his hand.

After a deep bow that somehow seemed to convey grief and love and hopefulness and despair, Mr Fitz turned on his heel and stalked from the room.

The moment his footsteps ceased echoing through the cavernous hall to the conservatory, Jemma dropped her face into her hands and wept.

Well, there you have it. Fret not, gentle shippers. Allow me to simply say that this story is FAR from over.

LOVE (as always) to hear what you think!