The bedroom is still and cold, the fire burned low overnight. Outside, London holds its breath in that particular grey silence before the servants begin to stir. You wake with a familiar ache curling through your middle, the kind your mother never named and society never discussed. You press into the blankets, hoping stillness will be enough. It never is. But Anthony is already awake beside you. His hand finds the curve of your back before you say a word, slow and certain, as if he never truly slept at all. He asked the physician questions no lord was expected to ask. He spoke with the housekeeper in low voices. He learned. Now it is before dawn, the house is quiet, and your husband is the only one who knows what this morning costs you.