Virtue

21

Marcus slept fitfully and woke leaden with depression. He lay in the big bed contemplating the bleak prospect of his marriage. After such a confrontation, after the things that had been said, he could see no possibility of anything other than a frigid, armed truce between them from now on. He knew that he would always be suspecting her of some ulterior motive, of employing some strategy to take advantage of him. He'd never again be able to trust in her responses or in her emotions… not even in bed. And he would watch her like a hawk. He would control every aspect of her life as it impinged upon him. And Judith's bitter resistance would fuel the vicious circle of mistrust.

He dragged himself out of bed in the cheerless dawn and padded softly to the connecting door. The handle turned but the door was locked. It didn't surprise him, but it angered him. He intended from now on that her life should be open to his inspection at all times, and he would not tolerate locked doors.

He went out into the passage to the outside door. This one opened, but the room when he stepped into it was empty. He stood in disbelief for a minute, trying to order his tumbling thoughts and a sudden morass of responses that couldn't yet be named. The bed had not been slept in, drawers stood open, their contents dis-tu bed as if someone had gone through them in haste. The armoire was open. Judith's hairbrushes were no longer on the dressing table.

She had gone. At first, the stark recognition made no sense. His mind couldn't grasp the fact that Judith had left him. He caught and hung onto the simplest aspect: the public consequences of such an action. The response to this was equally simple: a surge of renewed anger. How dare she do such a thing? Put him in such a position? How could he possibly explain his wife's dead-of-night flight to the servants? How could he possibly explain her absence to the rest of the world? It was a piece of cowardly avoidance, something he would never have expected of Judith.

Furiously he unlocked the connecting door and stormed into his own apartment, pulling the bellrope for Cheveley.

"Her ladyship has gone into the country," he said curtly when his valet appeared. "She had news of a sick aunt and was obliged to leave immediately. Inform Millie of that fact, will you?"

"Yes, m'lord." Cheveley was far too good at keeping his feelings to himself to show the slightest surprise at this extraordinary information. He assisted his lordship into his clothes and stood patiently with a large supply of cravats in case die first attempts were unsuccessful. But the marquis seemed easily satisfied this morning and spent less than five minutes on the intricacies of cravat-tying.

He slipped a Sevres snuff box into his pocket and stalked downstairs to the breakfast parlor, throwing over his shoulder, "Gregson, have my curricle brought around."

Gregson bowed at the terse instruction.

The marquis marched into the breakfast parlor, closing the door with a controlled slam. He poured himself coffee, helped himself to a dish of eggs, fragrant with fresh herbs, and sat at the table. Slowly the conflicting emotions wrestling each other for precedence began to sort themselves out. He sipped coffee, staring sightlessly across the table, his eggs cooling in front of him. He had to find her and bring her back, of course. Whatever lay between them, whatever future they might have, she was still his wife, whether she liked it or not. Devious, scheming adventuress or not, she was his wife, whether he liked it or not. And by God, when he found her…

He pushed back his chair abruptly and went to the window. It was a bright morning, a hoar frost glittering on the grass. He was furious with her for putting him in this situation, but there was more to it than that. Yes, she had to come back. The scandal otherwise would be unthinkable. But he had felt more than anger when he'd stood in the doorway of her empty room… a room out of which all the spirit seemed to have been leached. Even the house felt different, as if it had lost some vital presence that gave it life. Slowly he forced himself to name what he had felt as he'd stood in the doorway. He had felt the terror of loss. He felt it now, pushing up through the anger. There was no other way of describing it.

He began to pace the parlor, trying to work out what this meant. Did it mean that her deceptions didn't matter? Did it mean he was willing to endure being used, if it was the price of her presence in his life? Or did it simply mean he was willing to rescind the punishment if Judith would offer her own compromises? Could they start afresh? What was he terrified of losing-the potential for love or the certainty of lust?

He heard her laugh-that wicked, sensual chuckle in his head-and the sound winded him. He felt her body under his hands, as if in some sensuously vivid dream. He could smell the delicate, lavender-scented freshness of her skin. The burnished copper head, the great, golden-brown eyes, shimmered in his internal vision. But it wasn't just that, was it? It was Judith herself. Judith with her tempestuous spirit, her needle wit, her acerbic tongue, her delicious sense of humor. Judith of the lynx pride and ferocious independence. It was the woman who carried a pistol, who didn't buckle under adversity, who didn't think twice about slaving amid the gory detritus of a battlefield, who took responsibility for herself.

It was the woman he had thought he needed to lash into submission. The foolishness of such a misguided intention now brought a sardonic curve to his mouth. Whatever she was, whatever she had been, she belonged to him. And for some perverse reason, despite the scheming and the deceit, she seemed to be what he wanted. And if that was the case, then he'd have to try to modify the bad with rather more subtlety than he'd shown so far, and what he couldn't change he'd have to accept.

But first he had to retrieve her. The initial step was obvious. If it failed, the next was less obvious.

Gregson announced that his lordship's curricle was at the door. "Thank you. Lady Carrington has gone into the country to visit a sick aunt."

"Yes, my lord, so I understand from Chevdey. Do we know when her ladyship will return?"

"When the sick aunt is recovered, I assume," Marcus snapped, thrusting his arms into the many-caped driving coat held by Gregson.

He drove to Albemarle Street. It was eleven o'clock, hopefully too early for Sebastian to have left his lodgings. He was right, to a certain extent, in that his quarry was seated at breakfast, having returned to his lodgings after an early-morning journey to Kensington.

"Good morning, Marcus." Sebastian rose from the table as his servant announced his brother-in-law. "Breakfast?" He gestured to the laden table.

"No, I've already breakfasted. Where is she, Sebastian?"

"I thought that was probably the purpose of your call." Sebastian resumed his seat. "You don't mind if I continue…?"

Marcus slapped at his Hessians with his driving whip. "I haven't got all day, Sebastian. Where is she?"

"Well, there's the difficulty," his host murmured, taking up a tankard of ale. "I can't say, you see."

"She came to you, of course?"

"Of course." He took a draft of ale.

Marcus glanced around the room. If Judith was anywhere in the vicinity, he would know it, would feel it in his bones and through his skin. She had that effect on him, and it was getting stronger the longer he lived with her. He knew she was no longer in her brother's lodgings.

"If you don't mind my saying so, you seem to have been rather unsubtle," Sebastian observed, spearing a deviled kidney.

"I'm willing to concede that," Marcus said. "But the provocation was overpowering."

Sebastian frowned. He'd been thinking things through for many hours now, ever since his sister had fallen asleep. He hadn't said anything to her, but he had come to tie conclusion that a degree of interference might be in her best interests. Of course, putting Judith's marriage together again would be in his best interests also. He couldn't destroy Gracemere without her help, and until Gracemere was dealt with, he couldn't make a formal offer for Harriet. He'd had to wrestle with the issues for a long time before he satisfied himself that what he was going to do would be certainly as much for Judith as it 'would be for himself.

"If you hadn't jumped to conclusions in the first place, there'd have been no need for Ju to offer you provocation," he said deliberately.

"Perhaps you'd like to explain." Marcus sat down, flicking at his boot with his whip, his eyes resting on his brother-in-law with an arrested expression.

"Ju had no idea who was in the taproom at that inn, after you and she had…" Sebastian waved a hand in lieu of completing the sentence.

Marcus was suddenly very still. "But she said she did."

"Did she? You sure about that?" Sebastian buttered a piece of toast without looking at his visitor.

Marcus thought. He'd asked her in that little loft on the morning of Waterloo, and she'd said… but no, she hadn't said anything at all. He'd asked her and she hadn't denied it.

"If it wasn't true, why wouldn't she deny it?"

"Well, you'd have to understand Ju and her eccentric principles rather better than you do to see that," her brother declared. "She'd be so insulted that you could have suspected her of such an underhand trick that she wouldn't see any point defending herself."

"Are you telling me that all these months, she could have put my mind at rest with a single word and she deliberately chose not to?"

Sebastian nodded. It was a little more complicated than that, but he couldn't explain to Marcus that Judith had seen little difference between the accusation of manipulation and the truth of opportunism. The difference, however, struck her brother as crucial in the present turmoil. "You shouldn't have suspected such a thing of her," he said simply.

Marcus closed his eyes on a surge of exasperation that for the moment prevented his unhampered joy as he laid down the burden of mistrust. "It was not an unnatural suspicion, knowing how you and your sister were living," he pointed out after a minute.

"Oh, I beg to differ," Sebastian said. "You made a false deduction from the premise. You hardly knew her." He glanced across at Marcus. "The other matter, too," he said. "Rather delicate, but you had no grounds for-"

"All right," Marcus interrupted, a spot of color burning on his cheek. "There's no need to expand. I know what you're referring to. If your sister hadn't been ruled by that damnable lynx pride of hers, all of this could have been avoided." He slashed at his boot. "I'm not prepared to assume total responsibility for this, Sebastian."

"No," Sebastian agreed, taking up his tankard again. He drank deeply. "So what are you going to do when you find her?"

"Wring her neck and throw her body in the Serpentine," Marcus said promptly.

Sebastian chuckled and shook his head. "That might defeat the object of reconciliation."

Marcus stood up abruptly. "Damn it, Sebastian, where is she?"

Sebastian shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't help you, Marcus."

"You know where she is, though?" Sebastian nodded. "But I'm sworn to secrecy." Marcus regarded him through narrowed eyes, tapping the silver knob of his whip against the palm of one hand. "I daresay you'll be seeing her at some point today."

"Yes." There was cool comprehension in Sebastian's eyes.

Marcus inclined his head in acknowledgment and walked to the door. "Thank you, Sebastian."

The door closed on his visitor. Sebastian pushed his chair back from the table and stretched out his long legs. Judith would probably be annoyed at his interference, but he felt as if he'd just done some good work. He was fairly certain his sister's feelings for Marcus Devlin went deeper than she had so far been prepared to acknowledge. And Marcus, for all his autocratic temperament, felt a great deal more for Judith than he might have demonstrated.

Maybe it took a man in love to recognize the signs in others, Sebastian reflected complacently. He'd give Marcus time to set his spy in place before he went himself to see Judith.

Marcus drove his curricle round to the mews. "Where's Tom, Timkins?"

The head groom took the reins as they were tossed to him. "In the tack room, m'lord. Shall I fetch him?"

"Please."

A minute later a lad of about fourteen came hurrying across the cobbles, wiping his palms against his leather apron. "You wanted me, m'lord."

"Yes, I have a task for you." Marcus gave the boy his instructions. Tom received them in silence, nodding his head now and again to indicate comprehension. "Is that quite clear, Tom? I'm sure he'll be expecting someone on his tail and he won't try to throw you off, but I don't want you to make it obvious."

"Don't you worry, m'lord. Thinner than is shadow I'll be." The lad grinned cheerfully. "I could pick 'is pocket and the cove'd not know it."

"I'm sure you could," Marcus agreed. "But I beg you won't give in to the temptation."

Tom was an accomplished pickpocket, who two years earlier had had the great good fortune to pick the marquis's pocket in the crowd at a prize fight. Carrington hadn't realized his watch had gone, until an observant spectator had set up the cry of "pickpocket." The terror in the child's eyes as he'd been collared had had a powerful effect on Marcus, who'd suddenly seen the small body-hanging from a scaffold in Newgate Yard. He'd taken him in charge over the protestations of the irate citizens, handed him over to his head groom with the instructions that he be taught the consequences of theft in no uncertain fashion, and then set to work. Tom had been his most devoted employee ever since, evincing a degree of intelligence that certainly qualified him for a task such as this.

The search put in motion, there was nothing to do but wait. He retreated to his book room, wondering how to apportion the blame for the misunderstanding that had caused so much grief. They both bore some responsibility, but when he turned the cold, clear eyes of honesty on the question, he was obliged to accept that he had thrown the first stone.

The barouche drew up outside a tall, well-maintained house in Cambridge Gardens, North Kensington, and three women descended, looking about them with the curiosity of those on unfamiliar territory. Kensington was a perfectly respectable place, of course, but unfashionable and definitely not frequented by the ton.

"What a strange place for Judith to choose," observed Isobel.

"What a strange thing for her to choose to do," Cornelia responded with more point, as she lifted the hem of her dress and shook ineffectually at some clinging substance. "How did that get there?" She directed a hostile stare at the material, as if it alone were responsible for its less than immaculate appearance.

Neither of her friends bothered to answer the clearly rhetorical question. "Walk the horses, we shall be about an hour," Sally instructed her coachman, before raising the knocker on the blue-painted door.

"It doesn't seem like a hotel." Isobel's experience of hotels was limited to establishments such as Brown's or Grillon's.

However, the door was promptly opened by a maidservant, who asserted that it was indeed Cunningham's Hotel, and Mrs. Cunningham would be with them directly.

Mrs. Cunningham was a respectable female in shiny bombazine, all affability as she welcomed three such clear members of the Quality to her establishment.

"We are visiting Lady-" Cornelia stopped as Sally trod on her toe.

"Mrs. Devlin," Sally put in swiftly. "We understand that Mrs. Devlin is staying here." Judith's note, delivered to Sally by Sebastian, had warned them she was staying at Cunningham's Hotel under Marcus's family name.

"Oh, yes." Mrs Cunningham's smile broadened. "She has the best suite at the back-nice and quiet it is, as she wanted, looking over the garden. Dora will take you up and I'll have some tea sent up."

They followed the maidservant upstairs and along a corridor to double doors at the rear of the house.

Judith was sitting in a chair by the window, in front of a chess board, when her friends entered. She sprang up with a glad cry. "Oh, how good of you all to come. I was feeling thoroughly sorry for myself and horribly lonely."

"But of course we would come," Sally said, looking around the sitting room. It was pleasant enough, but nothing to the yellow drawing room in Berkeley Square. "Whatever are you about, Judith? Your note didn't explain, and Sebastian wouldn't say anything."

"Thinking," Judith replied. "That's what I'm about, but so far I haven't come up with any sensible thoughts… or even comforting ones," she added.

"Well, what's happened?" Cornelia sat on the sofa. "Why are you in this place?"

"It's a perfectly pleasant place," Judith said. "I have a large bedroom as well as the sitting room, and the woman who owns it is very attentive-"

"Yes, but why are you here?" Isobel interrupted this irrelevant defense of the accommodations.

Judith sighed. "Marcus and I had a dreadful fight. I had to get away somewhere quiet to think."

"You left your husband?" Even Cornelia was shaken. "You just walked out and came here?"

"In a nutshell. Marcus has forbidden my gaming and intends to control every penny I spend." Judith fiddled with the chess pieces as she told as much of the story as she could without revealing Brussels. "So, since I can't possibly accept such edicts," she finished, "and Marcus is determined that I will obey him, what else could I do?"

Isobel shook her head, saying doubtfully, "It seems a bit extreme. Husbands do demand obedience as a matter of course. One has to find a way around it."

The maidservant brought tea. "Mrs. Cunningham wants to know if you'd like some bread and butter, ma'am? Or cake?"

"Cake," Isobel said automatically, and Judith chuckled, feeling a little more cheerful. She'd been fighting waves of desolation all day… desolation and guilt, whenever she thought of how that moment of willful passion on the road to Quatre Bras had ruined all their carefully laid plans. And Sebastian had so far uttered not a word of reproach.

"But what are you going to do, Judith?" Sally asked, having sat in silence for some time, absorbing the situation.

"I don't know," Judith said truthfully. "But you can't just disappear. How would Marcus explain that?" Sally persisted. "The family…" She stopped with a helpless shrug. The might and prestige of the Devlin family were perhaps more apparent to her than to Judith. She'd been married into it for five years. The thought of damaging that prestige, of inviting the wrath of that might, sent a fearful shudder down her spine.

"Maybe I'll just be conveniently dead," Judith said. For some reason, the thought of her mother came to her. Her mother had died quietly in a French convent, leaving barely a ripple on the surface of the world… if you didn't count two children.

"Judith!" Cornelia protested. "Don't talk like that." "Oh, I don't mean really dead," she explained. "I'll disappear and Marcus can put it about that I've died of typhus, or a riding accident, or some such."

"You're mad," Sally pronounced. "If you believe for

one minute that the Devlin family will let you get away with that, you don't know anything about them."

Judith chewed her lip for a minute. She had a horrible feeling that Sally was probably right. "I'm not thinking clearly at the moment," she said finally. "I'll worry about the details later. Tell me some gossip. I feel so isolated at the moment."

"Oh, there's a famous story going around about Hester Stanning," Isobel said. "I had it from Godfrey Chauncet." She lowered her voice confidentially.

Judith listened to the on-dit with half an ear, her mind working on some way in which she could still play her part with Gracemere. Maybe, for the denouement, Sebastian could arrange a private card party and she could make an unexpected appearance…

"Don't you think that's funny, Judith?"

"Oh… yes… yes, very funny." She returned to the room with a jolt.

"You weren't listening," Isobel accused, eyeing the chocolate cake that Dora had brought in. "I wonder if I dare have another piece. It's really very good."

Judith cut another slice for her. "I was listening," she said.

"When you fight with Carrington, do you lose your temper?" Cornelia asked with the air of one who'd been pondering the question for some time.

The question brought such a wave of longing washing through her that Judith was for a moment silent, lost in the memories of the times when they'd fought tooth and nail and then made up with ferocious need. "Yes," she admitted. "I have a dreadful temper, and so does Marcus."

"Good heavens," Cornelia said. "I can't imagine Forsythe losing his temper. I wonder if I should try to provoke it. It might add a bit of excitement to life."

Judith couldn't help laughing. "You're too levelheaded and even-tempered, Cornelia. You'd start arguing with yourself instead of your husband, because you'd immediately see the other point of view."

After her visitors had left, she sat in the gloom of late afternoon. Cornelia and Sally and Isobel really didn't understand. They'd stand by her, of course. They'd keep her company and keep her secret, but they couldn't begin to understand what would drive a woman to take such a desperate stance. Never having tasted freedom- the sometimes uncomfortable freedom of life outside Society-they couldn't imagine doing anything so drastic. Judith didn't blame them for it. On the contrary, she envied the simplicity and security of their lives.

It was getting dark, but she didn't ring for Dora to light the candles. The growing shadows suited her mood and she could feel herself sliding deeper and deeper into a pit of wretchedness. She hurt every time she remembered what Marcus had said to her, what he believed her to be, every time she recalled that, believing such things of her, he had still made love to her in the way he had, with such trust, such honesty, such absolute oneness with her in body and spirit. She had entrusted herself to him in those moments, as he had entrusted himself to her. And yet all the time…

A knock at the door shattered the grim cycle of her thoughts. Sebastian entered, and she blinked in the near darkness.

"Why are you sitting in the dark?" He struck flint against tinder and lit the branched candlestick on the table. He subjected his sister to a comprehending scrutiny, one that confirmed his suspicions and satisfied him that he'd done the right thing that morning.

"I thought you might like some company for dinner," he said, as if he didn't notice her pallor or the sheen of tears in her eyes. "Mrs. Cunningham informs me that she has a carp in parsley sauce and a boiled fowl with mushrooms. Sounds quite appetizing, I thought."

Judith managed to blink back her tears. "Thank you, Sebastian," she said with composure. "1 was dreading a solitary dinner."

"I rather thought that might be the case." He bent to kiss her. "Blue-deviled?"

"An understatement," she said. "What are we going to do about Gracemere?"

"It's not important at the moment." He pulled the chess board over to the fire. "We'll work something out once you've recovered your equilibrium."

"But-"

"Which hand?" Sebastian interrupted, offering his clenched fists.

"I only want-"

"Which hand?" he repeated.

Judith pointed to his left. He opened it to reveal the black pawn.

"Oh, good, I have the advantage," he said cheerfully, sitting behind the white pieces. "Sit down, Ju, and stop looking like a week of wet Mondays."

She sat down and watched him move his pawn to king four. She moved her own in response. "Have you seen Marcus?" She tried to keep the quaver from her voice.

"He paid me a visit this morning." He moved up his queen's pawn.

She made the ritual responding move. "What did he say?

Sebastian examined the neat center arrangement of four pawns. "He wanted to know where you were." He brought out his knight.

Judith moved her own knight and they exchanged pawns. "What did you say?"

"That I was sworn to secrecy." Sebastian sat back. The ritual opening moves made, the real play would begin.

"Was he angry?"

"Not pleased," her brother said, bringing his queen's bishop into play. "But then you wouldn't expect him to put his neck under your foot, would you?"

"I'd expect him to be more understanding," she snapped, hunching over the board. "He makes no effort to understand me."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Sebastian said judiciously, waiting for his sister to make her move. "I think on the whole he has a fairly good handle on you, Ju."

"How can you say that?" Judith's hand hovered over her knight.

"He knows damn well that if he allows you to ride roughshod over him, you'll have no relationship at all," Sebastian said. "Be honest, Ju. Do you want some nodcock for a husband, a man who couldn't stand up to your"

"No," she said. "Of course not. But why do we have to stand up to each other, Sebastian? That's what I don't understand."

Her brother shrugged. "It's the kind of people you are. I don't think you're going to change that, quite frankly."

"Harriet won't stand up to you," she observed.

"She won't have to," he responded promptly. "I won't give her cause. I intend to become a country bumpkin-a squire, devoted to farming and hunting and my children.'1

"Yes, because when you and Harriet make your vows, you'll do it without deception," Judith said, bitterness lacing her words. "You'll be the person she believes you to be. She'll know nothing of father, of Gracemere… and she'll never have to know. All of that will be in the past forever. It won't come back to destroy your marriage before it's ever really begun." Her voice choked and she turned aside from the board. "I'm sorry."

Sebastian handed her his handkerchief. He had no doubts now that his interference had been justified. "Make your move, Ju," he said, indicating the board. "It's true that my marriage would be founded on something different from yours, but maybe you could move beyond that with Marcus. Once it's all over-"

"How could I possibly?" she exclaimed. "And how can you talk like this anyway? After what he believes, what he's said, what he intends to do…?"

"I know," Sebastian said soothingly. "It's insupportable, I agree. I was thinking you might consider going to that little village in Bavaria, where the Helwigs are. They invited you to stay with them whenever you wished. It might tide you over an awkward few months."

"Yes," Judith agreed, wondering why Sebastian's company was so irritating. She couldn't remember ever before finding it so.

It was close to midnight when he left. Young Tom, shivering in a doorway opposite, heaved a sigh of relief.

Surveillance was a tedious business, he reckoned, setting off after the gentleman-cove in the beaver hat and long cloak. It involved hanging around for hours outside houses and clubs, going without his dinner in case the cove came out unexpectedly. However, he could take his lordship unerringly to every one of the places visited by his quarry.

Sebastian hailed a passing hackney and the jarvey pulled over immediately. If Sebastian was aware of the nonpaying passenger clinging to the back of the carriage as it swung through the quiet streets of nighttime London, he gave no sign.

Tom sprang off as the carriage turned into Albemarle Street. It seemed his quarry was going home for the night, which left his follower free to make his report to his lordship, and hopefully find some supper in the kitchen, before seeking his own bed above the stables.

Marcus had had no stomach for company that evening and had remained by his own fireside, trying to divert his thoughts with Caesar's Gallic Wars. The diversion was only minimally successful since he found contemplation of the war in his own back garden to be much more compelling.

The library door opened. "Young Tom is here to see you, my lord."

"Send him in, Gregson."

Tom came in on the words. "Take your cap off, lad," Gregson directed in an outraged whisper. Stableboys were not usual library visitors.

Tom snatched off his cap and stood awkwardly, twisting it between his hands. "The cove's gone 'ome to 'is bed, m'lord," he offered in explanation for his end of duty. "I thought as 'ow you'd like me report straight-way.

"I would, indeed. Have you had your dinner?"

"No, m'lord. I didn't know as 'ow I could leave the doorway… although the cove stayed put all evening," he added, somewhat aggrieved..

"Gregson, make sure there's a good supper waiting for him in the kitchen," Marcus instructed.

The buder bowed himself out in silence, and if he felt discommoded by being instructed to see to the welfare of a stablehand he managed to keep it hidden.

"So, Tom, what have you to report?"

Tom faithfully detailed Sebastian's movements throughout the day. Uninterestingly routine for the most part: Jackson's saloon, Watier's, Viscount Middleton's lodgings, a drive in the park. However, the gem came at the shank of the rigidly chronicled day.

"Kensington, you say?" Marcus looked into the deep ruby depths of his glass of port. It sounded promising… unless Sebastian kept a mistress there. But Sebastian was in love with Harriet Moreton, and Marcus didn't think his brother-in-law would deem a mistress compatible with courtship, despite his unorthodox lifestyle.

"I could take you there, m'lord."

"Tomorrow will be soon enough, Tom. Get to your dinner now. You've done well."

Beaming, Tom left the library, basking in his god's approval that made an empty belly and the long hours of shivering in doorways well worth while.

Marcus threw another log on the fire and refilled his glass. Tomorrow he would retrieve his wife, and he'd make damn sure he hung onto her from now on.