Wifely Duty

“You sent her away?”

“Yes.”

“Send for her.”

“Parenting advice from the dead, now?”

“She’s my daughter, I’ll advise you as much as I like. You can beat her as much as you like, tie her to a post in the rain if necessary. But you don’t send her away, it’s bloody cruel.”

“Don’t talk to me about cruel.”

“I will, you’re the queen of it when you want to be. Look what happened to Violet once you were done with her. Verity needs a home, not an orphanage. And I’ll be damned if she’ll marry a boy who needs an apprenticeship.”

“She’s happy where she is.”

“Bring her back, Eave, or so help me I’ll haunt you until you lose his infernal child.”

“Jealousy doesn’t become you, you know. You have your own infernal child. You’d do well to remember who is taking care of her.”

“Abandoning her isn’t taking care of her. Unnecessary cruelty isn’t the Eave I remember and love.”

“I can’t handle her. And damn you, Remus, she’s not my responsibility anyway, she was yours. You should have laid better provision for her.”

“There’s no better provision than giving her to you.”

“You ordered this when you were alive?”

“Yes.”

“I hate you. I couldn’t hate you more right now. I was doing perfectly well before you and your ridiculous ideals came along. We were happy before she came along.”

“’We’ being?”

“Myself and Samuel, though I could probably say the same of you and I. You’ve given her to me and expected me to simply drop everything to coddle her. I have tried, Remus, but she doesn’t respond, and I don’t have the energy, time or inclination to try any harder. It’s damned unfair of you.”

“I didn’t anticipate you’d remarry.”

“Don’t you dare make this about me and Samuel, don’t you dare. You don’t get to criticise him when you’ve messed with his life as well as mine.”

“You married him knowing Verity existed, who messed with whom?”

Silence.

“Eave, bring her back. She needs you even if she vehemently says she doesn’t. I won’t have her sucking peasant cock just because you have an itch. I was your husband, you owe it to me.”

... “Very well.”