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Chapter Text

There were some days, Demelza Carne thought, as she laid in bed considering smashing her alarm, when you really, really, regretted staying up til three in the morning binge eating Ben and Jerry’s, watching bad rom-coms and sobbing.

Especially when you had to be at work in under half an hour, and currently your head felt like it’d gone around in a blender, your eyes were closer to pufferfish than human eyeballs, and your hair resembled a clump of candyfloss, if said candyfloss had been dyed orange, slashed at, and thrown into a tornado.

Especially if your boss was ridiculously attractive and somehow, despite working all through the night and drinking frankly unsustainable amounts of alcohol, managed to look like he’d just stepped off the cover of Esquire. As did the reason for his drinking.

Which brought her to the reason for her Ben and Jerry’s meltdown.

Elizabeth.

Formerly Chynoweth, now Poldark, she was possibly the most beautiful, gracious, elegant, and refined person Demelza had ever seen, and it was clear Ross shared her views.

Demelza hated her.

Apparently she and Ross had been together before he’d left for the war, but after he’d been presumed dead she’d transferred her affections to another Poldark: his cousin, Francis. Demelza liked Francis well enough, the few time she’d seen him around Ross: but she’d heard rumours of his general ineffectiveness and he seemed a much weaker version of his cousin, like a smudgy watercolour copy of an oil painting. Elizabeth was welcome to him, though God only knew, thought Demelza, why, having a man like Ross within her reach, she had settled for less. Elizabeth didn’t look like the kind of person who settled.

It wasn’t the fact that they’d been together before that hurt Demelza like a cramp in her stomach: it was the fact that Ross looked at her like she was the only star in the sky, like he was utterly desperate to be with her again, marriage be damned. Demelza could only watch as they exchanged mournful, meaningful glances every time they were in orbit of each other, wishing like a drowning man wants land for him to look at her like that one day.

She groaned loudly, glad that there was no-one but Garrick to hear her sounding like someone close to death, and dragged herself over to the bathroom. As she waited for the water to warm up (Ross might be borderline magical at property finding, but not even he could find somewhere with reliable heating in Cornwall for her budget) she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her eye make-up was smudged in dark circles, her lips were chapped, and the less said about her hair, the better.

I bet Elizabeth wakes up looking like a bloody Max Factor advert, she thought resentfully, stepping into the shower. The water wasn’t anywhere near hot, but after a lifetime of tepid dribbles when her father broke the plumbing it was heaven to her. As she pushed back her hair she found herself thinking once again, unwillingly, of what had happened yesterday.

Francis and Mr Blamey getting in a fight…Ross looking on like he was disgusted with all the world…Old Man Poldark yelling about the place… Poor Verity looking devastated…Mr Blamey’s fist knocking Francis’s neck clean sideways…running to help Ross, Prudie retching in the corner… Mr Blamey and Verity disappearing…laying Francis in Ross’s office…Elizabeth flying in like a bat out of hell screeching for Francis, making eyes at him and Ross… She shook her head in disgust, droplets flying everywhere.

She tried to erase the memory of Ross and Elizabeth locking eyes as she refused to denounce him in front of his uncle, of the way their hands had almost met as they passed, but no amount of running water could make her forget the way Ross had looked when Elizabeth had told her she was pregnant. It was the same way she had looked herself when she realised Ross was always going to be looking at Elizabeth that way, and she was always going to be two steps behind, holding the paperwork and staring.

Hence the terrible life decision to wreck her health with ice cream, tears, romcoms and sleep deprivation.

The air of her flat was icy on her skin as she stepped out of the shower, shivering in her thin towel. Darting into the bedroom, she yanked on her voluminous fluffy dressing gown (an old men’s one, bought in the clearance sale of the department store down the road) and furiously combed her wet hair, wincing as she yanked the brush through it as fast as she could. She ate her breakfast standing up, watching the news out of the corner of her eye and concentrating on her ironing with the rest of it.

She’d gotten very good at ironing blouses without dropping cornflakes on them lately.

The phone rang, and she hopped across the flat whilst frantically pulling on her tights with one hand to reach it, nearly tripping over Garrick on the way.

“Yes?”

“Demelza, it’s me” Ross sounded amused, and, not for the first time, she wondered if somehow he could see in.

“Ross! Mornin’-“

“I was just calling to see if you were alright? We’re waiting outside.”

Demelza stifled a curse word and finally succeeded in yanking her tights on. “Um, won’t be a mo! Gi’ me- five maybe?”

“Alright,” he said, and she could hear his insufferable smirk through the phone, “I’ll leave the meter running.”

She huffed at him and hung up, smiling for the first time that morning. Hurriedly, she brushed her teeth whilst trying to frown her hair into submission and nearly dropping her hair ribbon down the sink. Then she slapped concealer under her eyes, haphazardly threw some powder at the general direction of her face and avoided blinding herself with her mascara before grabbing her bag and coat and running out of the door with her shoes in her hand. She threw herself into the car, to the disgruntled mumbles of Jud and Prudie, who seemed to find waiting for her quite below them, and found Ross trying not to laugh.

“What?” she demanded, shoving her feet into her shoes and putting her bag under the dashboard.

“Nothing,” he said, turning to face the road as they pulled out. “It’s just I’ve never seen anyone look that stressed in a morning before.” There was a hint of laughter in his voice, and Demelza revelled in it.

“Well, if your alarm didn’t go off until half an’ hour later and your lift wa’ outside TEN MINUTES EARLIER THA’ STIPULATED, you’d be that stressed too!”

“Stipulated? Demelza, I do believe you’ve looked at too many contracts recently. Remind me to give you more, I’d like to hear you crowbar ‘the undersigned’ into telling me off”

“I’ll crowbar you somewhere else in a minute” Demelza muttered, but behind her smile she suddenly felt empty. I bet no-one mocks Elizabeth for saying long words, I bet she just reels ‘em off like a bleedin’ dictionary, wi’ her “private education” an’ all. How stupid must he think I am?

She concentrated on the tarmac rushing past in the grey morning light, only half listening to Jud and Ross arguing again. Stealing half looks at Ross’s profile from under her lashes, she felt the emptiness increase. His grey blue eyes were intent on something far away, and a nagging voice inside her head whispered that it was Elizabeth.

They stopped with a jerk, jolting Demelza from her reverie. She turned to face Ross, about to thank him for the lift, but he seemed on the verge of saying something himself. His eyes were locked on hers, and she felt a shiver run down her spine that was nothing to do with the cool morning air. He shook his head slightly and pushed the door open, leaving Demelza staring after him.

Her day didn’t really improve that much after that; she had about eight contracts to post out to different people, five spreadsheets and a nagging headache that even aspirin wouldn’t shift. To top it all off, Ross was occupied in pacing crossly around his office waiting for news of Francis, who hadn’t been heard from since Mr Blamey’s disastrous visit. She had heard his uncle spitting vitriol at him as they’d left, saying he’d disgraced the family and ought to be ashamed; had seen his face crumple at the words. For all his bravado, family was important to Ross.

He was just too stubborn to do anything about it.

She watched him through the glass windows that separated their offices as he muttered to himself and seemed to attempt some work, even he gave up after a few minutes. He kept looking at the phone like it was some kind of poisonous creature ready to strike, yet one he couldn’t get rid of.

Sometime after three, Demelza gathered all her spreadsheets and knocked softly on the door, pushing in when she heard no protest.

“Ah, Demelza, have you done those spreadsheets-“

She dropped them on his desk and smiled.

“You never fail to anticipate me, do you?”

“Not if I can help it, sur.” She couldn’t quit the habit of calling him “sur”: his name sounded almost sinful on her lips, the hard R and soft, rolling ss of it, as if it were forbidden to her. He rolled his eyes slightly, and Demelza’s courage grew.

 “Don’t think tha’ I’m bein’ nosy, sur, an’ I’ll stop if I am- but Mr Charles nor Mrs Poldark ‘an’t rang you yet, have they? About Mr Francis?”

“No, they haven’t,” he said slowly, looking almost confused.

“An’ twas all awful cross in here yesterday, wasn’t it?” He nodded, the crease between his eyebrows deepening. The urge to kiss it away was overwhelming.

“Well, maybe it’s up to you t’make the first step, sur. Mr Charles must ha’ been that scared yesterday, what wi’ Mr Francis bein’ injured, an’ scared people say things they don’t mean, I know that. Maybe t’will all be aright if you jus’ gi’ him a ring? No offence, but he don’t look like the kind o’ man t’apologise easy.”

“You’re right,” he said, looking faintly amused. “Uncle Charles has never been one to come crying sorry, even when he’s definitely been in the wrong. And who knows? You might be right about the rest of it, maybe. Though I’ve always been the black sheep of the family.”

“Always?” Demelza smiled. “What, even as a kid?”

“Oh, I was a hell-raiser when I was a kid. Chasing chickens, ruining dinner parties, playing tricks… I did the lot.”

The image of a tiny Ross, high cheekbones and sharp bones softened by chubby baby cheeks and fluffy hair, toddling around causing havoc made Demelza grin like she hadn’t all day, and for a moment Ross smiled back.

“Well, I’d best get back t’doing… secretary things, I won’t bother you anymore. But sur?”

“Yes, Demelza?” She turned, half way out the door. “Please call your uncle. Family’s important. I should know.”

She shut the door, feeling a momentary pang for her own family. Her wages weren’t much, but at least she could afford to send some home, and it lessened her guilt about leaving her brothers to fend off their father themselves. Still, she worried about them.

The day passed in a slow monotony, Demelza counting the minutes until she could go home and walk Garrick: the clock seemed to slow down everytime she looked at it, and her figures kept jumbling before her eyes. Finally, at five, Ross stepped out of his office looking mildly triumphant.

“Demelza?” he called.

“Yes?”

“Ready for off? I thought we’d go home earlier today, seeing as how Jud and Prudie are off to the pub and you were so busy today.”

“I’ve been waiting to hear you say that all day” Demelza groaned, and, logging off her computer, turned to grab her coat.

Only to find herself within a couple of inches of Ross.

“Sorry,” he said, almost in a whisper, his tea-sweet breath brushing her cheeks. He smelt of paper and soap and Ross, that peculiar, metallic, windy scent that was so undefinably him.“I meant to get your coat for you.”

His lips were chapped, she noticed, and his cheeks were shadowed with the faint hint of stubble. The skin under his eyes was violet, as if he’d had the same sleepless night as she had, and she wondered why suddenly she could see in such high definition.

“Oh,” she breathed, her voice sounding low and husky and a very long way away. “Thank you.” It was as if every atom in her body was fizzing and pulling and straining to get to him, as if she was the magnet and he the steel core. His eyes were burning into her. Something in them changed, almost imperceptibly, and he stepped back.

“It’s quite alright” he said, sounding, if anything, forcibly casual. Demelza found that her heart was hammering as though she had just run up nine flights of stairs, and she silently prayed that she wasn’t blushing.

“Well, have you got everything?” he said, his voice too loud in the odd quiet that had descended. “Yep,” she said, gathering up her bag and lying through her teeth.

It was harder in the car, where he was so close to her and she could feel him everywhere; in the music on the stereo and the smell of the leather seats, in his arm near hers on the armrest, in his breathing almost perfectly in time with her own.

Stop thinking about it it’s nothing, it couldn’t ever be anything, he’s in love with Elizabeth and you’re you…

She knew she needed to think it, but every time she thought about him being in love with her it felt like a gunshot.

She kept up the falsely bright charade all the way home, chatting gamely about the weather and the stock markets and how wasn’t it awful for poor Verity yesterday?, when everything inside her was screaming and the thoughts swirling around in her head were definitely not the thoughts you should be having about your boss who was in love with someone else.

As she reached to open the door and get out, he suddenly grasped her hand. His skin was electric, and she felt on fire suddenly, blazing out from her palm. He dropped it like she’d branded him.

“I just wanted to say thank you, for what you said today about my uncle. God knows we can be a stubborn lot, and I suppose I needed you to kick me up the arse and get me moving for once.”

“Did- did it work then?” She tried not to stammer, but all she could think was needed you, needed you, needed you

“Worked? Oh, yes, it did. I don’t say it enough , but Demelza: you were right.” He smiled at her, and despite her failing heart she smiled back.

“Well, um- thank you, I guess. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Hopefully, barring Jud and Prudie killing me -or I them.” The cold air was a shock to her system as he drove away: a welcome one.

 She strode inside, determined to walk Garrick until she could walk away from the confusing mess she and Ross had become. She passed Jim Carter on her way out; living in the flat above her and also a recipient of Ross’s astounding generosity, they had rapidly become fast friends and he looked after Garrick for her whilst she was at work.

“He’s bin fine all day, good as gold i’fact,” he said as he passed. She thanked him quickly, not in the mood for idle pleasantries after what had just happened.

Her walk cleared her mind somewhat, but as she lay in bed that night, quite apart from the needed you’s swirling around in her brain, she realised something.

Even though it had been hours since; even though she’d been out in the cold for as long as she could; even though she’d tried to scrub the day off with water: her hand where he had touched it still burnt like a dying star.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t a bad life.

In fact, all things considered, it was a much better life than she had ever even dreamed of having. She had a home that was hers and hers alone; she had Garrick and money to feed them both; she had a job she loved and friends she cared for and her bruises were finally starting to fade.

She had Ross.

Well, not exactly.

She had Ross from a distance; she had the happiness of receiving one of his barks of laughter sometimes, and the agony of his shoulder brushing hers in the corridors, and the utter, awful, terrible knowledge that he was still in love with Elizabeth, and always would be.

Elizabeth, who was tall and slender and stately with the elegance of a swan who can trace it’s bloodline back five centuries.  Elizabeth, whose skin was unmarked by anything, let alone the freckles that covered Demelza’s nose like paint splatters, who always wore heels and never ever stumbled, and who wore the sort of demure, tailored, luxurious outfits in shades of blue and pink and white that Demelza could never carry off in a million years, even if she had the sort of disposable income to buy the Isle of Man, as it appeared Elizabeth did.

Of course, she was always polite, in that sort of distant, well mannered way that made Demelza feel about two feet tall. She would sweep past on her way to exchange loving, meaningful  glances at Ross with a dismissive smile at her, whilst her husband Francis ambled beside her, seemingly oblivious to the charged looks going on between his wife and his cousin.

Demelza sighed and leant heavily back in her chair, her stomach rumbling faintly. She’d had a tiny breakfast, having realised only too late that the cereal had run out the day before, and now she was paying the price. She never had lunch at work- never took it in, anyway, but Prudie seemed to always be able to produce sandwiches from somewhere, sanitary requirements be damned- because she was desperate to pay Ross back for the deposit on her flat. She’d begged him to pay her reduced wages to pay the rent and he’d agreed, but he’d never even mentioned the deposit.

Demelza hated being in anyone’s debt, let alone his.

So she scrimped and she saved and she bought her clothes in charity shops and sales, her food from Aldi and her furniture from Ikea. She ate cereal for breakfast and “sandwiches” for lunch and whatever she could make from the fresh food on sale at the end of the day. She saved and saved and saved, dreaming of the day when she could just press a button and send it all to Ross’s bank, when she could see the look on his face when he realised she had paid it all back.

For now, that meant being very, very hungry.

After another hour, in which she made four spreadsheets (three that were needed and one that she just felt had to be done) and replied to five emails (studiously ignoring the ones entitled ROSS WE NEED TO TALK, signed vpoldark@gmail, as instructed by a very shifty looking Ross), she was just about ready to cry from hunger.  Everywhere she looked seemed to mock her; a McDonald’s advert on the bus outside, a restaurant jingle on the radio, a sidebar for Nigella’s latest cookbook on the side of her browser. Furiously, she threw  herself into the stack of profit/loss graphs, feeling certain that there wouldn’t be anything in there to distract her.

Ross huffed and threw down the file he was holding, unable to concentrate for more than a minute on average wages and projected turnovers. His mind kept playing over the events of the past few days like a quicksilver slideshow of photographs, each one stingingly high definition.

He had always prided himself on his ability to put family first; to side with the Poldarks, no matter who he was against. Then Elizabeth had come along, and he found that he wanted nothing more than to induct her into the name. He’d been so sure that he could.

Then the war.

His brain complied for once in refusing to let him remember those  baking, blood-stained years, but the scar on his cheek burned quietly, flaring up as it always did when he thought about how he’d got it. The slideshow flickered on, briefly flashing up with awful clarity the unsuspecting joy on his cousin’s face when he’d announced his engagement, and the terrible emptiness that spread through him like a gale when he’d seen Elizabeth’s white face and known it was true.

That Francis had taken the one thing he’d have sworn was his, and things could never be the same again.

He’d thought about going back there, back to the unending desperation and heat and the terrible, pendulous uncertainty of life and death, but in the end he was and had always been a coward. He slunk away to the house his father died in and tried to wash away the past in which he had been so foolishly happy in sweat and salt water, ordering Jud and Prudie around just because he could and hating himself for it.

The mine had helped: now every time his eye caught Elizabeth’s he could concentrate on predicted yields and debt figures to sooth the firestorm in his brain and the burning in his gut, but he knew that he wasn’t over her yet. Far from it.

Yet it wasn’t Elizabeth he was finding it hard to concentrate over just then: it was the whole mess of the past few days, the fighting and the shouts and the emails he just knew Verity was sending and good, wonderful, faithful  Demelza was ignoring.

Demelza, who had breezed into his self-pitying, borderline reprehensible life like a gust of cool sea air into a sickroom and told him with one quirked eyebrow to get his act together and stop acting like a child. Demelza, whose wildfire hair kept catching his eye even from across the room. Demelza, who had sprung into action like a modern day Nightingale, bandaging and remonstrating and soothing when Francis had been hit, who had looked at him so seriously with those grey-blue eyes and told him from her soul to make it up with his family before it was too late.

Demelza, whose stomach he could hear rumbling from here.

She looked hungry as well: her forehead was pinched and her eyes had violet smudges under them no make-up could conceal. Usually he would have just told Prudie to give her a sandwich, feeling slightly guilty despite himself when he saw the sorry offering, but her solemn, worried face kept floating into his mind, and he could swear he could still feel her hand on his.

What had possessed him to grab it as she left the car, he didn’t know: presumably the same odd urge that had led him to her in the first place or to stand as close to her as he did- the need not to be alone, to feel that there was someone there for him.

That he wasn’t beyond saving.

He heard a quiet, stifled groan, turned to see an advertisement for BBC Good Food roll past on the side of a van and decided enough was enough.

“Demelza?“

“Yes, sur?” The burr of her accent made him smile a little, as it always did, and he turned away so that she wouldn’t see him.

“Get your coat, we’re going for lunch.”

“Sur?”

“Lunch, Demelza. Midday meal. You must have heard of it?”

“No, I mean-“

“That you’ve too much to do? So have I, but my friend Giancarlo gets awfully crabby when I don’t go see him and I’ve just been reminded I’m due a visit.”

“So go on your own!”

“And look like the loneliest man in Britain? No, sorry, I’m your boss and I’m telling you to come to lunch before you pass out, because quite frankly I can’t be arsed with the insurance forms and God knows no-one else’ll fill them in.”

She was weakening , he could see it in her eyes: he handed her her coat and went in for the kill.

“Giancarlo, you see, makes the most incredible pasta you’ve ever tasted, and I happen to know he’s got rather a glut of carbonara going…”

How he knew she loved carbonara was a mystery to him as well, but once he had the advantage he was going to press it home for all he was worth.

“Fine! Fine, fine, let’s not upset your friend, I’m coming, I’m coming…”

She swung round from the desk, endless black tight-clad legs kicking out, and jumped up to meet him as he walked past.

“But if you think about sayin’ anythin’ about those reports….!”

He just smirked and walked on.

It was drizzling as they walked out, a fine mist which beaded Demelza’s hair and eyelashes with gems, and their breath flew into the air in tiny smoky dragons as they made their way down the street.

Giancarlo’s restaurant shone like a beacon out of the gloom as they neared it, Demelza nearly putting Ross in stitches with her impression of a freshly woken and hung-over Jud, and he looked at her just in time to see her eyes light up at the prospect of food.

Suddenly the heaters weren’t the only thing making him feel warm.

Giancarlo rushed out to embrace Ross and kiss Demelza on both cheeks, making her blush to the very roots of her hair, and led them to a table in the corner which was decidedly more romantic than Ross felt comfortable with.

“Ah,” Giancarlo was saying, chattering away to a very interested looking Demelza, “you do not know how good it is to see Ross with a young lady again! When that wet fish Elizabeth ran off I thought to myself I will not be seeing a happy Ross for a long long time, and I am right! But,” he beamed, oblivious to their rising blushes, “I think the clouds are lifting, eh?”

“WINE!- Um, Giancarlo, what are the house specials today?” Ross nearly shouted, ushering him away as discreetly as he could without offending anyone. He bustled off, chuntering under his breath about rude Englishmen who couldn’t accept simple friendly concern, and Ross turned to look at Demelza, who was staring at the menu with far too much concentration for someone employed to read things.

“Sorry about that- Giancarlo likes to think he knows what’s best for me.”

She lifted her head, cheeks still a faint pink. “Oh no, don’t worry- it wa’ sweet, t’see some-un who cares abou’ you.”

“As if I don’t have enough people pecking about me already?”

“Alrigh’ then, some-un you let care abou’ you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Would y’like me t’find th’number o’ emails I have been ignorin’ for you from Miss ‘V Poldark’?”

“You’ve got me there,” he sighed. “I am grateful that she cares, honestly, but sometimes I just can’t stand to see the worry on her face when she looks at me.”

“Worry?” She looked concerned, he noted with surprise- but then again, it’s quite alright for a secretary to fret about who pays her wages, and quite another for your own family to worry.

“They think I’m going to throw my life away.” he told her bluntly, disarming himself with the honesty.

“Because o’the mines?”

“They’d rather I didn’t ‘waste’ the family capital on them, yes, but they’re used to…less than sound monetary decisions from the Nampara Poldarks by now, I think. They think that the fighting… and after, they think it broke me somehow.”

“And has it?” She had leaned slowly forward as he spoke, one red curl dangling mesmerizingly above her eye. He fought the urge to pin it back.

“I don’t know.”

He felt as if he was falling down a very long tunnel with every truth he spoke, as if he was falling somewhere new and uncharted and very very frightening.

He hadn’t spoken to another human being like this for years.

“I don’t know, Demelza.  I don’t know if it changed me because I can’t remember who I was before, so how can I know? I suppose I was happier: I had my father, and no mine to worry about, and…”

“Elizabeth,” she finished. It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes.”

There was a long pause, neither of them daring to look at each other but neither daring to break it, either.

“Do you…miss her?”

Her voice was so soft he could barely hear her, yet he felt each word rush past him like a hurricane; the question no one had dared to ask, the question he had never even asked himself.

“Miss her? I suppose…we never lived together, you see. It wasn’t like she had to come and pack up boxes of stuff or we had to fight about a dog- just one day I came back from Iraq and it wasn’t me she was in love with anymore.”

Demelza made a noise he took to mean sympathy but could have been amusement at his sickeningly clichéd word usage, but suddenly he didn’t care what anyone thought.

“And I still was with her, you know? It wasn’t like we fought or we started to hate each other or we found other people: she just detached herself and then all of a sudden she wasn’t there anymore.”

The words tumbled out like a skier skidding down a precipice, faster and faster, and if he ever wanted to stop them he’s gone too far now.

“The fact that it was Francis was the really- the really galling thing: like she just wanted a Poldark and any one would do. Like she was never really in love with me at all.”

Quietly, softly, eyes still on the table, he admitted what he had never even thought aloud.

“She was the only thing that brought me back home, and now I- I don’t know what to fight for anymore, Demelza. I don’t know what keeps me here.”

“The mine? There’s people tha’ rely on you, sur- Ross, I mean. Isn’t tha’ somethin’ t’be fighin’ for?”

“They rely on my money, my business sense, my connections, that’s all: they need a boss and somewhere to work and they’re happy. There’s no-one left who would care if I just upped and left: if I left my money here, that is.”

“I care.”

He looked up for the first time since his confession started, and found her eyes locked on his. A jolt ran through his body, and a memory seared his brain of the desert, of an explosion that knocked him off his feet and left him laid on his back on the sand, staring up at the endless blue sky that he had never really appreciated before, left him changed and never the same again.

Their hands touched, and everything fell away. There was only Demelza, and her hand so warm and alive in his, every vein thrumming with energy and light and life, so different from Elizabeth and her cool elegance that it almost hurt to compare them.

If Elizabeth was the moon, then Demelza was the sun.

Her eyes were a colour he’d never seen before on a person: the cool blue of a shallow sea in sunlight, or the clarity of a spring sky.  They were leaning closer, closer, closer…

There was a thud as Giancarlo, the bastard, eyes alight with mirth, placed their meals down in front of them. They jerked apart, both staring down at their meals as if they could eat them with vision alone.

They ate in embarrassed silence for a few minutes, staring intently anywhere but each other. Ross snuck glances at Demelza from time to time, relieved to see she was eating well and seemed to be enjoying it, despite his idiotic confession.

He eventually summoned the courage to ask how her meal was, and though she blushed she admitted it was in fact the best she had ever tasted.

“I bet you say that to all the intimidatingly friendly Italians you come across.“

“Only th’ones wi’ menacin’ Parmesan graters” she grinned, and they were back on dry land. Ross continued to silently berate himself, however: how could he have thrown away in a second what he had fought so hard to find?

Dessert was brought round in due course, and if he had to keep strategically looking at Giancarlo to distract himself from the smudge of sauce on Demelza’s lip then it was purely out of concern for her embarrassment , and not because it was physically paining him.

Because that would be ridiculous.

Giancarlo waved and smiled as they left, though whether it was genuine happiness or the large tip Ross had left was anyone’s guess. As they walked through the rain-sodden streets, the air already turning dim with the approaching night, his hand twitched towards hers. He shoved it angrily into his pocket, Demelza chatting on unawares.

It was like an addiction, the tremor of hands reaching desperately for a familiar, poisonous Hail Mary. He had never been good at addictions: first smoking, only stopped when his father died and the cancer on his lungs seemed to creep into his very own;  then drinking, biking, thrill seeking: even, in the darkest period of his teens, after his mother passed, the sweet kiss of a needle. But he had managed to stop those: he had stopped the drugs and the smoking and the drinking, had stopped risking his life just to feel something. But what part of that was due to her, and her unflinching, unwavering belief that he could better?

How could he give her up?

He couldn’t do this to her: couldn’t lead her on, couldn’t court suspicion and sniggers and the cruel gossip so particular to his class. He couldn’t  give in to the strongest urge he’d felt since before he left and kiss her, right there on the shining steps of the office as the streetlamps blazed burning cold orange behind them and the sky fell suddenly into dusk. How could he, when he didn’t even know what he felt himself?

It would be cowardly and rude and misleading- no, it would be ungentlemanly and although he prided himself on being the most modern of the Poldarks his mind still threw back memories of his mother teaching him the proper way to treat a girl.

So this had to stop.

It had to stop before he gave in, before he made them both laughing stocks and ruined her newfound, glorious confidence.

But this was one addiction that he couldn’t abstain from, couldn’t sweat out. He’d never been able to give up those.

He took her out for lunch the next day.

Chapter Text

“Are the rumours true, do you think?”

“Well, if they aren’t, he’s a fool.”

It was true that Ross Poldark had been spotted with his secretary more and more often these days; it was also true that his secretary had grown from the gauche, clumsy teenager she had been to a strikingly beautiful girl; and it was also true that they did seem to get along remarkably well (for the notoriously prickly younger Poldark’s standards, that is).

What was not true, however, was that either of them had any intention of making any sort of proposition to the other.

Not at all true.

Demelza certainly didn’t occasionally drift off after their lunches together, imagining a world where she had any right at all to steal food from his plate or make reservations in their name, and nor did she ever linger later in the offices than she needed to, watching his dark head bent over his papers and wishing she could smooth the worried wrinkles from his brows.

Never ever.

She didn’t remember his coffee order and she wouldn’t ever have dreamed of making eye contact with him across their desks as often as she could: and she definitely never shivered when their hands brushed, and she didn’t feel the calluses on his long, fine fingers and envision them brushing her cheeks, and she didn’t ever look at his bitten lips and imagine them on her own.

Nope.

When she had time to think, which in her new frenetic world as the secretary to one of the most “up and coming young men in Britain” (she’d laughed when she’d read that article, especially when it described Ross as suave- honestly, the man might be charming when needed, but she’d seen him trip over his own desk and make a truly awful pun over it. Suave he was not.), was not often, she absolutely never even considered taking his ridiculous face in her hands and kissing him for all she was worth, and in her wildest dreams she never thought about telling him exactly what he meant to her.

To quote Rizzo: no, that’s a thing she’d never do.

Ross, for his part, was equally not about to do anything about any feelings he might have for the girl who grinned at him with a smile two parts Dickens urchin, one part pure sunlight.

Not that he had any.

He didn’t make up odd but totally reasonable tasks so that he’d have reasons to ask her into his office, and the sight of her standing under an umbrella laughing with sheer joy at him slipping on the office steps didn’t make him come completely undone right there in the rain.

His whole body didn’t fill with warmth when she handed him the coffee order he’d only had to tell her once, and he only took her out for lunch so she wouldn’t have to eat the utterly dire sandwiches Prudie thought it was her God-given responsibility to provide.

Definitely the reason.

He never thought about brushing back her unholy red curls from her wonder of a face, he didn’t find her Cornish accent the funniest and most endearing thing in the world, and the fact that she smelt of wildflowers and sunlight and rain was something that had completely passed him by.

And it was completely and utterly untrue that sometimes he thought he’d pack the whole company in just to kiss her.

As such, with all the rumours flying around them like pigeons to a crumb, perhaps it would have been wiser to stay away from her; not to spend as much time with her, and certainly not to take her out to lunch. But her grin as she peers up at him from beneath her curls is too much, as is her delight at trying new foods, or at being ushered to her seat by uniformed waiters without a hint of a sneer.

If there’s one thing he’s learnt, it’s that she makes him incapable of being wise.

And as for her? If she’d been any kind of secretary, concerned at all about her employer’s reputation, then she’d have stopped it as soon as the first rumour hit them. She’d have cut short the lunches and the meetings and the walks to the office that seem to get longer yet shorter every day. She justifies this lack of concern with the feeble argument that it seems to make him happy, and isn’t that her job?, and the stronger one that, so far in her life, there’s been nothing that makes her as happy as he does, and she’s going to hang onto that for as long as she can.

So when Ross opens the new mine and announces to the world that damn your economic crisis, this mine will be profitable, of course all eyes are on him and Demelza, who smiles at him from the front row like she’s soaking cold and he’s the sun.

“Are the rumours true, do you think?”

“Well, if they aren’t, he’s a fool”

They both hear them: both blush, Ross the faint hue of someone socially apt enough to hide it and Demelza like the setting sun. Both deny it as much as they can without actually saying anything.

They quite certainly don’t both silently agree.

Chapter Text

It was just another Monday morning, and Ross Poldark was shouting at his secretary.

“Demelza, there is no way on earth that it’s right, you must have got it wrong!”

“An’ why not? D’you think I can’t do things as well as you, is tha’ it?”

“NO-ONE CAN DO CANDY CRUSH AS WELL AS ME, DEMELZA,” he nearly growled, their faces just inches apart. Their eyes met, and they collapsed into laughter, Demelza nearly crying.

“Tha’s it, we’ve cracked” she gasped. “Become a secretary, they said…it’s professional, they said…you’ll be fightin’ over bloody apps, they said…”

Ross looked up through the glass doors of his office to see the entire staff of Nampara staring at them: some surreptitiously, some blatantly. Luckily, Demelza had her back to them, or she’d have rounded on them with the force of a small missile.

“Demelza?” he said out of the corner of his mouth, trying not to look like he’d noticed. “They’re all staring.”

“Let them stare,” she said, and kissed him.

He awoke from his daydream with a start to see the office still staring at him. Evidently that part had been real, at least.

“Ross?” she said, starting to turn to where he was staring. He put a hand out to stop her, taking her wrist with a lightness he couldn’t feel.

“They’re staring.” He said, shifting their hands so that no-one on the outside could see. “Quick, hand me a file.”

“Any file?”

“Preferably one you’re holding, so we don’t look like total fools and also so no-one knows I called you in here about Candy Crush. “

“So t’was th’ profit margins you wanted then, sur?” she said, raising her voice as inconspicuously as she could and passing him a large red file.

“Yes, thank you Demelza. Are the precedental margins there too?”

“Yes, an’ th’ previous sets o’ data from Wheal Leisure in the 80’s, as best I could ge’ them.”

“Thank you. Could you get these graphs made up for lunch time?”

“O’course, sur.” She smiled and made her way out of the office, winking at him on the way out.

Ross decided it was time to see Verity.

Lovely, caring, full of advice about girls Verity, who had always helped him when he was on the verge of pulling a Love Actually and getting the placards out.

11:38 Ross: hey do you want to do lunch

                                                                                                11:40 Verity: hello is this my cousin i’m not sure

11:40 Ross: i’m sorry please don’t do this

                                                                                                11:41 Verity: oh, i’m doing this

11:41 Ross: could you do it over lunch

                                                                                                11:42 Verity: depends

                                                                                                11:42 Verity: where is lunch

11:43 Ross: giancarlo’s?

                                                                                                11:44 Verity: fine but you’re paying

11:44 Ross: see you at two

He put his phone away with a grin. He’d always been able to get Verity on his side, even when he was in the wrong (and in this case he knew he was; she needed him against Uncle Charles and he hadn’t been there.)

The outer office seemed to be getting back to normal: no-one had their noses pressed up against the glass, at least. Jud and Prudie kept stealing glances at him, but that was pretty much par for the course: they seemed to think if they let him out of their sight he might take off again.

To be fair, up until about six months ago it was a pretty real danger. Until Demelza.

Ross sighed and thumped his forehead onto the desk, a gesture becoming rapidly more common these days. Yet the more he tried to push thoughts of his admittedly very pretty secretary aside, the more they crowded into his mind’s eye, forcing all resolve aside.

Even Elizabeth seemed to be taking a back seat nowadays, though Ross had kept as far away from her radiantly pregnant person as he could, tormented by thoughts that it was finally over, once and for all. A part of his heart still tore when he thought of her cradling a child that wasn’t his, kissing someone who wasn’t him, bearing the name that was his and wasn’t, but that part seemed to be growing infinitesimally smaller each day that they were apart.

Shaking his head in feeble attempt to clear it of thoughts not strictly mine-related, he turned back to his reports.

Verity was early, as always. By the time he pushed open the door to Giancarlo’s she was already ensconced in a corner booth with a glass of wine, laughing at the man himself as he told a story which appeared, as he drew closer, to be about Ross.

It was too late for damage control.

“Holding hands, they were, Miss Verity, as sure as I am Giancarlo! I am saying, it is a nice change from cross sourpatch Ross, is it not?”

“I don’t know,” Verity said, grinning, “maybe you should ask him.”

Giancarlo turned around and burst into peals of laughter, escorting Ross to a chair and pouring him his wine with the routine of a man who had had to do this far too often.

“You will be having the house specials, yes?”

He swept away before either of them could answer, leaving the two of them sat in slightly shocked silence, only broken by Verity’s occasional snort.

“Listen, Verity, I’m really sorry I’ve been avoiding you-“

“At least you’re admitting it this time, or is it just because Demelza’s too good a secretary for me to buy the “I didn’t get the email!” excuse?”

“No, I-“

“Save it, Ross. I’ve lost too many members of this family to lose another for something stupid.”

“Francis still not come around?”

“Is the Pope still Catholic? No, he hasn’t, nor Dad. Stupid bloody snobs, the pair of them.”

“Maybe they’re more concerned about… the other thing.”

“Oh, you mean the drinking? That’s incredibly rich, coming from a family where port is regarded as a bloody thirst quencher!”

“Verity…”

“No, Ross, I’m fed up of people making up excuses as to why I can’t be happy! Don’t I deserve a chance, after all these years? What happened before Andrew and I met is our business and ours alone, and Dad and Francis have nothing to do with it!”

“I know-“

“No, you don’t! No offence, Ross, but your one meaningful relationship ended because you asked a little too much, not because your family decided who you wanted wasn’t good enough for them- so I’m sorry, but you don’t know.”

There were two bright pink spots of colour rising on her cheeks, and her voice, though hushed through decades of good breeding, was rising rapidly.

Ross, for once in his life, decided against interrupting.

“All I want, for once in my life, is a chance to do what I want- not what Francis wants, not what Dad wants, not what’s best for the family- what I want. And they won’t let me!”

She looked perilously close to tears, and Ross slid a napkin over as discreetly as he could.

“I could just leave, I know- but they’ve frozen my bank account. Can you think of anything more nineteenth century? I don’t think Dad’s aware women can vote now, you know. And Andrew doesn’t make much in the navy right now- I can’t expect him to support me. I’m bloody stuck, Ross, and I’m scared I’ll be still at Trenwyth when Francis’s kid’s as old as Aunt Agatha, for Christ’s sake.”

“If it helps, you’ll probably be dead by then. Aunt Agatha’s only hung on this long through chicken soup, and you hate it.”

“Ross, you always know what to say.” She gave him a watery smile, and he heaved a great internal sigh of relief.

“So what are you going to do? I can give you money-“

“No, I can’t do that to you- and you haven’t got any money, anyway, you daft sod, unless you’ve taken up on that modelling gig.”

“I told you never to bring that up!”

“Pity, you could restart a dozen mines with the demand. Mind you, it seems you’re quite in demand already, aren’t you?” She smirked, and Ross felt an icy trickle of fear slide down his spine.

“Who do you mean?”

“Well, Ruth Treneglos is definitely still carrying a torch, as are all her sisters and her mother, if you can believe it.”

Ross shuddered.

“But I hear you’re already set on a certain red-haired someone?”

“What-no-that’s absurd-Verity-“

She smiled like a lion going in for the kill. “I knew it! And so did half the country, apparently.”

“What” said Ross slowly, still reeling from the realisation that other people knew, “the hell do you mean?”

In answer, Verity reached into her bag and pulled out a newspaper, sliding it across towards him. She opened it up and pointed to a large colour photograph.

Of Demelza and him entering a restaurant only a week earlier. The headline screamed “PLAYBOY BACHELOR SETTLING DOWN AT LAST?” and the accompanying article contained, amongst quotes from “friends of the couple” several outright lies, two half-truths, and more speculation than a goldmine in the 1900’s.

Ross swallowed. “Is this the only one?”

Verity shook her head. “One of many, I’m afraid. It was just local news at first, but then after that article on you the tabloids took it up and ran like the wind.”

“And why the- sorry, Verity, I’m not angry at you, I’m just- why wasn’t I told?”

“I tried! What do you think urgent means, Ross?”

“I assumed you just missed me!”

“I wish this was the first time your ego had ruined your life, Ross, but I’m afraid it really isn’t, is it?”

Ross could only find the energy to glare at her for a couple of seconds before going back to wallowing in despair. What was Demelza going to think? This could utterly ruin her career, make her a laughing stock for all and sundry, tarnish her reputation…

“Oh, God, Verity, what am I going to do?”

“Do you like her?” Her bluntness didn’t surprise Ross at all, despite his refusal to admit the answer to himself.

“Yes.” He admitted, feeling like he’d told at last some shameful secret.

“Well then, just ask her out and be done with it! Please, Ross, take it from me: don’t waste your chances when you have them.” she said, smiling sadly at him as Giancarlo placed their food down.

They chatted aimlessly as they ate, Ross buoyed up with excitement that in a few minutes time he would finally have told Demelza the truth.

But what about Elizabeth? Would Demelza be happy with a heart with a closed off room at the centre and a draggingly slow-healing tear? Could he give up Elizabeth so easily, when she was the one thing that brought him home?

Could he do that to her?

“Oh, and Ross? If she doesn’t like you, you’d better stop these lunch dates sharpish. Poor girl doesn’t deserve that level of gossip all her life.”

Verity’s parting words rang in his ears as he strode through the revolving doors, heart pumping with adrenaline. He bounced from foot to foot as the lift made its achingly slow ascent, trying to work out what to say to her.

By the time it reached the third floor, he’d decided on “Would you possibly like to go on an actual date, because I like you quite a lot? I might still be in love with someone else though.”

By the ninth, it was “Darling Demelza, I find my heart is split in two: between the chestnut and the copper, the flame and the pearl!”

The sixteenth floor yielded “I love you, most ardently. But also Elizabeth?”

By the time he reached the offices on the twentieth, he’d decided to wing it.

Demelza sat alone at her desk, facing away from him and talking intently down the phone. He hovered just behind her, twisting his scarf back and forth as his heart pounded in his ears.

“Did you le’ th’ dog out then? Oh you star, wa’ ‘e alrigh’? Yeah, I got th’ post this morning, nothin’ fer you though. I’ll be home a’ th’ usual time, put th’ kettle on for me? Mmm-huh? Yep, see you soon.”

Her voice was soft, tender, happy, and the smile on her face as she ended the call and turned around was anything but the one she used for clients.

So he was too late again. Of course she had a boyfriend, of course they lived together. He’d been a fool to think otherwise.

Demelza always rang Jim at twelve and four: it was the least she could do to assuage her worries about leaving Garrick with someone, even someone as lovely as Jim. He had the spare pair of keys to her flat and went round twice a day to walk and fuss the dog,regardless of the weather. In return, Demelza got the post for him from the downstairs letter box, gave him and his girlfriend Jinny half the herbs and veg from her tiny garden and let them use her washing line.

So today, like always, she had waited until four to ring, banking on Ross being late out to lunch and also not minding the technical misuse of the company phone. She’d missed Garrick today, and the sound of his paws clattering, coupled with the knowledge that soon she could be safe at home, free from the stares and gossip of the office, had made her grin like an idiot. Of course, her smile was helped by the memory of the mock fight she had had with Ross that morning, and the feeling of his hand on hers…

The more they talked like that, the more they laughed and people stared and he took her out to lunch, the more she could believe that something, a real, meaningful something could happen between them. She didn’t know if she could wait much longer to say something.

As she finished the call and turned around, the last thing she expected to see was Ross Poldark, his dark coat wet from the rain and his dark face strangely closed off and set.

Demelza shrieked as she turned to see him standing there. “Jesus, Ross, y’frightened th’life out o’ me! Did y’want anythin’ doin’?”

Ross didn’t even turn around, and his parting words were as cold as ice as he walked into his office.

“No, Miss Carne.I don’t think there’s anything else you can do for me today.”

It wasn’t his voice that hurt the most, nor his use of her title, which he’d abandoned since week one.

It was the way he didn’t even look back.

Chapter Text

The office felt simultaneously like a furnace and a cloud bank, and Demelza was chilled to the bone. There was an atmosphere there that had never been there before, hanging like a fog over them all and scorching her as she sat in its spotlight. Yet every time she thought of Ross and his face as she’d hung up she froze.

He’d been utterly silent as they drove home that night and no better the next morning, leaving Demelza utterly bewildered as to what she had done. She’d thought it just a mistake, a tired outburst soon forgotten, but even the next morning her attempts at conversation fell flat. He clearly wanted nothing more to do with her. She stole a glance at him through the glass of his office and saw him glaring at his papers with an expression more akin to a wolf than a human. His brows were drawn, his forehead lined and he was as pale as she’d ever known him, the skin under his eyes purple. In short, he looked as he had when he had first hired her: hunted and alone and angry and hurting.

She knew she looked no better: every time she closed her eyes his face swam before her and his words rang in her ears like bells tolling the end. It was hard to think that just this time yesterday they had been arguing over Candy Crush. Oh, God, to have known then what was coming! She would savoured every word, every syllable, breathed him in so she’d have him forever.

But why? Why had he decided to cut her off without so much as a gesture of explanation?

What had happened?

She realised she’d been staring at him for much longer than intended, and quickly flicked her eyes back to the computer screen before he could notice. She couldn’t afford to get behind, or even turn anything in that was less than stellar, not now her position was so precarious. What if he fired her? She’d be truly desperate then, because he could take her flat back, and she’d only managed to save so much…she’d be out on the streets again within a month.

A shudder ran down her spine at the thought of walking down those endless rainy roads again, constantly in fear of what could happen, her stomach yawning like an open crevice and her legs shaking with the effort required to keep her upright. God forbid, she might even have to go back to her father…

She felt as though she’d been doused with a bucket of ice water.

Never. I’d rather die.

In a way, it was almost a curse that she had been so happy here. Now that she knew what it was like to have a job and a warm bed and a home that was her own and someone- someone to care about, how could she ever go back to the way things were? How could she go on?

It was for the best.

It really was, Ross told himself every time his heart contracted at the sight of her. She had a boyfriend and a life outside of him, and she’d never thank him for ruining her reputation forever, especially when she wanted to leave and get another job.

The thought of her leaving caused a particularly painful and devastating jerk in the pit of his stomach, but he told himself to accept it. He was nothing to her but a boss, after all.

Never mind that she meant something to him.

He had to stay away, had to be firm and business-like to her and almost brusque: people must know that they were nothing to each other.

It should have been easy: he had none of the memories that plagued him after Elizabeth, no feelings of burying his hands in her hair or her lips on his, no memories of warm skin and sunlit mornings when there was nothing to do and nowhere to go…

But his treacherous mind obliged in filling in these blanks with other memories: her laugh when something really amused her, full bodied and loud; the way the light glinted off her red curls, turning them to fire; her smell of sea air and wildflowers; her warm hands and ready smiles and her, all of her, all five foot nine of joy and messy, imperfect perfection, spinning and turning maddeningly in his mind’s eye.

It drove him to distraction: to have her so close, when he could never hope of reaching her. He saw her in the tiniest things: in his coffee cup, in the photos of the cliffs on the walls, in the adverts for some red-haired starlet’s new film.

All this, however, was infinitely preferable to looking at the real Demelza and seeing her white, strained face in his thoughts, the exact moment his words had hit her. She looked like someone who had received a tremendous blow and had all the air knocked from her lungs. Of course she would, with her childlike sympathy and tendency to believe the best of people. She couldn’t even begin to imagine him turning on her, nor anyone else, for that matter.

So that was probably why she looked so tired and sad now, he thought, looking at her bent over her work. That was why her face was devoid of its usual colour and the shadows under her eyes were stained a watercolour violet, that was why she was quiet and reserved around him. She was just shocked, that was all.

Surely she must have realised their relationship was becoming unprofessional, even though she quite clearly didn’t reciprocate Ross’ mixed up feelings towards her. She must have realised it had to end, for both their sakes.

There was a timid knock at the door, and there she was. He motioned at her to enter and she did, smiling nervously.

Oh, God, she’s going to pretend it hasn’t happened. She thinks it was all a misunderstanding, oh Jesus no, how can I tell her I did it to make her hate me so we won’t be gossiped about? Christ alive…

“Well, sur-Ross , here’s th’ reports y’asked for, an’ here’s the coffee, an’ the note from th’ bank…”

“Good, set them down then.” She obliged, placing them on the desk and trying to grin in her usual manner.

“Did y’have a nice lunch wi’ Miss Verity yesterday? I knew you’d have t’give in eventually, y’were being awful rude t’your poor cousin, ignorin’ her like tha’.”

His worst fears were confirmed as she chatted on, and he steeled himself to break his own heart further as he saw that once again they were the focus of the office.

“I had a perfectly nice lunch, thank you, and I’ll thank you to leave my personal affairs out of the office, Miss Carne. Was that all you came in for?”

What little colour remained in her face abruptly left it, and she grabbed the edge of the desk as if to steady herself.

“Yes, sur.” She said quietly, as much hurt in that one title as in the whole of Ophelia’s soliloquy.

”Anything else, sur?”

“That will be all.”

She left, and with her went his only chance of being a good man. It was agony, putting on this mask of the old Ross, cold and cruel and haughty: everything he now despised. But it was working: within two days, despite Demelza’s best efforts to brush it aside as a temporary mood, they were talking as if they had only just met and did not intend to do so again.

It was hell.

A week after that infamous afternoon found Demelza sorting methodically and emotionlessly through mail as Ross, on the other side of the partition, did the same. As the envelopes slid past her fingertips, she tried to concentrate on deciphering their importance instead of wondering whether one of them had contained the switch that had caused Ross to so mysteriously and so savagely turn on her.

The man who only a week or so ago had been the soul of friendship (and even, in Demelza’s wishful mind, flirtation), forever sharing lunches and jokes with her had become a sullen, cold task master whose relationship with her was the most staid, boring, professional one ever. She could perhaps explain a slight shift in tone- after all, a CEO shouldn’t, by propriety’s standards, be too familiar with his staff, especially in front of the rest, but when had Ross ever given a stuff about propriety? How could the sudden, almost vindictive snaps into withering coldness be explained as good business?

At first, she tried to pretend it hadn’t happen- to laugh and joke just like normal; but the freezing way he shut her attempts down had soon put paid to that, and she had subsided into hurt and bewildered silence. The choking fear that she might lose her job, her home and the security she had fought so hard to obtain forced her into docile, dutiful submission, but beneath her perfect secretary shell she was a maelstrom of anger and shock and pain.

Even seeing the texts they used to exchange caused her pain, so she texted everyone else on her contacts as soon as possible to push his down to the bottom of the heap.

If only she could do the same to her feelings.

As she neared the end of the pile, she felt rough, expensive cartridge paper and cardstock beneath her fingers. Lifting it out, she found an embossed, gilt invitation to the christening of Geoffrey Charles Poldark, to take place in Trenwyth Church, next Friday.

So Elizabeth had had her baby. Wouldn’t Ross be pleased: proof at last, if proof was needed, that she could never be his again.

She put it into his inbox and slipped away, quiet as a wraith, before he could freeze her again.

Ross found the invite a day later, whilst searching for a bill. The shock it sent through his system was the most unexpected thing about it, used as he was to the jolts that accompanied his cool words to Demelza.

So it was over. That long chapter of his life: a chapter filled with freedom and comfort and security and Elizabeth was gone now, and he could never get it back. As he stared at the cursive words of the invitation they seemed to rise from the page and hang in the air, taunting him.

Geoffrey Charles… A ridiculous name, outdated and utterly, quintessentially reminiscent of the glory days of the aristocracy the Nampara Poldarks seemed obsessed with reobtaining. He remembered the evenings he and Elizabeth had lain talking about the names they would give their children: at that point a foregone conclusion, the perfect ending to a perfect romance. She had wanted old fashioned, sweet names, reminders of a bygone age: he had fought for the more modern ones, determined to let their children make their own way, unfettered by the chains of those they were named after.

Obviously she had gotten her way: and Francis too, clearly, knowing that Elizabeth did not hold Uncle Charles in enough estimation to name her child after him. The thought of the two of them smiling and talking softly about what name they would call him by caused a wave of hatred to roll up through him like a tide at sunset, obliterating everything else.

Not so over her, then.

He would have to go: he couldn’t put further shame on the family but snubbing the most important event they’d had for a while. At the very least, it might serve a distraction from the awful wrench of his conscience every time he looked at Demelza.

It was a terrible, terrible mistake to take the lift, Demelza thought. Not only because the lifts in their office building were horrendously slow, prone to sudden and unwanted braking and poorly ventilated; not just because it was healthier to take the stairs; not because they made ominous creaking noises when you stepped into them. It was a terrible mistake because she happened to have stepped into one already containing Ross Poldark, and he, too, was going all the way down.

A journey that took about seven minutes, usually, in a space small enough that he could move her hair with his breath without even trying.

They rode in silence for what seemed like years, Demelza clutching her files like a shield and staring determinedly at the ground. She heard him take a sharp intake of breath, as if he was about to say something and looked up to find his eyes boring into hers.

Dark eyes, eyes like the sea in a storm, eyes like lodestones and magnets and stars, pulling her inextricably towards him. She could see every fleck in his iris, count every coal black eyelash, feel every powerful drumming heartbeat in time with her own speeding rabbit heart. They were so close she could smell the familiar scent of his aftershave as if she wore it herself.

She found her hand lifting slowly as if to catch his.

No! she screamed inwardly, trying to regain control of her own body as it hurtled her towards her demise. But she found she couldn’t. They were leaning closer, closer, until she could almost feel his hand in hers, her lips on his-

There was a sudden clang as the lift dropped onto the ground floor and the doors flew open. They sprang apart as if scalded, Demelza almost running out of the lift in her haste to get away. What had gotten into her? To almost- to almost kiss the man who clearly didn’t care a jot about her and who regarded her as his secretary alone? Sleep deprivation was taking its toll, she decided, forcing herself not to think about how much she had wanted to.

The christening was as awful as Ross feared. Endless stares and whispers from people still adjusting to Elizabeth marrying the wrong Poldark: pity and barely concealed curiosity from the women, second hand disappointment and envy from the men. The feeling of Demelza, as close to him as she’d been, wrapping around him and making him imagine a world in which the lift doors had not opened and he’d been weak enough to kiss her. And through it all, Elizabeth, as calm and serene and radiant as a swan, carrying the baby that should have been his.

She found him, in a rare moment of calm at the party, and pulled him down onto the sofa next to her. She was as beautiful as ever, and his heart tore at the sadness in her eyes as she told him what he already knew: that there was no hope. There was still something in her eyes, something he knew was reflected in his own: a desperate, fevered hope to wake up from this bad dream and find the clock reversed and everything as it should be.

He took his leave soon after, unable to bear the torture of being so close to the life he could have had, but whilst walking through the back entrance found himself blocked by a gaggle of women: including the infamous Ruth Teague, whom even he knew was out for whoever she could get-and that meant Ross.

Hiding himself behind a pillar of topiary, he settled himself for a long wait before they moved on.

“-and of course it’s quite scandalous, the two of them always having those ‘private meetings’ and so on- as if it isn’t clear what they’re up to!”

“I heard he took her out for lunch the other day- imagine! Ross Poldark and a secretary out on a date!”

It was with a sudden swoop he realised they were talking about him and Demelza. Evidently he hadn’t been cold enough yet.

“Not even a secretary, I was told- just some chavvy tart he picked up at a fair!”

“I don’t imagine he picked her for her typing skills then!” As they broke off into giggles Ross found his fists clenched and his jaw set, a white hot rage building up behind his eyes.

“And it’s obvious she’s desperate for him- one of the staff lives in her building and she says she never goes out, never chats anyone up- doesn’t even have a boyfriend!”

A hammer dropped on Ross from above. So there had been a chance after all, and he’d wrecked it like he’d wrecked everything else and probably broken both their hearts in the process. Demelza single! Horror-struck, he could only stand and listen as his house of cards began to topple.

“Oh no but I heard, from a girl who works near there, that he’s quite gone off her now! Obviously all about the thrill of the chase- typical man, but so charming, don’t you think?”

“Serves her right, thinking herself above what she is, yeah?”

He’d had enough. How dare they talk about Demelza like that, as if she was some money-grabbing social climber he’d only picked up for a flirt and a quick fling?

With a shock he realised that was exactly what his behaviour was saying. He’d dropped her without ever explaining why, in order to stop rumours which probably mattered much more to him than her in the first place- and even that had failed.

The final layer of cards flattened.

He’d been an idiot, and the realisation stung.

He heard them start on Demelza’s looks, bemoaning her “trashy” hair and “cheap” way of dressing and gave in to the rage pounding in his head, pushing through them with a look chilling enough to kill.

He was going to find Demelza and apologise, and then he was going to get down on his knees and apologise again and then tell her what he should have told her a week ago: that she was the best thing in his life and losing her would kill him.

He found her still in the office, alone except for the cleaners on floor four. He supposed she was waiting for the six o’clock bus, given that he wouldn’t have been back to drive her home.

She looked up as he approached and he thought he saw something flicker in her eyes, only to be replaced with something frighteningly bright and broken.

He began to talk.

Unbeknownst to Ross, Demelza had spent the entirety of his absence silently shaking with rage and hurt. Her earlier surprise at his behaviour had been replaced with sheer outrage that he could think to treat her like this, after everything she had done and said to help him- after all he had said about needing her! She had fretted and felt guilty and made excuses for him for nearly two long weeks now, and all the time he had belittled her and commanded her and given her the cold shoulder.

The sudden swing back into electric, unfathomable, heartbreaker Ross had been too much.

She had given him her heart, and he had thrown it back in her face with a red stamp of rejection all over it.

And she had had enough.

Chapter Text

“Demelza? Can I-can I talk to you a second?"

He was stuttering like a teenager with an awkward crush, but really words had never been his strong point- he could only hope that she would see through them to him.

Was he imagining her face closing, her jaw setting, her eyes hardening?

Was he imagining the anger crackling around them? 

"There's something-something I've been meaning to tell you for some time now."

'For some time now'? What was he, eighty? He resisted the urge to slap himself in the face. Demelza looked worried enough as it was.

"Ever since I met you- ever since you started working here, that is, I’ve felt-drawn to you, in a way I don’t really understand.”

He definitely didn’t imagine the look of stunned incredulity on her face. Or the anger that followed soon after.

Quailing under the fire of her gaze, he managed to stutter; “You see, over the past few weeks I’ve become rather- fond of you”

It wasn’t what he wanted to say- in fact it was nearly the exact opposite. Fond, with its grandfatherly, restrained, distant, olde England connotations, was exactly what he didn’t feel for Demelza: it was miles away from the all-consuming, primal, earth shaking feeling that swept through him and rearranged his inner geography at the mere sound of his name on her lips.

She was shaking, he noticed distantly, as if he wasn’t really there.

“How dare you,” she hissed, every syllable trembling with rage, “how can you, you, you- Judas!”

“Demelza, I-“

“Don’t you “Demelza” me! Shouldn’t i’ be “Miss Carne” now we’re all high an’ mighty, sur?” she spat, packing as much contempt into the title as was humanly possible.

“I can explain-“

“I don’t need y’t’explain, thank y’very much! I’ve eyes i’ my head! I’m not good enou’ t’talk t’ y’, am I? Good enou’ fer a chat when y’feelin’ lonely, good enou’ t’ file y’papers, but t’ be friends wi’? Oh no, not Mr Ross Poldark, esquire, son o’ a line tha’ goes back ten thousand bloody years and Demelza Carne, dattur o’ a man who don’t even know his ma an’ ‘as ne’er been called “Miss” in her life, not them!”

Oh, God, thought Ross. She hates me and she doesn’t even know the half of it. How could he say that he had done all of it to “protect” them from rumours that only mattered to him? How could he tell her that in his jealous brain she was happily ensconced with another man, and that it was why he had never told her? How could he tell her that he had done what he thought was best for her without even telling her?

“Demelza, whatever you think-“

“What I think doesn’t matter, does i’? Y’re goin’ t’spend t’ rest o’ your days pinin’ aft’r Missus Poldark-“

If she noticed the involuntary shudder that spread through him at the mention of Elizabeth’s new name then it only made her angrier, but she didn’t mention it.

“-an’ I’ll have t’leave an’ find somewhere else t’work-“

“No.” His voice was firmer than he intended, desperation creeping into the edges of it- she couldn’t leave him, she couldn’t let him fall again.

She ploughed on, seeming not to have even heard it.

“an’ as fer y’bein’ fond o’ me- hah! “

She was on the verge on hysteria now, her voice rising though two octaves and getting progressively louder as he watched her knuckles whiten and her hair grow electric.

“No-one who wa’ fond o’ anyone could treat them th’ way y’ treated me, Ross Poldark! Leavin’ me i’ the cold- ignorin’ me- bein’ downright rude- an’ then, an’ then, i’ th’lift , staring at me like- like a bloody shark!”

If he hadn’t been watching one of the only people he’d ever actually cared for slip away from him it would have been funny.

It wasn’t.

“Demelza, I swear to you, I never meant to-“

“T’ wha’? T’ hurt me? T’ ruin th’only thing that’s gone righ’ fer me my whole life? Well, you did a fantastic bloody job o’ it then, Ross, y’ absolutely smashed it.”

“Demelza, I am so sorry- if you’d only let me explain-“

“No, Ross, I don’t want t’hear it. I’m leavin’ an’ that’s-that’s done.”

“You can’t- Demelza please, you don’t have to leave, please don’t feel you have to.”

“But,” she said, her eyes wide and childlike and holding all the hurt in the world, “I thought tha’s wha’ y’ wanted.”

“I’ve never wanted anything less in my life.”

“Maybe I want t’go.”

There was a moment in which the world went reeling past them, a world in which she smiled and forgave him and he was redeemed; a world in which they grew old together and he tasted sunlight on her lips and their children had the names of a new generation; and that world flew past like the north wind and disappeared, leaving them standing in a deserted office in that terrible, empty silence.

“Do you?”

He was looking straight at her for the first time since that episode in the lift, and Demelza found herself marvelling again at how any human could have eyes you could actually feel on you, eyes that pulled at that hole in the centre in your chest and made you feel both empty and full of light at the same time.

“Do you?” He was asking her again, that question that had decided her life before as his car slid towards the roundabout in the pouring rain and he told her the exit for her home was that way- and the exit for his work was the other.

“There’s a job there, if you want it.”

“I have t’ go home t’my Da, sur”

“Do you?”

Even then she had chosen him, and she had kept choosing him, again and again: over the nice young broker in the neighbouring building who could buy her a flat that didn’t leak in the rain (of course she had never told Ross this), over the frequent hellfire-laden orders from her converted father; over the gossip and the rumours and the cold, pointed stares.

She knew even before she had stopped being angry with him that she always would.

“I don’t know.” Her voice was quiet even to her own ears; yet Ross seemed to hear it just fine. His face tightened as if an involuntary spasm of pain had crossed it.

“I don’t know, Ross. I don’t know how I can f’give y’just- just like tha’. God, I’m still so angry wi’ y’…”

“I know.”

Something in the sad resignation of his voice caught at her heart like a fish hook, and with a lurch she was falling again.

She was crying, Ross saw with a shock: Demelza who never cried, not even when Jud dropped a cabinet on her foot and crushed it; not even when she broke her wrist climbing a tree to catch a file that had blown away from an open window. He had made her cry.

Awful, soft, quiet tears that dropped from the end of her nose to the carpet as he stood looking at her, wishing he had the right to brush her away.

“I- I jus’ can’t believe y’would do tha’ t’ me, Ross, I thought we were- I thought we were friends?”

She looked up at him, and in that moment he knew he would do anything in the world to make her smile again.

Another moment, and she was in his arms, and he didn’t even know how it had happened, but she was there, crying into his shirt and with her hair clouding his vision.

She was in his arms, and for a moment he could pretend it was going to be okay.

A soft cough startled them both, and Demelza leapt away like a startled cat.

Elizabeth stood there, still in her christening clothes (though thankfully without the hat), holding his hipflask out.

“You left this,” she said, and if he hadn’t known her better he’d have thought she sounded almost apologetic, “I wouldn’t have come myself but I know how much it means to you.”

Of course she would- Elizabeth had always had the most absurd interest in his family and his past, perhaps as a substitute for her own absurdly perfect one. The ancient hipflask, handed down through generations of degenerate Nampara Poldarks, was one of her frequent question topics.

“Thank you.”

Demelza had turned away, was sorting through her desk with her head bowed to hide the tears he was sure she was frantically wiping away.

“Thank you as well, Ross, for coming today. I know it’s not- what either of us might have wanted.”

She was moving closer to him, her familiar scent of Chanel No.5 drifting with her as he tried to escape the past.

“I couldn’t have missed it. Not- not your son.”

“I know,” she said, slowly reaching out to stroke his cheek with a touch as light as a feather. “I know, Ross.”

She was a ghost, a ghost who knew him too well and he was beginning to think he might never be rid of her.

“I’ll see you on Sunday?”

Biting his tongue, bottling his heart, he agreed.

“Of course.”

And she was gone.

Demelza’s shoulders were set like a drill sergeants. He turned to her, his mouth clumsy with the words he needed, and she faced him with a face as tortured as any marble saint.

“An’ I suppose you’re fond o’ her, too?”

Those were the last words she would say to him, maintaining a stubborn silence all the way home, angry eyes burning like coals in the darkness.

As he dropped her at her door, she turned back, white face pale in the streetlight.

“You’re ne’er going t’ be ov’r her, are you?”

Her voice cracked on the last syllable, her forehead scrunching with the effort of keeping tears at bay. In her voice was all the hopelessness in the world: the resigned lethargy of someone who has seen everything terrible this world has to offer and can no longer summon the strength to dream.

He had nothing to say.

It was just as she opened the door to go inside that he found his voice.

“Demelza?”

“Yes?” “I- I’ll need to pick you up earlier tomorrow. Half seven latest. The financier’s meeting up in Newcastle, remember?”

“O’course, sur.”

The door closed.

It is common knowledge that the gods are cruel, and that just when you think there isn’t anything left to befall you there will be another disaster.

And so it was with Ross. They drove all the way to Newcastle in silence, through the icy quiet of the early morning snow drifts only to find it cancelled and rescheduled for the next month.

It wasn’t enough to heap seven hours of wasted driving on the way there on him, however.

Oh, no.

The car had to break down. In the Peak District, that unforgiving and desolate winter wasteland in the snow, with no signal to phone for help and no cars to beg lifts from.

Demelza, of course, with her miner’s daughter’s resilience, was in her element, pulling on her coat and scarf in a manner reminiscent of Laurence of Arabia and striding a good few feet down the road before he had the presence of mind to follow her.

They were both shivering and blue with cold by the time they reached the next lived-in cottage, Demelza having refused his repeated offers of his jumper.

Perhaps the gods were fed up with inflicting misery on him by then, because it so happened to be a B&B. A tiny, fiercely Catholic B&B with only one room left.

Perhaps not.

“Oh, you’re in luck, my ducks: I’ve just had to turn some hitch-hikers out of the last room! Very nice, but they weren’t married-admitted to it outright! Snow’s a horrid thing I grant you, but right is right, I tell you.

“So, what’s your name? For the guest book?”

“Poldark”

“Carne”

A spilt second of panic, and Ross swept in.

“Poldark-Carne; it’s an old Cornish name, and we’re not long married, are we darling?”

He dared to put an arm around her shoulder and got a distinct telepathic inference he was going to pay for it later.

It hurt more than he expected, the casual use of endearments: another taunting glimpse of the life he had thrown away.

“Oh, how sweet! Well, I’ll see you to your room- best you get dried off before you die of cold! Come along.”

It was a lovely room: old fashioned, charming, all the usual facilities…

And just one, double, bed.

Ross gulped.

If you had asked Demelza to name the things she would find absolutely nigh on impossible to do, there wouldn’t be many things on the list.

Hurt a dog, yes; kill someone; make a pie from one of Paul Hollywood’s recipes; be cruel to a child.

But pretending to be Ross Poldark’s wife? Sharing his bed?

Wouldn’t have been on the list, simply because, funnily enough, she had never considered it before.

But oh, boy, was it top of the list now.

Just being with him normally was torture enough- to be reminded every minute of how much he had hurt her, how much he obviously was still in love with Elizabeth and was just messing around with her like the stupid, delinquent rich boy he was- but to have to pretend to be in love with him!

At least, said a snide voice in her head, you won’t have to stretch your limited acting ability very far for that assignment.

Demelza politely told the snide voice to shut up, if it knew what was good for it, or she’d perform a home lobotomy right here and now.

They’d managed to tow the car to the garage using the owner’s truck: but apparently it wouldn’t be fixed until tomorrow.

So she was staying Mrs Poldark-Carne.

The tiny village they’d ended up in didn’t even have a shop: so as her clothes dried she was wearing one of Ross’s t shirts, salvaged from the case in the back seat he never ever unpacked, and leggings she had fortunately discovered lurking in her handbag.

It was a very nice t shirt, in all fairness. If they’d been together for real she’d certainly have stolen it. Well worn and faded and soft, huge and smelling so indescribably of Ross she nearly cried.

Every time she looked at him she could feel herself burning up with the need to tell him what, after all this, he still meant to her.

She’d opened her mouth to say it three times now, and each time she heard him and Elizabeth with their soft, cosy voices and their togetherness, and the way she knew his history and he would always hurt himself for her and would always, always be in love with her, and she stopped.

It was torture- calling him “sweetheart” and “darling” and ”dear”, holding his hand in the car, leaning her head on his shoulder when the owners were looking: torture of the most exquisite kind, to be so close to the thing she wanted more than anything, and yet so far away.

And it was killing her.

Chapter Text

She was wearing one of his t-shirts.

Demelza was wearing one of his t-shirts.

Just when things couldn’t get any worse.

It was far too big for her, swamping her tiny frame like a dress and falling nearly to her knees, but it was still unmistakably his.

She looked like they were together, and he couldn’t bear the sight of her.

Unfortunately, when pretending to be married, that just wouldn’t do. Mrs Brumpton (“call me Margery, dear.”) kept stealing glances at them (looking very suspiciously at Demelza’s hand, at least until they lied that the ring was a family heirloom and as such was only for important days) when she thought they weren’t looking and no matter where they were, she’d pop up only a few seconds later with a fond smile and a “oh, don’t let me interrupt you two lovebirds, just doing my business!”.

It was maddening.

Ross had been doing some thinking over the past few hours, and he’d come to a decision: if heaven truly was a place on earth, then hell was too. And he’d found it.

Hell was the scent of Demelza’s coppery hair as she leant on his shoulder, curls brushing his cheek as they bounced around the back seat of the truck. It was the feel of her strong, thin hand in his, callouses and scars and erratic, jumping pulse; it was the warmth of her through the thin cotton as he put his arm around her.

It was the way she (consummate actress as she was, damn her,) looked up at him like she really did feel something for him, and the way he didn’t even have to act at all to return that look.

Being Mrs Poldark-Carne really wasn’t that bad, Demelza decided as they sat at dinner that night, if you were a fan of slowly being tortured to death.

After a few hours of his arm around her, her head near his, his lips shaping the loveliest lies she’d ever heard, she thought she’d rather had told the truth and been thrown out, snow be damned.

What was snow to burning up from the inside?

They sat side by side at the huge oak table, Demelza plastering a fake smile on and nodding at everything Ross said as the conversation roared over them, counting the minutes until she could escape. People kept asking them things, horrible, difficult questions like “When did you meet?” “How did he ask you?” “How was the wedding?” or “Any children?”, and she felt like a rabbit in headlights as she tried frantically to think of what Ross might say.

It was in the middle of one of these questions that his hand slipped into hers. A wave of shock rolled over her, gratitude at the comfort warring with the desire to still be angry at him.

Gratitude won, and she squeezed it back.

It was easier, after that: she could squeeze his hand to stop or start the answer as needed, and no-one would be any the wiser.

Really, thought Demelza after a particularly tricky round of questioning about their first date (dinner at Giancarlo’s and a walk along the Cornish coast, thank you very much), we ought to be on the stage. Ross n’ Demelza, The Amazing Married Liars! They don’t even need to speak to concoct a story even Richard Curtis would be proud of! Roll up, roll up!

They escaped after the dessert, pleading exhaustion and an early start the next day, and though there were a few pointed stares at Demelza’s midriff and a few laughs from the men, no-one protested. Ross tried to hide the involuntary twinge of longing that either of those thoughts was true.

The door slammed behind them as they almost ran out into the corridor, taking one look at one another and dissolving into hysterics.

“What….possessed you….to mention KICKBOXING?”

“I couldn’t think o’ anythin’ else!”

“The look on his FACE…”

Suddenly they were looking at each other, and the past few days seemed to fly away: they were just Ross and Demelza, just two people in a very big world, trying to make it through.

It almost felt like they were friends again.

They weren’t.

“Guess we’d better- better get to bed, then.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

The words seemed awkward, forced even as they tripped and danced their way around the huge, betrayal shaped elephant in the room, and neither of them dared to make the first move.

There was a noise from inside, breaking the reverie. Demelza jerked like she’d been shot, hurrying upstairs with a barely imperceptible jerk of the head he took to mean “Come on, then.” In all fairness, it could have meant “Get out.”

Ross decided on the former.

Was it just him, or had the bed gotten even more obviously double in the time they’d been gone? It seemed to fill the whole room with its soft, counterpane-d, convivial aura of matrimony and procreation and “being barely tolerant of the person you’re sharing it with”, making his heart beat faster and his pulse roar as he looked at the clock and saw that they really couldn’t postpone it much longer.

Demelza emerged from the bathroom sniffing, her face still dripping with water and her lips smudged with toothpaste. She looked so utterly normal that it hurt to think he’d never seen her like this before.

That he never would again.

“Bathroom’s free,” she offered with a small smile. “I’m changin’ now, so lock th’ door, please.”

He did as bidden, gathering up his things and shutting the door as firmly as he could to dissuade the notion that she thought he was going to break her trust like that.

Then again, a small voice in the back of his mind muttered, you haven’t exactly regained her trust, have you?

The bed really was extremely comfortable, Demelza thought as she pulled the covers up to her chin and settled down. Soft, clean sheets, a warm blanket over her feet, pillows as crisp as a blank page… She lay back, watching the shadows play over the ceiling in the flickering light of the lamp and listening to the quiet bustle downstairs, the hushed cries of the owls outside, the splashes and clinks of Ross getting ready for bed….Ross. She’d forgotten she had to share this bed with him.

They’d hashed it out earlier, of course: there were no chairs in the room big enough for either of them, no bath, and the floors were hard and unforgiving planks. It had to be the bed, for both of them. Her earlier comfort gone, Demelza sat up in bed, her knees tenting the duvet before her, and waited.

She stared at the wooden door separating them so hard she almost felt like she could see through it. Would he be brushing his teeth now? Did he leave the tap running? What toothpaste did he use? Was he the type to floss? Perhaps it was the long day or the shock of her present situation that did it, but suddenly a flash of pain for the habits she would never know rose up inside her. Her eyes pricked, and she frantically scuffled over the bedside table to find a tissue before Ross finished, all the while hating herself for being so weak.

And then the door opened and he was there, in a huge grey t shirt and checked bottoms that looked about a million years old. His feet were bare, and his freshly washed face looked so young and innocent it was all she could do to stop herself leaping to him.

He moved slowly, as if she was a baby animal startled by his approach, putting away his things and turning off the lights before stopping by the other side of the bed.

“Are you sure-“

“Ross, we’ve been through this, there’s no oth’r way. Jus’- jus’ get on wi’ it, will y’, you’re lettin’ th’cold in.” It took a superhuman effort to talk to him normally, even jokingly: to use his name without breaking, to sound as familiar with him as she’d only dreamt she could be.

To do anything at all other than cry and scream and ask him why, why is it that this can’t be real when it feels so much like it is.

The covers are turned back, and the bed dipped as he swung his legs in, bouncing like a child as he tried to get comfortable. His arm was only inches from hers, his head a mere pillow away, and when did the bed get so small?

He turned off the light, and in the near darkness there was only the silence and the sound of their breaths as they laid there, two magnets forced apart but constantly attracting.

His t-shirt was soft on her back as she shifted, and a question rose unbidden to her lips, shattering the awkward, fragile silence like a stone through a sheet of ice.

“Ross?”

“Yes?”

She couldn’t see it in the dark but she could feel him turn towards her in the rustle of the sheets and the shifting of the mattress, in the way she always seems to know where he is.

“Why d’you have a case o’ spare clothes i’ your car?”

A small sigh escaped him, and she wondered if she’d gone too far.

“To be honest, I’d really forgotten I’d got them. You see, when I- when I came back, after I found out about-“

“Elizabeth.”

He didn’t even stop the story, she noticed, wondering when it was they got to this point: that she can fill in the jigsaw gaps between his words without him ever needing to ask.

“I was- I was the living dead, Demelza. I had nothing- no family, no inheritance, barely a home and certainly no job to speak of. I didn’t have anything I wanted to live for.

“But I didn’t want to die. Or rather I did- I just didn’t want to make a decision to do it. I’m really a coward, have you noticed? I used to wander the cliffs and the towns I grew up in, staring at all the places I dreamt of coming back to, and feel nothing. Nothing tied me down, nothing kept me in Cornwall, just ghosts and memories and the feeling that everything had somehow gone wrong, you know? I just wanted it all to stop: to be able to stop trying, just for a day. So I thought I’d run away. Start the car, just drive and drive until I could stop seeing her everywhere. Until I could find somewhere I could comfortably drink myself to death without embarrassing the family.”

“So that’s why,” she said slowly, trying to make sense of his jumped confession. “You keep it in case you run away.”

“Yes.”

“So why haven’t you?” They were whispering, their faces as close as they could get without touching. She could see his eyes glittering in the dark.

“Because I kept finding reasons to stay.”

If there ever was an ideal moment, this would be it, Ross thought. Kiss her and tell her that she’s the only reason that matters, that will ever matter.

But something stopped him: an odd, clinging thought that it was too much, too fast for the fragile web of trust they had so recently started to rebuild. And besides, they were in bed- the last thing he wanted to do was to make her frightened about his intentions.

Not that they didn’t somewhat lean in that direction.

He didn’t know what had possessed him to tell her about the suitcase, about the secret dream that had held him for so long: he could easily have lied, told her some cock-and-bull story about his mother teaching him to always be prepared, or about Verity being a worrier. Yet somehow he knew he could never have lied to her.

She always found out a way to bring out the truth in him.

It was very, very quiet, the only noises the quiet rustle of the bedclothes and the soft, measured sound of their breathing. The silence felt tangible, like brittle glass, as if you could reach out and snap it.

“Demelza?”

“Yes?”

“I just want you to know- I’m so sorry for the way I’ve treated you these past few days. It was wrong and inexcusable and I know I can never make it up to you but I hope you’ll let me explain one day why-“

“Ssssshhhhh” she said sleepily, pressing a drowsy finger to his lips. “Tomorrow….tell me tomorrow.No’ now. No’ when I’m so comfy an’ warm…”

(In years to come, he will still marvel at how fast she can descend from perfectly alert to almost drunkenly sleepy and then into rest, and she will tell him it is an evolutionary advantage.)

“Alright,” he said, trying to supress his laughter. “Tomorrow then. Sweet dreams, Demelza.

“Oh, and if you hear me shouting in the night, just tell me George Warleggan’s in prison, and I’ll just roll back over.”

She snorted.

“Goodnigh’, Ross.”

“Goodnight, Demelza.”

His hand was on her hip, the other buried in the gap between her hair and her smooth, soft neck, and he was instantly so aware of her closeness and the heat of her sleep-warmed skin that it took immense effort to prevent him from jumping away and waking her.

She looked so fragile, so heartbreakingly vulnerable and innocent just then as she slept that he felt it like a pain; as if his heart would leap out of his chest just looking at her. Slowly, carefully, trying desperately not to wake her, he moved his hands away and sat up, getting out of bed as painstakingly as an old man. As he crept towards the bathroom, he saw her phone light up with a text, reading it before he could help himself.

07:26 jim: do u want a tv got 1 goin spare

The name sounded familiar, and as he showered he felt his mind returning to it again and again. It was a small shower, barely big enough for a man of his height, but the water was hot and clean and strong enough to drown out any murmur of protest about leaving Mr Poldark-Carne behind.

Jim Carter! It had to be: Demelza lived in the flat below his and they’d often spoken about him- about how they both worried he would come to no good, desperate as he was to help his mother and girlfriend, Jinny.

How had Jim come by a TV?

Ross was definitely in the shower. Not that Demelza was thinking about that.

She was merely thinking about how very loud the shower was, and how it was making it hard to think, that was all.

She grinned and stretched back on the pillows, luxuriating in the patch of winter sunlight streaming through the windows and enjoying not having to get up for anything for once. It had been a long time since she’d slept that well: probably something to do with the bed.

And not who she was sharing it with.

She couldn’t deny it had been nice, not being alone for a change: and it had been oddly lovely, really, sharing secrets like children in the dark. Ross’ presence, though weird at first, had been comforting after a while: with him, she’d felt safe, warm. Whole, even.

She was touched he’d told her about the suitcase; like he was giving her a piece of himself along with it, baring his soul one tiny part at a time. It made her feel like she might actually mean something to him.

And he’d apologised again, and this time?

She felt ready to listen to him.

Chapter Text

“Are you ready for me to explain now?”

“Wha’?”

“Last night, I tried to explain about- about what happened last week, and you said-“

“Ohhh,” said Demelza, a look of comprehension slowly dawning on her face. “That.”

“Yes. That.”

They were slowly making their way down the M5, clogged with traffic from the hundreds of cars making their way to the winter fairs this part of the world did so well. Ross turned the radio down, the amiable, distant sound of Radio Two slowly fading away as he gathered his courage.

“I suppose…I suppose y’have th’ right t’make me hear y’out, i’ any case.”

He took a deep breath and began.

“You know that I went out with Verity, that day I started being such an arse?”

She nodded.

“Well, she said-“

“Oh come on, Ross, you can’t expect me t’believe tha’ Miss Verity’d make y’start bein’ such a-such a bloody tool!”

He grimaced. “I can’t say I don’t deserve that- but I’m not blaming Verity, if you’d just listen to me for once, Demelza.

“So I had lunch with Verity, and she- alerted me to certain-um-rumours, in the papers. About us.”

“Abou’ us? Bu’ why-“

“About us…being together, in all the gossip rags and things like that. And I- I thought you would be mortified if you knew, your reputation would be ruined and if- when, you leave Wheal Leisure, your getting a job would be even harder with that sort of thing hanging around.”

It came out all in a rush- he hadn’t meant to blurt it like that, but he suddenly saw with blunt clarity the flimsiness of his excuse.

And he still hadn’t told her that it was only his inability to make those rumours true that had made him act like he had.

“So I thought- and I know I was wrong, I’m sorry Demelza, I won’t ever do anything like it again- that the only way would be to prove them wrong- make it seem like there was absolutely nothing between us.”

“And is there?” she said softly, almost too quietly for him to catch.

“I don’t know.” He admitted honestly, staring out of the window at the endless grey stretch of road.

They were quiet for a long time, Ross frantically trying to evaluate whether telling her the truth would, at this point, be advisable; Demelza twisting her hands in her lap and looking anywhere but at him.

Her phone suddenly lit up, the harsh artificial light shattering the soft grey bubble they had been travelling. She scrabbled to check it, her face falling as Ross watched her into one of utter disappointment.

“You alright?”

She jumped slightly, as if she had forgotten he was there. “Oh, it’s jus’ Jim, my neighbour- oh, I forget, y’know him, don’t you? Y’gave him th’flat above me, wi’ Jinny?”

“I did, yeah. I’ve known Jim all my life- his dad worked for mine, a long way back. It was difficult after he died- Jim’s got dozens of siblings, and his mum’s not up to working and looking after them all too. I got him a job helping out around Nampara- just odd jobs really, but I paid him what I could, and then I got him a real one at Wheal. Is he alright?” He felt a sudden flash of anxiety- what if something had happened to him?

“As ‘ee can be, I suppose. ‘Ee sent me a text thi’ morning, axing if I’d want a TV, an’ where’s ‘ee got tha’ from? Y’don’t pay him tha’ much, d’you?”

“Not enough for him to give one away,” Ross said slowly, a memory rising sluggishly to the surface, “but I think I know what might be going on. A couple of months back, before I got him the mine job, Jinny’s dad came to see me, telling me he’d got her pregnant and that he didn’t mind them living together if I could get him a job- and if I could stop him shoplifting.”

Demelza gasped.

“He was in it with an older man- not from around here, a right sort from what I’ve heard- he said he did it to get a little extra for his mum and Jinny and everyone.”

“Oh, no, Jim….”

“So I suppose, if he’s got a TV knocking around, he’s back on it again. Oh, sod him!” He slammed his hand onto the steering wheel with an anger that surprised himself. “Doesn’t he understand it’s not just him anymore? There’s Jinny, and the baby- when’s she due?”

“Fairly soon, I think- thi’ month, fer sure.”

“Bloody Jesus. We’d best get out of this traffic jam soon, Demelza, I’ve a miner to knock some sense into.”

She laughed softly. “Ross Poldark, fightin’ someone? I though’ I’d ne’er see th’day.”

“Oh, be quiet, Carne, you didn’t complain when it was those fairground lads I was laying into.”

“No,” she said quietly, “I suppose I didn’t.”

They were on thin ice now: they never spoke about the day they’d met, when he’d found her in the centre of a pack of boys jeering and shouting as she, visibly bruised and shaking in a jumper ten sizes too big, fought back like a wildcat as they tried to take Garrick.

“I put my shoulder out that day.” He said lightly, trying to rouse her from the dullness in her eyes as she remembered her life before. He couldn’t help feeling slightly grateful, however, that they were no longer on the topic of what was-or wasn’t- between them.

She drew in a deep breath and turned to look at him. “Well,” she said, her face breaking into a smile, “I guess tha’ makes us about equal, then, doesn’t i’?”

He grinned back.

“But if y’ ever pull anythin’ like tha’ again, I’ll tell Prudie y’said y’hadn’t had enough o’her sandwiches recently an’ y’were feelin’ quite ill.”

Ross gasped in mock horror. “Surely you wouldn’t?”

“Don’t push me,” she said severely, turning back to the window, but she was smiling.

They pulled into the drive in front of Demelza’s house as the day started its slow fade towards darkness, the street lights beaming their amber glow across their faces and turning them the flat orange of spotlights. Two actors, quietly circling the world’s smallest stage, getting closer and closer and all the time never knowing what was lies and what was the truth.

“Last stop for the house of no name, ladies and gents, last stop for the house of no name.”

“Ross, y’really missed y’callin, didn’t you?”

“I would have been the best bus driver in Cornwall, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

She scoffed and got out of the car, dragging her bag with her.

“Goodnigh’, Ross.”

“See you tomorrow, Demelza.”

The early evening air was crisp and cool on her skin, and as she reached the door she was shivering. Unlocking the door, she turned to see Ross still sitting there, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. Involuntarily, as she always did, she smiled back.

Was he sitting there to check she got in alright? She blushed in spite of herself and gave him a brief wave before closing the door behind her: only to be ambushed almost immediately by a sobbing Jinny.

“Jinny, whatever’s th’matter? Are y’hurt? Th’baby?”

“Only hurt by ‘avin’ no father! Oh, Demelza, Jim’s bin arrested! I told ‘im t’stop bloody stealin’, an’ look wha’ ‘ee goes an does! How am I goin’ t’manage wi’ a baby an’ no money comin’ in? An’ Jim- ‘ee’s a good man, Demelza, y’know ‘ee is, y’know ‘ee only did it t’sort for us an’ for ‘is mam, what’ll happen t’im?”

Slowly but surely, Demelza pulled the story out of a hysterical, mercurial Jinny- flitting from rage at Jim to singing his praises, she told her how that morning the police had knocked on the door and told her that one Mr James Carter, nineteen, had been caught that night shoplifting electronic goods, and that upon his arrival at the station he had been promptly charged with nineteen other shoplifting offences and cautions. He was still at the station, awaiting trial.

“Demelza, y’can help us! Y’can talk t’Mr Poldark- ‘ee helped us before, ‘ee’s a rich man, ‘ee’ll know how t’help Jim!”

“Jinny, I don’t know-“

“I see th’way ‘ee looks at y’! ‘Ee’d move heaven an’ earth fer you,y’know ‘ee would! Please, Demelza, please!”

It felt like a small bean bag hitting her in the midriff: not as agonisingly painful as the blow of seeing Ross smile at Elizabeth, but breath-snatching just the same.

“Wha’-wha’ d’y mean, Jinny?”

“Only tha’ Jim an’ me- we’ve known Mr Poldark a long time, see, an’ we an’t ne’er seen ‘im as happy as ‘ee is wi’ you.”

“Tha’s-tha’s ridiculous, Jinny, y’know ‘ee was i’ love wi’ Miss Elizabeth, an’ anyhow I’m jus’ his secretary, an’-an-never mind all tha’, we need t’sort Jim out”!”

She punched in his number with shaking fingers, her heart metallic and heavy in her mouth.

“Demelza?”

“Ross, hi- I’m sorry t’bother y’, Ross, but I need y’t’come back right away-“

“Demelza, what’s wrong?”

He sounds concerned, she thought detachedly, as if the section of her brain marked ROSS had drifted off from the rest of it whilst it dealt with the crisis. I wonder why.

“It’s Jim, Ross. He’s been arrested.”

She heard the muffled sound of a curse, and then a distinct “I’m on my way.”

“He’s coming.”

But Jinny didn’t hear her: overcome with exhaustion and hormones and stress, she had simply fallen asleep right there at Demelza’s kitchen table. Frightened, she shook her gently, her heart rate plummeting with relief as Jinny opened her eyes.

“Mr Poldark’s comin’, don’t you worry, Jinny. We’ll sort thi’ out. Now, come on, t’bed w’you, y’need t’be rested f’the baby, ok?”

Just as she locked the flat door on a safely sleeping Jinny she heard the familiar roar of his car outside. It was so jarringly familiar- she heard it every weekday morning without fail- and so incongruous in the horrible world she had found herself in that she found herself choking back a sob as she ran out to meet him.

Demelza came flying out the house pale and ashen, with her lips set like someone who would rather die than give the news they are holding. She led him inside the tiny flat, telling him between shaky breaths as she made more tea the whole awful story.

“An’ now Jinny’s asleep upstairs, an’ Jim’s at the station, an’ wha’ are we goin’ t’do, Ross?”

He thought for a long moment, his mind whirling.

“Tonight, we’re both going to get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow, you’ll check on Jinny and we’ll take her to her mum’s before work. Then we’ll start fixing this. I’ll hunt out all my dad’s old lawyering friends, see if there are any judges in my mum’s little black book. You-“

“I’ll look up cases like thi’ one an’ see if there’s any precedent.” Demelza said fiercely, her eyes shining with a desire to be of use. “There mus’ be a way we can get him off-“

“On grounds of leniency and extreme provocation, maybe.”

She nodded determinedly, and he was once again struck by how blazingly strong she was.

She followed his orders to the letter, as he must have known she would, and so there they were in the car on a rainy Monday morning, having just dropped a marginally calmer Jinny off. They pulled up outside the office building, but as Demelza made to get out Ross frantically motioned to her to stay inside.

“I just need to take Demelza to the Nampara office to pick up some legal tenders, alright?” he called to the exiting Judd and Prudie, looking like the terrible liar he was and swiftly departing.

“Wha’- Ross, why aren’t we goin’ t’th’office?”

“Because if anyone saw you trying to help Jim it’d be all over Cornwall in a week, and gossip really won’t help Jim’s chances. I think you’ll find my office at Nampara just as fine as your real one- and the WiFi’s definitely better, I’ve checked.”

So that’s that, Demelza mused as they drove. Just off to his house, no big deal. Nothing to feel like you should have put on nicer tights for.

As it turned out, it really wasn’t- he dropped her off, unlocked a few doors, showed her around and left to canvass his rich friends for bail money, leaving her alone to research.

And so it went on for a week, him leaving her at Nampara to Google and file and endlessly cross reference, whilst he charged around the place threatening and bribing and generally doing what Demelza thought posh people usually did when they wanted something.

He’d come back at six, tired and stressed and increasingly despairing, and they’d sit and go through what they’d done: it was oddly companionable, sitting there in the bright, warm study and talking for hours until they’d run out of plans. At some point in the week, she’d started making dinner for them both- it would be rude to eat without him, after all, and it was hungry work- and the first time he came in to see it on the table it was so overwhelmingly domestic and together and married that she’d had to excuse herself to have a minute.

The date of the trial flew closer and closer, and they still didn’t know how to save him.

The day itself came, dawning bright and early with an almost mocking clear blue sky. Ross offered for her to stay at Nampara, knowing that she would go mad having to pretend in the office and that the signal in her flat was unreliable at best.

She got some work done, in between pacing and worrying, but as six o’clock came and went with no sign of Ross her nerves got the better of her, and she opened the cupboard once more.

Ross had given her leave to investigate the study for anything she needed, and during a particularly prolonged rifle for highlighters she had opened an antique cupboard full of files to find at the bottom a blue-green sweatshirt and an old record- ‘The Power of Love’, Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

It got awfully quiet cooped up in the house by herself, and Ross had said she was free to use the record player if she liked, so she’d stuck it on and loved it. Since then, she’d played it at least twice a day, always when she was sure Ross was away and always returning it to the cupboard. Despite his injunction to do as she wanted, there was something dangerous, almost illicit about the cupboard and its contents that made her feel like he shouldn’t know.

She’d only tried on the sweatshirt once, in a particularly bored and fractious moment, but she’d taken it off immediately, suddenly scared Ross would walk in. It had smelt oddly: like perfume and the scent she associated with Ross and the unmistakable smell of designer clothing. It was fairly plain, but thick and soft and with a gold zip up the back that made it feel like wearing prestige.

He could walk in any moment, but suddenly she needed the comfort of the scratching vinyl and soaring music wrapped around her once more and she put the music on.

She sat there listening, playing the whole record, B-side and all, through before realising she was shivering. The heating had gone off and-in a burst of optimism at the blue sky she now regretted- she had left her coat in the car.

Sweatshirt it was then, money and all. Surely Ross wouldn’t mind her wearing it- he’d understand she was just trying to keep warm, just trying to get by.

But her heart was pounding madly and she felt as she imagined Jim must have done during a lift- breathless and nervous and terrified.

She heard him before he could hear it, sprinting to pull the needle up as he walked in and threw himself down onto the sofa, his eyes shut.

He looked awful: grey and drawn and much older than he had ever seemed before.

“Ross? How- how did i’ go?”

It was only after she’d asked she realised that she was still wearing the sweatshirt. She couldn’t take it off now- he’d notice the rustling. Her only hope was to keep out of eye line until she could slip away. Her whole body was cold with fright.

He spoke like a man delivering the death penalty to his oldest friend.

“Ten years.”

She gasped.

“No-, oh, no, Ross, it can’t be!”

“I tried, Demelza, I promise you I did, but I tried too-bloody-hard!”

The words came out as a staccato shout, and she flinched as she hadn’t for months.

“I had to go and stick my mouth in, I had to go and try and be the hero, and for what? To antagonise the judge and stop him letting Jim off. And even the ten was a demotion- he was going to get twenty, but my reference did at least get him that. But ten years! With his heart he won’t even last six months, I know how hard they work them there…”

“I’m sure y’did all y’could, Ross, I know y’did-“

“You don’t know, Demelza, you don’t and you never will because they are not your people, they are mine and I of all people should know how they behave. Even if I am disgusted to be one of them.”

He turned to look at her, and it was like being shot.

“What are you wearing?”

“I found it-in one of the cupboards, you said I could look-“

“Not for clothes!”

“an’ th’heating went off an’ I left my coat an’ I just thought-“

“You thought wrong.” His voice dropped to a deadly quiet, and she was afraid again, here was her father come to get her, to punish her for doing wrong…

Y’bloody fool, y’great cow, y’don’t buy I’ fer tha’ price….don’t y’know how t’wash clothes, y’dirty bitch…stop them bleeding kids or I’ll stop ‘em meself…

Old memories, all of them, but one rising to the top that was all too fresh: You’ll come wi’ me, girl, I’m still y’father i’ the law an’ even if not who’s goin t’laywer fer you? I’ll not ‘ave mine i’ a job like this wi’ men of sin, sleepin’ around like a bloody hippie, you’ll come wi’ me when I bring th’car on Monday an’ meet y’stepmother, don’t y’dare try any funny business…

This week she had been living on borrowed time, and it was Sunday now.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean t’be nosy-“

But Ross had noticed the record.

He was white hot with rage, first at the court and now at her, for daring to try and imitate her. Didn’t she know that was Elizabeth’s top, that his mother had given it to her? Didn’t she have any self respect at all?

He caught sight of the record, and memories hit him like a flood. His mother and father dancing together, his mother telling him how it was her favourite because it was the only one Joshua would dance to; telling Elizabeth about it, playing it to her bashfully and aware of its tackiness and age; Elizabeth declaring it would be their song too, dancing with him in the very green jumper Demelza was wearing so wrongly now.

“Take it off.”

“I-“

“Take it off, now, or you’ll be out of a job and back with your father.”

They were nose to nose, the air around them electric. She was trembling, her eyes swimming with tears, and suddenly she turned away with a sob and he was himself again and he had hurt her yet again.

“Oh no, Demelza, please, stop-“

But she couldn’t stop. What did it matter if he fired her? This time tomorrow she would be back with her father, cowed and afraid and looking after everyone again, and he would be nothing but the loveliest memory of her soul.

“Demelza, I’m sorry, it’s been the worst day and I’m not myself-“

She was facing him again, less than an inch between them, and she was staring at him, the face she loved more than anything in the world and trying to drink him in: to memorise every line of him so that tomorrow, when he was gone, she could dream of him.

He was breathing heavily, his eyes wild and his hair on end as he stared at her as if he’d never seen he before, and he reached out and cupped her chin with a hand so warm and rough and real that it hurt.

He let out a breath at the same time she took one in, and they crashed together.

His hand was in her hair and he pulled her to him with a force that shook every muscle in her body, and then his lips were on hers and nothing else mattered but this.

He kissed her, and the world stopped.

Nothing mattered: not Elizabeth or the mine or Jim or the court; not the war or global warming or drought or the election or his looming bankruptcy. None of them mattered as long as he was kissing her. She was so thin in his arms but so strong, like a feather made of tempered steel, and her lips were chapped and salt-tinged and the sweetest oblivion he had ever known.

When he pulled away, it was only because he could see Verity in his mind’s eye, talking about a man who’d taken advantage of his secretary with the utmost disgust.

“No,” he gasped, his voice hoarse.

“Wha’ is it, wha’s the matter, Ross-“

“I didn’t take you from that fair for this.”

“But-“

“Get in the car.”

“Ross-“

“Go.”

He was furious with himself for doing this to her, for making her believe it was all he wanted her for. How could he ever look anyone in the eye again if this carried on? Ross Poldark, screwing the secretary. He could hear George Warleggan laughing from here.

And it would progress to that, because he couldn’t break away a second time.

She remained on the floor where she had slumped, her fathers words echoing around her head.

you’ll come wi’ me when I bring th’car on Monday an’ meet y’stepmother, don’t y’dare try any funny business… you’ll come wi’ me when I bring th’car on Monday an’ meet y’stepmother, don’t y’dare try any funny business… you’ll come wi’ me when I bring th’car on Monday an’ meet y’stepmother, don’t y’dare try any funny business…

This was the last she would ever see of him. She would go to her grave without knowing him, without being loved by him, without living with him. She would walk away from him, and a part of her would die.

And her father thought she had already slept with him, had already “given in”. As if it was a choice. As if it were something she was resigned to, as if it wasn’t something her heart cried out for every time they’d touched.

He’d left the room whilst she sat there; she could see him in his bedroom across the hall.

She had never been in there.

Tomorrow she was going to leave him, and she would seal her lips tight and let her heart break silently rather than let him see it. But she had one night left.

Chapter Text

One night, and she had been changed forever.

One night, one quicksilver, mercury-fast night in a lifetime of dull, grey darkness and nights that dragged on and on with no chance of rest.

One golden, iridescent night to carry her through all those without him.

“Demelza-what people say about us- if we do this, it’ll be true.”

“Then let i’ be true.” She said, and kissed him and flew.

She’d never made a choice quite so easily; had never been quite so certain that this was what she wanted, certain enough to defy her father and her birth and her fate and throw caution to the wind.

She would never bring herself to regret it.

He shifted beside her, head starkly black against the snowy white sheets, his arm slung loosely around her midriff. In sleep, he looked so much more vulnerable; his defences and walls and bite all gone and only the clean lines of his face remaining. She felt like she could see the dreams flickering behind his translucent eyelids, and wished herself into them.

It still didn’t feel real: that the thoughts she’d tried so hard to push down and supress and never, ever act on had suddenly become for this fleeting moment real and tangible and here.

That one night, Ross Poldark would hold her like he loved her.

She reached for his hand under the sheets, the warm reassurance anchoring her to the present, reminding her that it wasn’t a dream: that she wouldn’t wake up and be in a tiny bed at her father’s house with nothing but a goodbye to remember him bye. Curling closer to him, she tried to memorise every edge and curve of him, every stretch of warm skin and bone and him, always him. She’d tried to burrow into him last night, tried to pull him in and place him between her cracked ribs where she’d never have to leave him, to hold him inside her forever and keep him where no one could say anything about them. He’d looked at her, so surprised and trusting and soft in the darkness, and in his shot pupils she could see herself, flushed and desperate and needing, and turned away so she wouldn’t have to see what he’d done to her.

And he’d pulled her back and held her, over and over again, and they moved together there in the dark like two magnets twisting through the night.

He sighed into her hair and she felt herself shiver at the feeling of his breath on her neck, and, for the last time, Demelza Carne fell asleep with Ross Poldark.

Ross was not, in fact, dreaming of Demelza. Or rather, he was, but not quite in the way he might have wanted to after recent events.

They were in a bank vault; the kind of old, medieval chamber you found in fantasy novels, filled with gold coins and stacks of paper. In the corner stood Demelza, her hands tied together, and next to her stood a gloating George Warleggan, supervising a group of black-clad men as they carried the contents away. He caught Ross’ eye and grinned.

“You see, Ross? I told you I would take everything you had….”

He lunged towards him, only to find himself falling and falling down a great black hole, landing on the edge of the cliffs near Nampara. George was there too, right on the edge, holding a furiously struggling Demelza by both arms.

“Want to help her, Ross? You only have to say the word and you can have her back-“

But he couldn’t move his lips. Behind George, a small army of policemen formed, their faces oddly blank and emotionless. He gestured madly at them, screaming through closed lips, but they merely stared.

“Oh, it’s no use complaining to them- you see, by law, you’ve no right to the charming Miss Carne here, Ross. In fact, she’s more mine than she is yours, now that you’ve so kindly handed over your company and its entire staff to our more capable hands. Will you say it, Ross? I’m waiting…”

Yet no matter how hard he struggled, the word couldn’t form.

It was only as she dropped, coppery hair streaming out behind her like blood, her mouth open in a silent sob, that he was able to scream.

“PLEASE!”

He woke shaking, cold sweat forming down the line of his backbone, unsure where he was and what was real. Grasping the bedclothes in his trembling hands, he frantically bit back a scream at the shape in the corner, flipping on the light to see only a shadow. Next to him, Demelza stirred at the disturbance and he felt her presence with a relief that was almost spiritual. She groaned softly, and he turned off the light and held her to him, whispering to her as she subsided back to sleep and his heartrate began to slow.

He lay there in the darkness, mind whirring like a spinning top as he tried to reassure himself that it was only a dream. She was here, wasn’t she? Demelza was here and alive and with him, and although he wasn’t sure how long the latter could last there was no possible way George Warleggan could fling her off a cliff in broad daylight.

And he didn’t even have a bank vault. Or gold.

And there was no way even the Warleggans could have the entire police force in their pocket. But even though logically he knew it was only a dream and there was nothing to fear, there was still a niggling sense that something was wrong- a cold awfulness at the edge of his mind, a menace too subtle to put into words or even remember exactly.

Just as he was drifting off to sleep, George’s words slipped through his mind again, sweet and sticky as poisoned honey: but this time, shockingly, searingly real.

“You know, Ross, it’s not quite as complex as you seem to think, taking over a mine. You appear to believe it’s some kind of battle of wills, one side good and unyielding, the other bad and sly. Well, I don’t doubt you were a good solider- though that scar really is nasty, isn’t it?- but you’ve a terrible head for business. In my experience, taking over a mine is simply a matter of opportunity. Waiting til something falls through the cracks. And I’ll tell you now- this company is not as whole as you think it is. Just you wait, Ross. We’ll find a way.”

He shuddered awake. George Warleggan, like the shark he was, had scented blood.

And he wouldn’t ever stop.

Opportunities… surely he hadn’t given them any? He had never banked with them, had never put a single penny into their grasp, so surely Wheal Leisure was safe? They had no hold on it, no hold on anything it contained, up to and including the girl snoring softly beside him.

Once, he’d have staked his life on that. Now, the slow grey dawn slowly appearing at the edge of the curtains, he wasn’t so sure.

Heart beginning to pound again, he reached for his phone, pulling up the spreadsheet containing records of all their assets.

All fine there.

Bank details? Definitely all with Pascoe’s, but he checked again anyway. He was nearly at the bottom when he caught sight of something that made his breath stutter and nearly stop.

15% share: tied in monetary assets. Transferred 06/11/15 23:45, Warleggan’s Banking. Authority: F Poldark, acting for R. Poldark. Terms: G.C.C.B 1989.

They had his shares. As of- Jesus Christ, as of yesterday!-they owned 15% of his mine. Not legally, of course, but the moment they realised what they had they would call in any loans they could think of. And take the mine.

What had Francis done? Why? How?

“Ross, can you sign this? Godparent stuff, wills, you know how it is- sorry to bother you, I know you’re up to your ears at the minute.”

He’d been in a hurry, rushing around trying to help Jim, so he’d signed it without so much as a glance- after all, why would Francis try to con him?

Fat lot of respect he had for family loyalty.

It felt so much like he was falling that he nearly checked for the wind whistling around his ears. In a minute- no, seconds, he’d signed over everything he’d worked for. The blood rushed to his head as he stood up quickly, his face heating and his vision, for a second, going ink-black.

He checked the time. Six-fifteen.

Sorry, Harris, no rest for the wicked, he thought ruefully, quietly slipping out the room.

One incredibly fraught phone call later, and he was in even worse shape.

He couldn’t move the shares back- at least not until thirty-one days had elapsed. Giving the Warleggans twenty-nine to completely wreck the mine and the lives of those who worked there, including his.

In a few hours, they would be awake, checking their emails for new victims, and it would be the work of a moment to undo months of endless toil. Moving quietly, as fast as he could without waking Demelza, he grabbed what clothes he could and changed, feeling like any minute he’d look up to see George Warleggan taking her God-knows-where, grinning like a cat who’d got the cream.

No time like the present, then.

Scribbling a quick note to Demelza, he fought the urge to kiss her as he watched her sleeping face, so delicate and young in the morning light. The thought of anything marring that serenity made his knuckles whiten.

Harris Pascoe looked remarkably unruffled at first, for a man who had been awoken at the crack of dawn for impending financial doom, but Ross knew his friend well enough to see that he was worried.

“It’s a bad business, Ross.”

“You’re telling me- is there really no way I can move the shares sooner?”

“Well…” Harris was uncomfortable, even he could see that- but why?

“What? Harris, if there’s any way I can move them, I will- I’ll worry about the consequences later.”

“There is one way- a very arcane loophole, I only remember because-“

“For God’s sake, will you get on with it?”

Harris shifted uncomfortably, refusing to meet Ross’ eyes. Finally he looked up.

“You’d have to get married.”

“What?”

Just as he was about to ask Harris whether he’d completely taken leave of his senses, his phone vibrated suddenly, juddering the desk top.

06:45 ross I’m so so sorry I didn’t realise they were there honestly I didn’t see them

06:45 What do you mean?are you ok?

06:45 I’m fine, it’s just the paparazzi were outside and I didn’t realise and now they’ve seen me

06:46 just google yourself

06:47 I’m so, so sorry

06:49 ross?

“Google me,” he said, fear cutting his words into sharper definition than intended. “Quickly!”

Harris obliged, and soon they were staring at result after result of glorious, filthy, tabloid resolution, complete with grainy footage of a clearly terrified Demelza leaving his house.

In what was clearly a morning after.

“Oh, God, Harris, they’ll crucify her. She’ll be dragged through every tabloid this bloody country has to offer- Jesus Christ, do I just have “kick me, God” written on the top of my head today? Do I?” He inclined his head towards Harris,  who was starting to look, understandably, a little concerned.

Pull yourself together, Poldark. Nothing’s helped by being a hysterical child about it.

He rubbed his temples ferociously, trying to scrub the morning’s events from his mind.

“You were saying?

“Yes. Well- ah-“

“Hurry, Harris.”

“You see, if you were married, you could transfer any assets at all, from whatever bank they were in, to your spouse, pretty much instantly.”

“Regardless of that stupid G.C.C.B conract?”

“Regardless of that.”

“But how-how the hell would it work, Harris? Who on earth’s going to want to marry me on a moment’s notice?”

Harris didn’t answer, just stared pointedly at the screen. Demelza’s harried, hassled face stared back.

Of course.

This was absurd, Ross thought to himself, mind reeling. They’d only- done anything the night before, for God’s sake! It wasn’t like they’d been together for years and it would happen anyway- they weren’t even together!

He tried to pretend that didn’t sting, but gave up.

“What- that’s ridiculous- Harris-“He subsided into a (largely) faked coughing fit, trying to think of a way out- any way out- that wouldn’t involve doing this.

“And anyway- even suppose I did agree to it, and she did too- there’s no way we could get married by the time they realise!”

“Ah,” Harris said, looking relieved that he was no longer considering choking. “I may be able to help with that.

“You can freeze all your assets, no matter which bank they’re in, for a period no longer than 36 hours, if you use a very interesting little loophole-“

“Harris.”

“Sorry. Anyway, we could certainly hold them off with enough time to get you married, I’m sure.”

“Oh, God, Harris, what am I doing?”

It felt like a floodgate had opened and all his feelings about duty and responsibility had gone pouring down the drain. All that was left was the realisation that he was going to have to do this: he was going to have to marry a girl he’d known for less than a year, who he’d only kissed the night before- who, though he thought about her far more than was strictly necessary for a professional relationship, knew absolutely nothing about him, and him about her.

That’s not true, a small voice reminded him. You know her accent gets thicker when she’s upset. You know she never has enough hair grips. You know her favourite foods and you know how her lips tremble when she’s trying not to laugh. You know she loves baking and hates Paul Hollywood. You know how she stretches in her sleep, you know what it feels like when you hold her, you know the taste of her like nothing else, you know that kissing her makes you forget who you are…

Try as he might, he couldn’t get it to shut up.

“Oh, and Ross?” Harris called as he left the office, still shell shocked.

“Try and make it look authentic- and as public as possible. That way there’s no possibility of them trying it in court, and it’ll help her reputation if you mention how long you’ve been together, that sort of thing.”

“But we haven’t been together at all-“

“Oh,” said the banker, looking confused. “I rather thought you were. Oh, well. You’ve always been an adept liar, Ross. Good luck.”

How those words will come back to haunt him.

He fired off a quick text to Demelza, telling her to come to work as soon as she can- he’ll send a taxi around, but everything has to go on as normal. His heart was beating twenty-to-the-dozen, his breath coming short and fast as he drove, the familiar places blurring into somewhere new and very alien.

Her father was waiting when she got back. She felt the familiar tug of fear at her throat at the sight of him, loitering around the door and advancing towards her with the old, unchanged brutality.

“So, dattur. Y’be coming back t’live wi’ me now, eh?”

“Da, I-I have t’go inside, get ready f’work.”

“How’s tha’ then? When I know y’be coming wi’ me today?”

“I will, Da, jus’ listen- I ‘ant spoken t’Mr Poldark yet, I need ‘im to le’ me out o’ my contract first, see?”

Her haitches always slipped with him- the one letter that truly betrayed where she came from, what she was.

“All righ’, then, but I be comin’ wi’ ye.”

“No! No, Da, y’jus’ wait ‘ere, I’ll be back in a mo-“

“I be coming wi’ ye, an’ tha’s final, girl.”

So that was it then. She was going to lie to Ross and tell him that she wanted to leave, that her father needed her, and he would give her a form and tell her good luck and maybe smile, and she would smile back and thank him and leave, and her heart would break.

And she would never tell him what he meant to her- that he had saved her, so many times. That he was part of her now.

Thank God for Judd and Prudie. As soon as she’d entered the building they’d seen her and swooped on her, grabbing her father away and telling him he had to be registered and checked before coming upstairs. From the gleeful look in Judd’s eye, it was going to take some time.

Ross was waiting for her when she got back, the office buzzing around him as it woke up for the day. He looked as bad as she felt: dark shadows under his eyes, and his hands twitched as if he needed to do something but couldn’t find anything. His eyes changed when they saw her; dark as ever, they seemed to lighten for a moment, like the reflection of a gold coin dropped into a dark pool, quickly sinking to the depths.

“Ross, wha’s going on? I-“

His arms were around her, pulling her close to his chest as if he wanted to absorb her into him and never let go. For a second she forgot who they were, what was waiting for them- where they were- and fell into him, drinking him in.

Then she remembered.

“Ross,” she hissed, trying to pull away, “wha’ are you doing? Everyone’s watchin’!”

“Just trust me,” he whispered, holding her closer. “You need to play along with everything I say, OK? It’s about- why I had to leave this morning.”

“The Warleggans?”

“Oh, bloody hell, it’s like Beetlejuice with them, isn’t it. Here they come.” He relinquished her, turning to face the door where two immaculately dressed bastards were, in fact, sauntering towards them.

“George, Nicholas. To what do I owe the pleasure?” She could hear the silky threat in his voice, and it made her shudder. Almost instinctively, he slung an arm around her, pulling her close again, and acting on an impulse she didn’t know she had she curled into him, smiling at the Warleggans with all the charm she could muster.

“Well, Ross, we came to see about a recent transferral you made to our bank. Your shares, weren’t they?”

He heard Demelza’s hastily stifled intake of breath and suddenly remembered she knew about none of this.

“Ah, yes. A slight mistake, I think, on Francis’ part, terribly inconvenient.”

“And slow to rectify.” George smiled.

“As the case may be, but I think you’ll find my assets frozen for the next few days, just to avoid this happening again.” He exaggerates, of course, but who are they to know about law?

“Really? I was under the impression it’s more of a thirty-six hour thing.”

Bloody bankers.

He shrugged as casually as he could. “Maybe, I suppose. I’ll be honest, I left it with John. I’ve had…far more important things to think about.”

He looked down at Demelza as obviously as possible, trying to smile his most love-sick smile. It was surprisingly difficult.

“Oh?” She smiled, her eyes uncertain as she responded to his nudge. “And what’s that?”

“You.”

The world should have fallen away right then and there, but still he remained horribly conscious of the two men standing before them, judging.

“Darling Demelza”- her eyes widened-“you know that you mean the world to me. Since you came, my life has- has changed, irrevocably. You are the one constant in my life; the one person who I know will always be there. You are clever and funny and beautiful and sometimes I can’t bear to look at you because it hurts too much, how bright you are. You make me a better man.”

He tried to make it as real as he could, remembering all the romances Verity made him watch as a kid, stealing their clichés.

He didn’t know when he started telling the truth.

“So, I guess what I’m really saying is- Demelza Carne, will you marry me?”

Chapter Text

When Demelza woke up that morning, the last thing she expected was to be engaged to Ross Poldark by 10 am.

At least her shock at his proposal had been genuine: no misgivings from the Warleggans there. To be fair, literally no-one had expected Ross, the well-born son of a mining dynasty who had up until now been the picture of dissolute aristocracy, to propose to his secretary, a girl so low born her father didn’t even have a job- unless drinking counted.

No-one could say he was predictable.

“So, I guess what I’m really saying is- Demelza Carne, will you marry me?”

If it weren’t medically impossible, she’d be pretty sure her heart stopped right there and then. The wind rushed in her ears and the world seemed to fall away, like she and Ross were standing on a cliff, the only two people at the end of the world.

For a second her heart floated right up to the ceiling, and she was flying, soaring with the realisation that he loved her too, that everything would be ok.

“Just trust me.”

“You need to play along with everything I say, alright?”

And she was falling again, crashing back to earth as she saw clearly what her foolish heart tried to conceal.

He was lying, playacting to save his company from the smirking bastards whom Demelza had never managed to get over her distrust of, and maybe it would save dozens of jobs (including her own), but that didn’t mean she had to go along with it, did it?

Job loyalty didn’t extend to marrying someone.

She was all ready to refuse, ready to tell him that he could take his fake proposal and shove it when she made her mistake.

She looked at him.

He was ashen, eyes so dark in his white face they looked like pits. His dark hair was so dishevelled it had finally crossed the line from “GQ Man of the Year” to “drug addict with no access to sanitation”, and the lines in his face made him look eons older than his thirty years.

His eyes were begging her, pulling her closer even without that magnetic charm that had so completely undone her when they’d met. He wasn’t charming now: he was broken.

His lips curved, ever so slightly, and she knew she’d do anything he asked.

“Yes.”

It sounded more like a funeral hymn than the peals of merry bells she imagined at her wedding day, Demelza thought as she walked down the aisle.

It was a cold, celestial sort of day: grey and grim, with moments of dazzling brightness when the sun pierced through the cloud cover. The church was shadowed and dark, the dusky murkiness of the pews threatening to swallow her as she made her way alone, legs trembling.

She’d never imagined her father walking her up the aisle, but it suddenly felt very lonely, and very wrong to be walking to her marriage alone, observed only by the priest and Judd and Prudie.

And Ross.

She looked awfully small walking up the aisle towards him, her blazing hair the only light in the gloom. In his dreams, this was when she smiled: when she reassured him that it would all be ok.

The fact that “she” had up until recently been Elizabeth was only slightly disturbing in comparison to how Demelza looked: like a martyr walking to the scaffold.

Which she was, in a way: sacrificing herself for him, giving up her hopes of marriage to a man she loved for one she probably only barely tolerated and was just marrying out of pity and misplaced duty.

She didn’t have to look so stunningly, heart wrenchingly beautiful whilst doing it, however.

When he’d imagined his wedding, he’d always thought he’d be sure: that he’d feel only happiness and security, that it would just be a formality to check things off.

He’d never imagined his wedding would feel like willingly jumping off a cliff and not knowing what was at the bottom.

It felt desperate and yearning and delicate, like a spider web stretched between branches as the wind begins to blow. It made every nerve in his body jangle like repelling magnets, and it took all the courage he had to stop himself from rushing out as he waited for her to appear.

Then she’d walked in, and it was like time stopped.

She was married in an old shift dress and grey tights, and her flowers were the most expensive things about her- excluding her rings. Ross had given her his mother’s sapphire engagement ring: an Edwardian heirloom, it felt like the weight of the world on her finger.

Her dress had been bought months ago, a whim from the Topshop sale rack. She remembered thinking even then that it would be an appropriately whimsical elopement dress, before shaking her head and resolving not to watch any more romances for a while, especially when they had such covetable white crochet dresses and heroes with dark curls and brooding eyes.

She’d still bought the dress.

They’d been nearly to the church, Demelza shaking quietly in her corner of the car and determinedly not looking at him when she’d realised.

“Stop th’ car!”

“Demelza, what-“

“Flowers,” she said wildly. “I haven’t any flowers.”

“Do you need-“

“Yes.” She’d said fiercely, fighting the irrational urge to cry. “If my wedding day’s t’ be a bloody business acquisition, then by God I will ha’ flowers.”

That had shut him up, and as he was reversing into a nearby florist he looked at her and began softly: “Demelza, if you don’t want to-“

She’d shaken her head without looking at him.

“No. I will. Bu’ Ross, please- if I’m t’do this, I want some flowers, a’ least. Li’le me would ne’er forgive me.”

He’d smiled at that, she could hear it in his voice when he gave her his wallet and told her to make little Demelza proud.

And forgetting her usual scruples about money and not spending his, she had. Her wildflowers were eye wateringly expensive for the season, but they smelt of home and the cliffs around Nampara and reminded her of Ross’s shocked smile when he’d seen the vase she’d left in his office. More for her hair, some for Ross’ buttonhole, and soon she was covered in a veritable drift of colour and scent.

It made her feel a tiny bit better.

Ross was married in his second best suit: his best was at the cleaners. This, too, was not what he had imagined for himself, but strangely he felt much more comfortable in the worn serge than in the tuxedo he was sure he would have been forced into at the society wedding destined for him.

Demelza had stopped him just before he went into the church, eyes lowered, and gently pushed a delicate clump of flowers through his buttonhole.

“There. Now y’at least look th’part.”

He felt her trembling and wanted more than anything to hold her until the world made sense again, but Prudie was bustling her off and the priest was hurrying him up to the altar and he could manage no more than a smile.

When he was a boy, he had seen the shafts of sunlight piercing the cloud veil and told his mother that it was Heaven sneaking a peek at earth, and since then cloudy days had always been significant for him.

It was on a day like this that he was married, and it was at the precise moment Demelza stepped out of the gloom to the altar that a ray of sunlight chose to make its presence known, illuminating her so brightly it hurt. Her hair gleamed copper, her marble skin so pale and fine looking he could see the frantic drumming of her heart in her blue pulse.

Small Ross, he thought, could probably have been forgiven for mistaking the sunlight for Heavenly check-ups, had he seen the miracle that was Demelza Carne illuminated in one.

She was heaven in a dingy Cornish church, and so beautiful it made his chest ache.

It was the longest walk she’d ever taken, but she managed it somehow, the mournful strain of the interim pianist who only seemed to be able to pay the bridal march in a minor key following her like liquid melancholy.

Ross stood at the altar, shockingly real and clear against the blurred colours of the stained glass windows and the dull majesty of the altar. In the sudden burst of light he looked like an avenging angel, so proud and intense she half expected to see a slain dragon slumped by the pulpit.

How could she marry a man like that? A man so much above her she could barely see him for the light? A man who would never – could never- feel even one jot of what she felt for him?

And then she remembered his eyes in the office, so scared and desperate and alone, and it all made sense. He was as much a part of her as the curls of her hair or the beat of her heart, and she would love him even as he killed her with this sham marriage if it meant he would be happy.

For this tiny, insignificant moment, lost in the annuls of time, Ross Poldark needed her, and not even the prospect of a life spent bruised with his nearness would stop her from giving him everything she had.

There was something in the curve of her cheekbone, so heartrendingly delicate and vulnerable in the light, which made him want to fight a thousand battles in her defence. As she passed her flowers to Prudie he saw she was trembling, and it sent a knife through his gut. How could he put her though this? How could he make her marry a man she didn’t love?

How could he live with her, knowing she would never feel that earthshattering rearrangement of his internal organs that occurred every time she entered the room?

The priest began to mumble, his words meaningless in the suddenly airless room, and she looked at him for the first time.

She’d been girding herself up for it since they’d arrived, trying to force herself to look at the man she was going to spend her life with. It was all so near to a dream that it made her sick: the passionate proposal, the beautiful ring, Ross in his suit at the end of the aisle- but everything was wrong. The words she’d longed to hear were empty, sugar-spun lies, the ring was Elizabeth’s in all but circumstance and the man at the end of the aisle was there to save jobs, not her. If she refused to look at him then she could pretend that this was still a dream or that it was happening to someone else.

Anything to avoid thinking about the fact that Heaven was a hair’s breadth away from Hell, and she’d missed.

But when she made it to the altar, the smell of the incense and damask sour in her mouth, and heard his name- Ross Vennor Poldark- she knew it was real, and that there was no way to wake up this time.

So she looked at him.

He looked so angry, so tortured and pained with his straight saint’s mouth and his cheekbones sharpened to knives that she felt herself grow even colder, and for a terrible second she thought she couldn’t go through with it.

Then she saw the faint tremor of his hands, the lines on his forehead and the gleam of his white knuckles and knew she’d tie the noose herself if it meant he could stop looking like a dead man walking.

He lifted his eyes to hers, and in them she could see her Ross, the man she loved more than anything, the man who had saved her, broken girl that she was, and made her whole again, and she smiled.

Her smile could put the sun to shame for radiance.

Suddenly everything felt real again: the priest was louder, the sunlight brighter, the church warmer, and in the centre of it all was Demelza, smiling like she could love him.

And he held her hands a little tighter, and if his voice broke a little on the vows than there were only five people to hear him, and Prudie was deaf anyway.

Ross’s voice broke on the vows, and Demelza’s heart broke a little with it.

Is it really so bad, she found herself asking wordlessly, being married to me?

Am I hurting you like you’re hurting me?

Her own voice was trembling but clear, startlingly loud in the silent church.

The ring he slipped onto her finger was heavy, old gold: bright with decades of marriage, burnished with the patina of tens of wives’ absent polishing. As she watched, it turned into a snake which twisted to look at her, disdain pooling in its heavy lidded eyes, and said:

I am not for you.

She blinked, and it was gone, replaced with the nagging feeling that it probably would have been good to eat something at some point today.

The priest told him to kiss her, and her world exploded into a kaleidoscope of fractured colours, his mouth like a brand on hers.

You are mine now, it said.

Silly thing, hers replied, kissing him back. I always have been.                                       

It was like burning, kissing her, desperate and needy and fast and over far too soon. The priest gave him a look as he drew back, and he felt the sudden urge to confess: Forgive me, Father, for I have loved a girl more than God. I have loved her to destruction, I have loved her to waste, I would raze a thousand cities for her and it is only for her grace that I do not. I have sinned, Father, for this girl is my absolution and my shame. In her lips I find the sacrament I shunned here for twenty years. There is more divinity in her sleeping eyelids than in a hundred cathedrals.

Forgive me, Father, for I have hurt her.

Her first steps outside as a married woman, and it started to rain.

Absolutely bloody typical.

She gasped as the cold hit her like a storm front, damp within seconds and rapidly veering towards sodden as half a minute went by. Then Ross was beside her, large warm hands enveloping hers, dragging her as he almost sprinted towards the car. The doors shut with a resounding slam, heaters blowing before she had chance to think, and suddenly they were speeding out of the churchyard and down a narrow country lane.

“Wha’ about Judd an’ Prudie?”

“They’ll have to get the bus, I’m afraid; they’re bad enough for ruining the upholstery when dry.”

He was lying and she knew it, but she shrugged anyway and didn’t pry.

She didn’t have to.

“No, I just- I just wanted to be alone with you. Just for these first few hours, until we get used to…this.”

He made a vague gesture she took to encompass the wedding, the rain, and the fact that they were still holding hands.

“Oh! Sorry, I’ll-“ She drew back her hands in alarm at the same time as he did his, both apologising quickly.

Folding her hands in her lap to resist the urge to brush the damp curls away from his face, she returned her attention to the rain swept world outside.

“Ross?”

“Yeah?”

“Where are we goin’?”

“Home, of course.”

“Yours or mine?”

You could practically see his train of thought stop dead in its tracks.

“Ours, now, I suppose.”

Fighting the frisson that swept through her at the mention of ours, she abandoned her vigil to gaze at a far more attractive prospect.

“So Nampara?”

“If that’s okay,” he said quickly, reddening slightly. “We can go and get your things tomorrow and Jim’ll look after Garrick til then- I just thought it might be warmer and-“

“Nicer, I know.” She smiled at his politeness, unwarranted as it was. “Don’t worry, I know s’awful at mine.”

“No, I meant-ah- if you wanted-“

“Ross,” she cut in, “Nampara- or anywhere wi’ hot wa’er an’ a fire, fo’ tha’ matter- is fine.”

“Okay.” He said, breathing out. “Good.”

They drove in silence, Demelza feeling the familiar tightness in her chest and the feeling that at any minute her heart could just burst through her front like a low budget Alien. She wanted to kiss him so badly it hurt.

He wasn’t expecting Demelza walking over the threshold at Nampara to feel so right. Nor was he expecting to feel like he’d finally come home when he saw her, draped in his jumper, making them dinner.

“So.” She said as they slumped on the sofa, full of pie and comfortably warm as the fire crackled.

“So.” He mimicked, turning to watch her as the shadows played across her fine bones.

“Where- where should I sleep? Tonigh’, I mean.”

He felt an uncomfortable flush creep through his body.

“Well, I- ah- I was thinking with me.”

“Oh.”

She was very quiet- he felt a surge of panic that he had scared her and knew himself to be the biggest arse in Cornwall, if not the world.

“I- I wasn’t sure i’ ye’d wan’ me there, wi’ this being so rushed an’ all.”

“Of course I want you there.” He drew her closer with a confidence he didn’t feel.

“You are my wife, after all.”

This time she couldn’t hide the shudder of delight that ran through her at his words and she saw his eyes widen as he noticed it. She wanted the ground to swallow her up.

But not quite yet, because his head was moving down to hers and his eyes were so dark and his lips so close…

He stopped barely an inch from her face and she felt, rather than saw, the doubt in his eyes.

“Ross?” She said, her voice barely a whisper.

“Yes?”

“You can kiss me now.”

Demelza broke apart from him, eyes glinting in mirth and her lips trembling like someone who is trying to restrain a bad joke.

“I am your wife, af’r al.”

Wedding nights have been a source of dread to girls for millennia. Even in her own morally lax childhood, Demelza had quickly learnt from numerous day-time period dramas that the wedding night was something to be looked upon as an inconvenience at best and a major trauma at worst.

What nothing had ever told her was that it could also be wonderful, especially if you’d got the whole debauching/deflowering thing done with beforehand.

Their first night had been desperate, like a wildfire consuming everything it touches, trying to memorise each other and knowing that every movement, every kiss, every sigh could be the last.

Their second was like rain after a dry summer, like a cloudy day melting into sunshine. He was so careful, so gentle with her, as though she could break at any moment, and she in return held him like he was made of glass, like her whispers could crack him. In the dead of night she cried out for fear of losing him and he looked at her, concern blown wide in the darkness, lips moving in the shape of her name and she had silenced him with her lips and moved to cover his body with her own.

Most people expect their wedding night to be good. Most people don’t expect to feel like they’ve given their soul to the one person who could mend it.

Her lips were so soft and her eyes lit like embers in the dark and he had felt her skin as reverently as if he had found the first words of God on it. He kissed her, the only real thing in the soft and giving darkness, and felt for the first time in years like he was truly alive.

Chapter Text

Being married wasn’t at all like Demelza expected. Granted, her previous experience was with television soap operas, in which it was rare that anyone at all survived their experience in “the Square” without being beaten, assaulted or psychologically traumatised, let alone with a functional relationship, but surely it had to be more mundane than this?

Surely marriage couldn’t be as wonderful, as transcendently happy as this? It couldn’t be this dream-like state she found herself in, where every morning she woke up to the face she would have given the earth for and could reach out for it as desperately as she liked.

Wasn’t marriage was about laundry and scrapping over the bills and the food and how she wasn’t exactly the best type of wife he was likely to have won for himself?

Wasn’t it was stony silences and passive aggressive sniping and the atmosphere in the room growing steadily cooler the longer they were in it?

That was the kind of marriage her parents had had. Her mother, a lively, pretty woman with a wicked sense of humour and a head of red curls as unruly as Demelza’s own, had been slowly broken by the man she was so inexplicably devoted to, to the extent that after years of constant abuse and near-constant pregnancy, with seven children, she had simply given up and died.

Demelza was seven.

Whenever she thought of her mother, which was as little as she dared, she always tried to think of her on the one day she had seen her happy: a year before her death, when her father, unusually sober and merry with a new job and no vodka in him, had taken them to the seaside.

Although they lived barely five miles from the coastal village where her mother had grown up, Demelza had never been there- it was a long journey to make on foot with several children under six, and they had no car and weren’t allowed the money for the bus. Her mother had been ecstatic to see the sea again, her grin splitting her tired face in two as she grabbed Demelza’s hand and tore down the beach with her, whooping with joy. Her father sat on the shore, helping the little ones to make sandcastles, whilst Demelza and her oldest brother, Mark, splashed each other and competed to make their mother laugh.

Afterwards, there’d been fish and chips, and her father had even bought ice creams for them all, without even a grumble at the cost. Demelza could still taste that ice cream now.

A week later, he had lost the job and hit her mother so hard she fell against the wall and fainted. Barely a month after that, she was pregnant again. It was to be her last child.

It was always the way with her memories: as soon as she remembered a time she had been happy, another memory usually shaped like her father would come and cloud it out.

Except with Ross. He had a way of pushing the bad memories right to the back of her mind, of teasing out the good and making her see only that, only him. His warmth made her cold, empty home feel very far away.

Yet she was still afraid: afraid that she would make her mother’s mistake. She’d been told often enough how like her she was: they had the same hair, the same eyes, the same way of laughing, the same love of flowers and the sea. The same name.

Why couldn’t she then do what she had done? Demelza the elder had fallen so utterly, so desperately in love with Tom Carne that when he asked her to marry him after a whirlwind month of dating, she had said yes without a second thought. She had been so in love with him that she forgave him his drinking, his brutality and his cruelty towards her: she had seen her mother smile up at him with tears in her eyes and blood pooling in the corners of her mouth and tell him she was sorry for letting him down and what did he want for dinner, love? She had borne him seven children without reproach and without complaint, one every year, as regular as clockwork, and she had followed him from council house to squat to dive without a word. She had loved him so much that she had let him kill her.

Had she felt as Demelza did? Had she, too, felt as if she were flying when he smiled at her? And if she had- what then?

If she had felt as Demelza did, then couldn’t Demelza do what she had done? Could she become so blind with love that the man she married could beat her bloody without her batting an eyelid? Could she live her whole weary life without ever having hope that he would love her as she loved him? Could she drown what made her in him?

The more she fell into this life, this comfortable, easy, gilded life, the harder it was to believe it. He smiled at her when he came through the door; he made her tea, on the rare occasions she hadn’t already made him some; he told her not to work so hard. At least once a day, he made her heart stop utterly in its tracks.

But he didn’t love her. She knew it as surely as she knew the stars in her own little patch of sky: she was a useful, maybe pleasant necessity. He needed her to stop him from losing his company: she needed him to breathe. It was, in its own odd way, a compromise.

It just hurt.

“Are you coming?”

“Hmm?”

“Work, Demelza. That thing that pays the bills. Interested?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I could jus’ stay here, le’ y’get on wi’ it.”

“And how could I do that when I’d have no secretary? You know,” he said conversationally, coming around the sofa she’d been slumped on to face her, “I’m one of the thirty under thirty to watch. You should be honoured.”

“Should I?” His eyes met hers, teasing, and her heart stuttered just a little bit. He held out a hand to help her up, her skin tickling with the shock of contact, and a voice inside whispered:

Yes. You should. Always and forever, for giving you this.

“Well, into the lion’s den we go. Ready?”

“As I’ll ev’r be.”

It was the first time they’d been back to the office since their sudden marital departure: Ross had called it a honeymoon. In reality, he’d been trying to save the company from the Warleggans’: Demelza joked that he had seen more of John Pascoe then he had of her. Ross had rectified this situation quite… thoroughly. She felt a blush heating her cheeks as she thought of it, and Ross seemed to mistake it for nerves: he put a steadying arm around her waist and held her close for a giddy moment.

“You’ll be fine.” He brushed her hair from her forehead, pressed a quick kiss to her temple. Demelza thought she might expire on the spot from the gesture, so carelessly thrown and so dearly caught.

“Come on.” And he tugged her into the circle of wolves.

The rest of the day passed in a kind of blur: people pressing her hands, congratulating her, telling her that it was such a surprise yet that they had always known it would happen; lamenting how small a wedding it had been, asking after the honeymoon and eyeing her waistline speculatively.

What? Did you think that’s why we did it? If only you knew.

It was nigh on impossible to get any work done that day, with all the stares and whispers swirling around her, as well as resisting the urge to run to Ross and hide until they had all gone away.

What they had had over the last few days had been so new, so delicate, that being here in front of the stares felt raw- exposed, like some sea creature removed from its shell.

Couldn’t they just have stayed as they were, wrapped up in each other, with no-one for miles to get in the way?

The building shut itself for the night, pipes clanking as floors below the cleaners commenced their nightly labours. Ross looked up from the screen in surprise: how had it got dark without him noticing? He repressed a sigh: time to go home to an empty house and a colder bed, and a night full of wasted dreams.

A movement in the corner of his eye startled him: bright red hair.

Demelza.

Warmth spread through him as he remembered.

Ross’ warm hand rested gently on her shoulder, making her jump: she had been nearly drowsing, lulled by the noises of the building going to bed.

“Sleeping?”

“Nearly.” She smiled up at him, revelling in the fact that she could do this now; could show him everything in her heart.

Well.

Not everything.

He helped her up, slinging a familiar arm around her shoulders, and she tucked away the moment in herself forever as they walked out, away from the building, and home.

It only got worse as the weeks went on: she bit her lip so many times that all she could taste was salt and iron, biting back bloody “I love yous”. It was easy, sometimes- easy to pretend that they really were besotted with each other, that their marriage wasn’t just a convenience, that it would all last forever. That he might love her back.

But then she’d see him gazing off into the distance, and she knew- she just knew, in that sick, certain way you know you’ve missed a step or forgotten something vital- that he was thinking of Elizabeth, and what he had lost forever.

It was very hard to compete with a ghost, especially when that ghost wasn’t actually dead and kept being tweeted about.

It seemed like every other day she’d see another photo of Elizabeth looking perfect and poised and enviable, and every time she felt as if she could vomit with jealousy: she’d left Ross, hadn’t she? She’d not bothered to wait for him to come home, she’d moved on- so why couldn’t he? And why did it feel like Demelza’s problem?

It was hard, too, to adjust to being Ross’ equal- not that she could ever really feel that. He had a sort of nobility, with his Norman bones and the faint sheen of martyrdom clinging to him, one she’d never seen before and doubted she would again. Hard not to jump up when he called; hard not to act the servant; hard even not to call him sir.

Not that he’d let her.

She’d stayed at Nampara that day, as she often did when he had business in town or with investors- she understood it all right, but she also understood the looks they’d give her when Ross wasn’t looking: lecherous, crawling, appraising looks, as if they couldn’t understand what Ross was doing with such a pleb.

So she stayed: she baked and cleaned and organised, trying to give some semblance of homeliness to a house that hadn’t felt like a home since Ross’s mother died.

It still felt weird to move things and not ask Ross’ permission- to move around like she owned the place, which, as Ross had pointed out, she technically did. Partly.

She was just setting the table for dinner when he came through the door, making her jump. Suddenly she thought of her mum, setting the table just like this and praying- for what? Her dad not to come home? Or for him to come home a different man? Either way she’d jumped like she’d been scalded every time the door slammed open. Demelza shuddered as she remembered the stench of fear that came with him: cheap beer and fags and sweat.

But it wasn’t him, it wasn’t. It was Ross, her friend- her husband, even. Ross, who had eyes like magnets and hands like a marble saint and who would never hurt her.

“Sur!”

Laughing, she corrected herself as he came closer, grinning.

“Ross.” She had flour on her hands but he didn’t seem to care, and it broke her heart. “You frigh’ened me.”

“Why?”

“I just- sometimes forget, is all.”

“That I live here?”

“That I live here. Wi’ you.”

“Then let me remind you.”

She smiled against his lips and felt everything in her float, her father forgotten.

Of course, it wasn’t long before word got out- not nearly long enough for Ross, who if he was being completely honest with himself, had something of a flair for the dramatic. Much better to wait a few dozen years, get propositioned, then come out with the shocker- “But I’m already married! To my secretary.”

It was probably a good idea to keep it repressed, in all honesty.

He met Francis on the road back from the mine, his cousin’s shadowed, worn face sparking a concern he hadn’t known he was still capable of for him.

“Francis!”

Francis’ eyes didn’t light up anymore when he saw him, he noted with not a little sadness. Once they’d been inseparable- apparently Francis had hero-worshipped him, not that he’d noticed. Far too busy wreaking havoc.

Now his cousin couldn’t even meet his eyes.

“Ross. Is it- is it true?”

“What?”

He could see the curiosity Francis was far too polite to show straining behind his eyes like some kind of animal on a leash.

“That you’ve gotten married.”

“Oh, that. Yes.”

It felt a bit of relief to say it- to finally tell the world that yes, Ross Poldark was as big a reprobate as they’d always suspected.

“To your secretary?”

To his surprise he found himself offended on Demelza’s behalf- the word ‘secretary’ sounded in Francis’ mouth like “murderer” or “sex pest”.

“Christ, Francis, she’s not some sort of escort-not,” he added, seeing his mouth open, “that there would be any issue if she was.”

“Try telling Aunt Agatha that. We’ve spent all day trying to tell her she’s not your mistress.”

Ross snickered. “Classic Aunt Ags.”

Francis laughed, and for a brief moment the years seemed to roll back on themselves.

Francis broke away first, stammering as awkwardly as if they were acquaintances.

“Yes. Well. I’ll be off.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll have to come- tell Aunt Agatha yourself- let Elizabeth know.”

Was Ross imagining the look being shot his way at the mention of her name?

“I will as soon as I’m free.”

Francis had almost disappeared when he turned and shouted; “Oh, Ross?

“I hope you’ll be very happy.”

Dear God, thought Ross as he walked away. So do I.

Verity was the first person to really congratulate them- not without mirth.

“I’ll skip the first two pages of the email because it’s really just the word HA! Repeated a hundred times, interspersed with “I told you so’s.” “

“She’s funny, your Verity,” Demelza said, concentrating on the wall she was painting. “I suppose she’s ever so annoyed?”

“Why would she be?”

“Didn’t she hope t’ marry y’off t’one o’ her fancy friends?”

“Not Verity. Of all of them she’s the least Edwardian.”

She smiled at him, but it was weak, and she went back to painting with a tiny furrow in her brow.

“Do you want to hear the rest?”

Even her nod didn’t feel definite- what in Verity’s email could possibly worry her that much?

“Sorry, but ABSOLUTELY NOT SORRY AT ALL HOW MANY TIMES CAN ONE WOMAN POSSIBLY BE SO RIGHT.

I’m so happy for you- for the both of you! Well, I don’t know Demelza, but her emails are lovely- and you’ve got fairly good judgement, so.

I know nearly everyone will be a dick about it (Dad nearly had an aneurysm- worrying) so I wanted you to know you’ve got at least one friend, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

Looking forwards to seeing you and rubbing this in your face further,

Love, Verity

Ps- Demelza- we need to meet up! Let me know!Vxx”

“There, you see. Not all doom and gloom.”

Demelza smiled though closed lips.

And lo and behold, nearly everyone was a dick. Much as Ross enjoyed reducing a room to awkward silence, even he would have preferred it not to happen in the middle of a board meeting.

Pretty much everyone in the room did a Francis- he married who?- but Henshawe grinned, clapping him on the back and complaining about the lack of a stag do. Ross felt a sudden rush of affection and gratitude, especially with John Choake muttering mutinously just across from him.

Especially when Choake and his cronies refused to put up any more cash, citing some made-up twaddle excuse.

Just come out and say it. I married a secretary. You can’t have an anarchist in charge of a mine.

He didn’t regret it, he didn’t: but maybe if he hadn’t been so hasty, if he hadn’t been blinded by a pair of rock pool eyes and hair like marigolds- maybe his men would have had longer prospects.

He felt guilty even thinking it. It was as if Demelza could somehow see into his head, even from a distance: he could see her hurt eyes and the way she bent like a lily under the weight of the world.

He threw the parcels onto the table in front of her, trying to assuage his guilt.

“Wha’s this?”

“Just something. Open them.”

She hadn’t ever imagined he would buy her anything- didn’t he know just waking up next to him was enough? Couldn’t he see the one thing she wanted more than anything- something so easy to give and so hard to take back?

It was a new planner, bright yellow and buttery leather, the most expensive gift she’d ever owned.

“Oh, Ross-“

“I thought it might make getting things organised a bit easier. Go on, open the other one.”

He sounded almost curt, she thought, as if he was embarrassed by giving her something.

It was a package of hair pins and ties, so pretty it nearly made her cry. She’d never owned anything like them- bought for ornament not function, bought just to make someone smile.

“If they don’t suit you give them to Prudie, she’ll take them back. I don’t know much about fashion.”

“Oh, Ross, they’re tha’ pretty-“

She stopped herself. Don’t gush, woman.

“Thank y’. They’re lovely.”

And as she left the kitchen she dared to kiss him on the cheek uninvited.

Reading reports never seemed as arduous with Demelza’s head pillowed on his chest, her hair spilling over them both. Harder to concentrate, of course, but much more enjoyable.

It had become a habit after they’d both gone to bed, something to dispel the awkwardness of those few minutes before the lights went out. Lying there, in their pajamas, closer than anyone else, able to see every thought flitting behind her eyes: they were strangers. In the dark they knew each other.

“Ross?”

“Mm?”

“Have folk- has anyone been a dick?”

“No more so than usual.”

“Really?”

“Mm.”

“People’ll wonder, though. They won’t understand- I don’t understand-“

She faltered, as if she’d said too much.

“You don’t need to understand.”

Inwardly he grimaced at how high handed and stilted he sounded, trying not to tell her the real reason why.

Because I needed you. Because I wanted you more than anything I’ve ever known. Because I’ve never been any good at giving things up.

Afterwards, as he watched her sleeping, a small, snide voice crept in, uninvited, as mine closing figures danced before his eyes.

You’ve failed them here, pallo. Wouldn’t a nice heiress have suited them better? They’ll all be so pleased that you’re happily married when they have to tell their kids Christmas’s cancelled.

He tried to push it away, but still a small part of him wondered and churned with guilt, as the miners’ faces swum in front of him.

Rough accents swirled around them as they made their way through the crowds working around the mine, Demelza almost ashamed to hold Ross’ arm so tightly. These were her people, people who worked and sweated and cried all without the high-ups ever even seeing, people who had what they had and would never have any more. People who, like her, saw the sun shining out of the man beside her.

Yet mixed in with them were the same rich people who had never paid her a blind bit of notice as they’d swept past to speak to Ross, who probably wouldn’t have spared her the change for the bus. And now they had to nod to her and move out of her way as the wife of the chairman of the board, and it was so very weird she thought she might pass out.

Captain Henshawe was there, lovely Hench, Ross’ fellow soldier and the only one of the shareholders she felt she could even smile at.

“Looks like a good day for visits, Ross.”

“I think they’ve all heard the rumours and come swarming for a look- oh, have I introduced my wife, Demelza?”

He ushered her forwards and she tried in vain to repress the shiver that had run through her at the words “my wife”.

“We’ve met before- a pleasure to have you here, Mrs Poldark. You come from miners, don’t you?”

“My dad was a miner, aye, down at Illugan.”

“We’ll have to get him aboard then, if you’d like?”

The words were out before she could stop them.

“Oh bloody hell, no, no’ in a million years!”

The Captain looked astonished and she could practically feel Ross shaking with laughter behind her. He took her arm as Henshawe began to laugh, turning her away.

“And on that note, we’ll be going, Hench, thank you.”

“You’re a gem, Mrs Poldark, I’ll tell you that much!” he called after them, Demelza’s cheeks so hot she was surprised Health and Safety didn’t come running out with a clipboard.

Ross, she was surprised to note, was still laughing, wiping at his eyes distractedly.

“Oh, if only Uncle Charles had been there. If only-“

“Are you laughin’ at me?”

“No, no, not at all, it’s just I wish more people had heard you.”

But he was laughing at her- laughing at how she couldn’t manage these basic social interactions people like him were probably taught to do in nappies.

“Bet you couldn’t haggle a pint of milk down to 10 p though, could you?” she muttered crossly.

“What?”

“Nothin’. So no-one at Trenwith talks like tha’?”

“Not really, no.” They were walking along the lane to Nampara, the heady greenness all around them making Demelza feel almost dizzy: the bright, moist green of the bushes and the starry white of the dog roses swirling around them.

“Sorry. I’ll try an’ behave.” It was stupid, she knew, but she still felt like there had been some unspoken test and she’d failed.

“Just- maybe try and be a little more-“

She’d never know what he was about to say, because she’d just caught sight of Judd leaning on her freshly painted wall.

“GET OFF THERE RIGHT NOW YOU BUGGERING OLD GIT- I’LL ‘AVE YOU I SWEAR I WILL, THREE DAYS I SPENT ON THA’ PLASTER! AN’ YOU WI’ Y’ FILTHY PAWS- OW!” For Ross had caught her mid-sprint, almost wrenching her arm out of its socket.

“That,” he said grimly, “is exactly what I mean.”

A week later, Charles died. He’d lived just long enough to guffaw like an idiot at the notion of his nephew marrying a secretary and to call Francis a failure one last time, and then he’d died as he’d lived: loudly, bombastically, and proudly.

Ross couldn’t really feel anything: on the one hand there was a sort of distant detached grief for the uncle who had taught him to shoot and who had tried to help him as best he could; on the other there was the symbol of everything he hated, a man so snobbish he wouldn’t have acknowledged his only nephew’s wife and who had stood in the way of his daughter’s sole shot at happiness.

Demelza couldn’t quite understand it, he could see it in her eyes- she expected him to grieve, but at the same time she knew how much he’d detested the man he now saw Charles to be. She certainly couldn’t understand his pity for Francis.

“But why should y’feel sorry for him? He’s go’ it all now, hasn’t he? Th’ house, th’ money, th’girl..”

She shot a sideways look at him under her lashes which he pretended not to notice.

“Because he’s always tried to be what my Uncle wanted- basically a carbon copy of himself- and now he’s gone, and he didn’t even have a word for Francis at the end except to call him a failure.”

Demelza winced. “Ouch.”

“Exactly. So now Francis has to live up to what everyone built his dad up to be, and he doesn’t even know who he is yet.”

She looked up from the accounts she was compiling with an odd look in her eye.

“That was a bit deep.”

“Are you suggesting I’m not emotionally mature?” he teased, rounding the table to stand behind her, his hand on her shoulder.

“No’ in the slightest-“ She was stifling laughter, he could hear it in her voice, and it was like sunshine spilling through amber.

“In fact I bet you I could tell you what you’re thinking right now.”

She turned to face him, looking up with laughter crinkling the edges of her eyes.

“Oh?”

“You’re thinking ‘Now why the heck is my husband allowing me to do these reports when I could be doing something far more enjoyable with him instead?’”

It was new, flirting with her, new and fresh and entirely and unutterably delightful.

“Actually I wa’ thinkin’ about when my new highli’ers would come, but-“

“Do be quiet,” he muttered, and stopped her speaking far more effectively.

She’d never understand how he did it. How he could say something that would make her blood boil with how unperceptive he was, and then in the next minute make her want nothing more than to kiss him until the world ended.

Had her mother felt like this? Had she, too, had that sharp, sudden pain whenever he did something to make her believe that this was real?

Had she been lost in a pair of lodestone eyes and a mouth that fit hers like it was made for it?

Yet sometimes, in this kitchen, the accounts forgotten, kissing Ross Poldark until her lips were swollen, Demelza could make herself believe it would end differently.

Chapter Text

Push, roll, repeat. Flour. Push, roll, repeat. Flour.

Usually it worked. Usually the repetitive rhythm of bread making was enough to calm Demelza, to push all the intrusive thoughts from her mind as easily as she pushed the dough. Today it wasn’t enough. She caught Jinny’s eye as she looked up: she’d been more than happy to come over when Demelza texted. She knew very well how painful an empty house could be.

“How come you’re not at the funeral?” Jinny asked, looking as if she hardly dared. Demelza forced herself to keep her voice level.

“Oh, they wouldn’t want me there. Too posh by half.” She said, her tone falsely bright, unnatural.

“But surely you’re family now-“

Jinny knew she’d gone too far. Biting her lip, Demelza reached across the table and repositioned the pie crust Jinny was making. “You’re stretching it too far, look, like this…”

Like she was family. She’d found them out, alright: found the note from Francis he hadn’t even really bothered to disguise, as if he assumed she couldn’t even read.

“Ross- just to say the funeral’s been moved forwards an hour. Don’t worry about bringing Demelza- think there’ll be a better time, don’t you?

Let me know. Elizabeth’ll need to change the guest list.

Francis.”

It was the bit about the guest list that got her. As if they’d just decided she wouldn’t dare to show her face. At first, she’d been determined to go, to wipe the smug smiles off their stupid faces. And then she’d remembered Elizabeth’s serene smile, the way her clothes looked like they were made for her, the way Verity would probably know everyone, that Francis would gawp at her as if she were Oliver Twist, that they would all reek of Chanel No. 5 and port and inherited privilege, and her resolve crumpled.

It took Ross not even mentioning it to break it completely. So he, too, had decided now wasn’t the best time to introduce the commoner to the mix.

The morning of the funeral, he’d looked at her as if she’d gone insane when she came down in her normal work clothes.

“Are you wearing those?”

“For what?”

“The funeral?”

“I’m not going, am I?” She’d raised her head defiantly, willing herself not to betray how beautiful he looked dressed all in black.

“Sorry?”

Oh, the danger tone. The furrowed brow, the disbelieving eyes, the almost petulant sulk of the mouth- even the tilt of his head. Oh, she knew him. She knew every inch of him.

“I said, I’m not going. I thought you’d decided.” She hadn’t meant to spit the word out as forcefully, regretting it the minute the shades descend behind his eyes.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about but I’m going to be late, so fine, have it your way.” He’d brushed past her, throwing up his hands in a gesture she knew only too well.

“Oh, and Demelza?” His head had appeared back round the door. “No work today. There’s a funeral, if you didn’t know.” She hated that tone, the one he did to bad clients and his family and the Warleggans: cutting and sardonic and cold as ice. She’d opened her mouth to respond, but he’d gone, leaving her alone in the kitchen with the fight spilling out of her like stuffing from a broken toy.

So she’d called Jinny and changed, intending on forgetting everything and filling the kitchen with flour and butter and noise instead of that awful, clanging silence.

It wasn’t a particularly good wake, as wakes went. Ross had been to quite a few for soldiering friends and though they were desperately sad there was also the sense that everyone there was there out of love, not some odd sense of duty or greed.

This wake was just cold and awkward. Ross stood on the outskirts, feeling older and yet more young and foolish in his family home then he had ever before. The women gave him pitying looks as they clicked past on the regulation funeral black courts, the men offering little more than a nod and a knowing grin. Clearly no-one had forgotten about Demelza. Her absence was conspicuous: not just socially, but physically. He’d gotten so used to having her by his side that the negative space she left felt almost painful. Why on earth had she refused to come at the last minute? Granted, they hadn’t actually discussed it, but he had sort of assumed that his wife would come to his uncle’s funeral with him.

George Warleggan pushed past him as he bent to talk to Aunt Agatha, who seemed intent on confusing everyone over him being married and his uncle being dead, respectively.

“Oh, Ross, I hear congratulations are in order?” he said silkily, silencing everyone around them as Ross calculated whether he could successfully ignore him or not.

“Thank you, George,” he said, carefully, turning away.

“And where is the new Mrs Poldark? She can’t have gotten bored of you already, can she?”

“She’s not well,” he forced out.

“What a shame- I think everyone’s dying to meet her.”

“I’m sure they are,” Ross said, holding his gaze, “but there’s nothing I can do if they haven’t anything else to talk about.”

“You really do think we’re all so below you, don’t you?” George called after him. “Ross Poldark, the rich boy who just wants to be like the normal lot and shock the rest of us.”

“Careful you don’t get a hunchback with that chip, George,” he said, turning to clap him on the shoulder as he left, his blood ringing in his ears.

It was absurd, he thought as he made his way through the endless corridors, he didn’t do things just to spite everyone or look like some kind of rebel- and what did that have to do with Demelza?

You know perfectly well, said the Verity-voice of his conscience. Really, secretly, deep down, don’t you get a little kick out of how unsuitable she is?

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, trying to rub the thought away. Oh God, why had he married her? To save the company? There were other ways, Lord knew. To stop being alone? To finally break away from this house and its endless frozen corridors?

Turning through the back door he saw a gaggle of women, Ruth Teague amongst them, and instinctively ducked away. He’d had enough barbs for the day. He was just opening the other door as quietly as he could when he heard his name.

“And that Ross Poldark!”

“I thought he was into you, Ruthie?” One of them simpered.

“Well- and I didn’t tell you this- but he’s married his secretary! That one I was telling you about!”

“No!”

“Mm-hm, all secret, like. And he’s a Poldark!”

“Bet he’s got her into trouble.”

“Or she’s gotten herself into it deliberately, more like.”

There was a chorus of sycophantic assent, and at that Ross could take no more, striding through the group as fast as he could.

“Oh, Ross, how nice-“

“Sorry, ladies, but I must get back to my wife.” He ground out, taking a perverse pleasure in the way the smiles slid off their faces at the word.

And he was in the car and off, speeding along the coastal roads that had become the veins to his cracking heart long ago.

Demelza was in the kitchen with Jinny when he got back, the two of them surrounded by a warm fug of flour and warmth. She was laughing as he watched them through the door, feeling a pang of regret that she hardly seemed to laugh like that anymore.

She stopped short as she caught sight of him, lowering her eyes as if she wasn’t allowed to look at him.

“How was the funeral?” she said, quietly. Jinny, bless her, evidently seeing a storm coming, quickly made her excuses and absented herself.

“Fine as they go. Plenty of people asking about you.”

“I don’t know why they would.”

“Wouldn’t you if someone you knew got married?” She flinched at the word, refusing to meet his eyes.

“You know tha’s not why they’re nosy.”

“Do I?”

“O’ course y’ do!” She glared at him, the steam from the pie between them forming a veil over her face.

“I’s because I’m- me!” She shot out, knuckles white on the tabletop.

“And what’s wrong with you?”

“Everythin’, t’them?”

“Them? My family?”

“Yes, your family,” she shouted, mocking his inflection. “Them who think I’m too common t’be introduced “just yet”. “

“What do you mean?”

“This!” She hissed, rummaging on the dresser and throwing her phone at him. “Your work emails, I get them so I can arrange things. You’d think y’cousin would use the right one.”

He looked down, seeing the words in a blur. Ross…your wife….not the right time….change the guest list.

“Demelza, I promise you, I’ve never seen this before.”

“What?”

“I didn’t get the notification, clearly because you got it. I assumed you were coming, actually.”

“I thought-“

“Well, you were wrong, weren’t you.”

Is this what she really thinks of him? That he’s as stuck up as the rest of them, that he’s ashamed of her?

The look in her eyes brought him back down to earth.

“I’m sorry.” They both said it at the same time, but neither of them laughed. Everything seemed too close, too warm. They were going to cut themselves on their broken edges.

“I shouldn’t have assumed-“

“I shouldn’t have either.”

“It’s jus’ that- I feel so inferior, next to them. Your friends. They know so much and they know wha’ to do an’ say an’ “ Her eyes were huge, her hands nervously twisting her apron. Nothing, to his knowledge, had ever made Demelza nervous before.

“You do know Francis doesn’t know how to boil an egg, don’t you? And George thought women could control their periods?”

“I did not,” she said, allowing herself a small smile.

“I can tell you now, Demelza, you would have been the smartest person- practically- in that room today.”

“Get off it.” A faint wash of pink rose up her cheeks and he let himself have half a moment to appreciate it.

“I mean it. They’re not so different, I promise. After all, I turned out alright.”

“Tha’ very much depends on wha’ you count as alright.” But she smiled at him as she bent to do the dishes, and his heart skipped a little.

It was a few days later she asked him if she could work from home. She hated the stares and whispers that followed her everywhere in the office, making her cubicle feel like a cage. She could get so much done here, where she could go for walks and look after Garrick better, and if he needed her in meetings she could still come in?

To her great surprise, he didn’t take much persuasion at all and the small, secret part of her who still flinched when men who looked like her father came near whispered that it was because he was glad to be rid of the constant reminder of his poor choice.

She was in the middle of her papers when he came home unexpectedly, sweeping in in that way he did which made the whole room change. Her hair was piled on top of her head, red tendrils falling everywhere, and she knew the violet smudges under her eyes did her no favours.

“Hey,” he said, “what the hell are you doing?”

“Working?”

“Working yourself to death, more like. Here,” he crooked a finger under her chin and tilted her head to look at him, “I don’t need my wife to sit at home counting her shoes all day, but I do need her to remember she’s not an unpaid slave.”

He kissed her, and she wondered if he could taste the joy on her lips.

“Are you happy?”

What an odd question. As if she could ever be unhappy when he was here in the dusty shaft of sunlight in their- their!-study, kissing her. As if she could ever be happy living this half life.

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“Get ready to be happier.” He looked like a child, she thought, so gleeful and excited.

“What? Ross, what have you done?”

“Verity’s coming to stay!” he said happily, beaming at her. “Aren’t you excited?”

“Um-“

“You’ll love her, I know you will. You need more friends,” he said offhandedly on his way out the door.

Charming.

Kitchen, check. Lounge, check. Downstairs bathroom, check. Upstairs bathroom, check. Guest room, check. Their room, because God only knew whether rich people were snoopers or not. Attic, check, because whether or not Verity went up there she would know if it hadn’t been cleaned, Demelza was sure of it. She ran through the rooms in her head as she waited for Ross and Verity to arrive, their undeniable spotlessness a soothing litany. Surely Verity wouldn’t be able to say anything. She was Ross’s favourite after all: and someone so loved by someone like Ross couldn’t be anything awful, could they? But then she remembered Ross talking about six course meals as a child, and the horses they all had, and Francis and Verity’s nanny, and felt a horrible downwards swoop in her stomach. Maybe Ross was the only person who could get out of that sort of life alive.

She’d found as much foliage in the wintery hedges as she could to decorate; vases full of coppery beech leaves and the rich red wine shine of maple made the room look as homely as she could make it. She liked the lounge, with its huge wood burner and clean, golden oak floor: it felt safe somehow, not as antique and monied as the austere dining room or the cold marble bathrooms.

Tapping her fingers against the worn serge of the sofa arm, Demelza waited, her stomach churning as it seemed to do regularly these days.

It was so good to talk to Verity again. All through his life she had been the only person to always be there; no matter how badly he’d fucked up or how much of an arse he was being- not that she’d ever shirk from telling him that. She had a way of repeating your problems in her cool, calm, quiet voice that made them seem much less insurmountable than they had been, and a steady way of looking at you which made you feel ever so slightly smaller.

“Are you happy, Ross?” She asked as they drove, staring at the darkening Cornish sky.

“I am, I suppose. It’s… different.” To his great surprise, he found he meant it: the past few weeks with Demelza he hadn’t once looked at a bottle and wanted to sink to the bottom of it, hadn’t seen an empty road and an unguarded cliff and felt the urge to push the pedal as far as it would go.

Looking at his cousin, the bags under her eyes apparent even from here and her skin sallow, he wished she could say the same.

“And Demelza? How’s she?”

“As usual, really. Chattier, I guess, a bit more unreserved. Nervous about you lot.”

“Us?”

“Francis, Elizabeth, everyone. Probably not you. She seems to think she’s some kind of peasant compared to you. Because of the whole money thing.”

“What about to you? You’re just as posh as Francis no matter how hard you try and hide it.”

“I knowwwww,” he moaned, trying not to sound like a petulant child. “I hate it, I feel like bloody Hugh Laurie in Blackadder sometimes when people come to me with their problems.”

“Well, see here, poor person, if you’re starving you must simply try and work harder- and imagine the food you could have! That’ll sort things out in a jiffy!” Verity laughed, breaking her impersonation.

“You were always weirdly good at that, you know.”

She smiled, not quite reaching her eyes. “In the end all I had to do was pretend to be Dad after a Masonic dinner.”

There was silence for a few more miles before Verity spoke again.

“Is she happy, do you think? Demelza? It must be really weird for her.”

It was a question he found himself constantly asking.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, keeping his eyes firmly trained on the road. “She’s- she’s the sort of person who just sort of smiles at everything, you know? Never lets herself look sad when anyone’s around.”

“You must have some idea.”

Verity was incredibly clever and perceptive and all the rest, but sometimes she was completely out of it.

“Nope,” Ross said. “It’s awful, but there you go. Making an even bigger hash of marriage than Francis.”

Verity let out a low whistle. “Not quite. But I feel bad talking about it, it feels unfair somehow.”

“I know what you mean.”

The car rounded the bend onto the drive, and Ross almost felt Verity relax beside him. When they were children, she always seemed so different here: wilder, somehow, more like a child than the little old woman his uncle wanted her to be. Of course, it didn’t help that his mum and dad spoiled her rotten; clearly delighted to be faced with a subdued child for once.

She gave a little delighted gasp. “Oh, Ross, it looks so much nicer!”

Looking up from the steering wheel, he stared at his home. Suddenly, all the little changes became apparent; the new, lighter curtains at the windows. The flowers in the beds. The shining brass door handles. Even the light spilling from the doorway looked softer somehow, more like home.

When they got out of the car, Demelza was waiting for them at the door, her hair a beacon in the dark. He noticed absently as he helped Verity out with her bags that she was biting her lip, wondering if he had ever seen her do that before.

All of Verity’s bags matched, which seemed like a silly thing to be concerned about but was in fact the only thing Demelza could think as Ross, beaming, showed his cousin indoors. She didn’t even really have socks that matched.

Verity came, smiling, towards her, her face pale under her neatly coiled dark hair. Instinctively, Demelza threw her arms up to hug her: there was something in her small face that reminded her of a lost baby bird. She smelt of Dove and lavender and that oddly specific smell of very expensive clothes and Demelza was suddenly reminded that she probably smelt like a kitchen. They stood in the hallway for an agonizing moment, no-one sure of what to say.

“The house looks lovely, Demelza,” Verity said, clearly trying to break the tension. “You’ve done well getting Ross to make his life more humanoid.”

“It was a struggle,” she answered, quickly, too quickly, was that rude? Ross raised his eyebrows at her and looked like he wanted to say something, but was cut off by a sudden thought.

“PIE! Oh, God, it’ll be burnt by now, sorry-“

And Demelza ran from the room.

Verity blinked quickly. Ross sympathised; sometimes being in the same room as Demelza was a little like being hit with a truck, and he’d had months of constant acclimatisation.

“Oh, Ross, she’s so young.” She looked at him almost reproachfully, as if Demelza were twelve instead of twenty.

He sighed. “You’ll see. You’ll love her.”

Verity looked at him. “Oh, I know I will. After all, she puts up with you day in day out.”

“Hey!”

Demelza entered with the pie to see them both laughing, and for a moment her blue eyes widened as if she wasn’t sure whether she should be there or not.

Dinner was excruciating. Ross and Verity swapped family anecdotes so full of unknown proper nouns that Demelza was pretty sure they were just making this stuff up to mess with her, Verity and Demelza made stilted, polite conversation on a variety of utterly boring topics and Ross looked like he might burst into laughter at any moment.

Was it normal to feel like a third wheel at your own dinner table? Demelza thought as she brought the dessert in, crumble she’d made from the last of the frozen autumn berries. Ross and Verity sat in a pool of candlelight, both of them looking so happy to see each other that she put the dish down so softly it might have been explosive.

Ross grinned at her. “Verity, you’re in for a treat.”

“Oh?”

“Demelza makes the best crumble in the whole world.”

“Better than Mrs Tabb’s?”

Of course. The cook. She’d probably never met anyone who made their own food before.

“By far.” Ross looked up at her, his eyes lingering on her face. “She’s a wonder.”

Demelza pointedly moved his wine glass away and Verity laughed.

In the end, it was decided that Demelza’s crumble really was the best, Verity even going so far as to ask for the recipe. Demelza didn’t quite manage to hide the shock on her face when she quizzed her about oven times and whether salted or unsalted butter was best, and Ross started to laugh.

“Verity can cook, you know,” he said, slinging an arm around his cousin’s shoulder. “She’s actually fairly good at it.”

Verity laughed with him, Demelza feeling the blush rise in her cheeks.

“I didn’t mean-“

“No, it’s fine, honestly! I know I don’t particularly look like I- I, um-“

“Work, ever,” Ross cut in smoothly, rescuing a stuttering Verity.

“I would argue but it’s pretty much true,” Verity said mournfully, looking at Demelza almost apologetically. “Mainly I just keep Dad happy and the house in order, not like you two.”

It felt nice to be lumped in with Ross for once, instead of people listing how different they were. The words were warm in her chest as she cleared away the plates, even through Verity insisting on helping and Ross calling after them that she’d never cleared the table in her life and Demelza had better watch out; even through Demelza awkwardly showing Verity to the bathroom and Verity gently assuring her that she’d been there before; even through her falsely bright “Goodnight!”, which even to her own ears sounded fake and brash against Verity’s low tones.

She slumped onto the bed, finding solace in the cool, crisp white sheets and the crackling of the down in the pillows. Ross emerged from the bathroom, absently brushing his teeth, and Demelza felt her heart contract as it did every night. She would never be over it, never be able to just accept that she could see this, this intimate, private part of him, that she was entitled to see him at the beginning and the end of each and every day.

“I think that went well,” he managed around the toothbrush, and she suppressed a sigh.

“I guess.”

“What?” he called, disappearing into the bathroom again.

“I said, I guess- you’ve got toothpaste on you again.”

Was it normal, to feel this awful heart-shattering fondness for someone, for all their flaws and habits and imperfections?

She reached up and brushed the foam from his lip, and he caught her hand and held it. “It’ll be fine. You’ll be best mates in days, promise.”

Demelza made a non-committal noise, preferring instead to focus on the heat of his hand on hers and the soft, clean smell of him, all his barbs and defenses down.

He kissed her forehead.

“Promise.”

Ross left for the mine early the next morning, leaving Demelza and Verity in a fug of awkward silences. They ended up sat together in the living room, Demelza having made some excuse about doing some tax forms on her laptop and Verity muttering something about emails.

Demelza was just wondering whether she ought to ask her if she wanted a cup of tea when Verity spoke.

“You know, I didn’t think anyone could ever deserve him. He’s always been- he is- so much higher than the rest of us, don’t you think?”

She felt herself turn cold. Here it was, at last: the confirmation of everything she’d feared.

“When he came back from the fighting- he’d lost everything, I think. He was very low, the lowest any of us had ever seen him. And then he found you.”

She was going to be sick, right here in the living room, all over Verity’s cashmere socks. So they all thought she’d caught him then, trapped him when he was at his weakest, like some kind of gold-digging tart.

“And you- you gave him hope, Demelza. This is so pretentious, I’m sorry-“

She couldn’t have blindsided her more if she’d announced her intentions to marry her herself.

“-but you’ve brought him back to who he was, before.” She fell silent, and Demelza knew they were both thinking of Elizabeth.

“And I know he’s tricky, and he’s an arrogant arse, but he loves you and-“

“No,” Demelza interrupted, shaking her head. “He doesn’t.”

“But-“

“He married me for th’ mine, Verity. An’ we get on, an’ I think he likes me, an’ I know he wants me-“

Verity looked as if she would very much have preferred not to hear that.

“-but he’s never used that word to me. An’ probably he never will.”

“But do you not- love him?”

“More than anything,” Demelza admitted quietly, the words forcing themselves out before she was ready for them.

Looking up, she saw there were tears in Verity’s eyes. “It’s the greatest thing possible,” the other woman said slowly, “to love, and to be loved in return.”

Demelza felt an irrepressible urge to go to her and hold her close; how anyone could withstand the utter desolation in Verity’s eyes was beyond her.

Something told her, however, that at precisely that moment her concern wouldn’t be appreciated: both Ross and Verity had that weird upper class horror of showing their feelings in public, after all.

The bell, ironically, saved her: there was an enormous clattering at the back door as Jud burst through, Jinny and her daughter waking up from their nap in the kitchen with a shriek.

Demelza and Verity rushed to the door, took one look at the carnage, glanced at each other and began to laugh.

“Verity,” Demelza began hesitantly as they were washing up one day, “can I ask you a favour?”

Verity beamed at her. “Of course?”

“It’s jus’- I sometimes wish- could y’ teach me to dance?”

“Dance?”

“Like y’would at some fancy do, not on a Friday night. It’s jus’ – I don’t know how t’act the way you and Ross do, sometimes.”

“Trust me, behaving like Ross is usually a very bad idea,” Verity smiled, “but of course I’ll try- I warn you, I’m not very good, Francis always said I had two left feet.”

Verity was, of course, lying spectacularly. She showed Demelza all the different dances that people tended to do at the big parties, talking her through all the steps with such patience Demelza nearly cried, and her movements were so quick and precise she seemed a different person, so elegant and refined.

She was one of those people who always seemed to know what you were thinking, and to Demelza’s utter relief Verity soon worked out what she wanted to know: how to pass muster in front of their family.

There was so much she didn’t know; what kind of clothes were appropriate for which occasions (apparently none of hers, for any occasion), how to plan a dinner party, what wines went with what, what makeup was too much and what was too little- everything. It was like learning to be a whole different person, like she was preparing to go undercover. Which maybe she was, thought Demelza as she sat looking for new dishes with Verity. She was some sort of interloper, staying long enough to gather vital info without them ever finding out who she was and where she came from. Even Ross didn’t really know her: sometimes he looked at her like she was from another planet, one where they didn’t have more than three courses. Looking over at the screen, a Clear-Blue advert popped up, and she felt her stomach lurch.

She sighed, and Verity looked at her over the glowing keys of her space-age laptop. “You alright?”

“Fine,” she said, blinking quickly and hoisting a smile onto her face. “Should we do some more dance practice?”

For the first time in a long time, Ross came back to the sound of laughter. And the sound of something large being inexpertly dragged across the floor.

Verity and Demelza were dragging the huge oak sideboard out of the living room, nearly crying with laughter.

“What are you doing?” he asked, taking in Verity’s dancing eyes and Demelza’s flushed face.

“Dancing!” He had never heard Demelza sound like that, so light and carefree.

“And going into home removals while you’re at it? Here, let me get that,” he said as Demelza’s hand slipped, pushing the sideboard up. “Judd! Come and help me move this!”

He felt their eyes on him as he lifted it away, doing his best to look powerful and alpha-male-ish, and pretended not to hear Demelza giggling “Show-off.”

She looked like an angel at night, in the huge white shirt of his she’d commandeered, the lamplight giving her a golden veneer. Ross found himself taken aback by it nightly, especially on nights like tonight when she looked so pleased with everything and so miraculously his, the wedding band on her finger tying her to him.

“Ross,” she said, leaning back on the bed and watching as he undressed, “what went on with Verity an’ that man?”

“Which man?”

“The one who got into a fight wi’ Francis?”

“Oh, Blamey?” He tried to look nonchalant, but couldn’t seem to keep the delight at her familiar tone off his face. Thank God they were friends now, thank God Verity liked her. Thank God they had one ally at Trenwith.

“Mm-hm.”

“He wasn’t good for her. He- he had a drinking problem, and anyway I doubt she ever even thinks about him now.”

Demelza scoffed.

“O’ course she does! She’s still absolutely in love wi’ him, don’t be daft. I jus’ wish there was something we could do-“

“Well, there isn’t, I’m afraid, it’s none of our business.” He said hastily, foreseeing more familial disputes on the horizon.”

“But Verity’s so lovely, an’ she’d be such a good mum-“

“God, is that what you’re driving at? She’ll have children one day, don’t stress- why would she want them now?”

There was an odd flicker in her eyes that he didn’t quite understand.

“In any case, what do you know about love?” He moved closer to her, pushing the shirt up her bare legs, and she fell back onto the bed.

She smiled, looking up at him, the slow, broad smile that only he ever saw, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “A little.”

God, her voice did things to him.

“Well, you’ll need more practice then,” he said, his voice husky even to his own ears, and kissed her, pushing one of her hands above her head. She stretched for him, the long column of her neck marble white in the dim light, and every prayer he’d ever known left him at the feel of her body on his, of the taste of her, whiskey-warm, on his lips.

Demelza woke silently in the morning, detangling her limbs from Ross’ with a speed that spoke of experience, and quietly emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet. She looked at herself in the mirror, hair wild, a purple bruise on her collarbone like a trophy from the night before, and her hand stole to her stomach.

She couldn’t do this. She wasn’t even twenty-one yet: she wasn’t old enough to get out of buying ID for alcohol, let alone this.

And what about Ross? She’d heard him last night: the incredulity in his voice at the thought of having kids. Did he ever want them? Did he want them with her- considering he’d only married her to save his friends? Would he still want her when she was fat and ugly and tired and tied down to a baby who would probably annoy him as all her siblings had her father?

She threw up again.

Verity, noticing the shadows under her eyes, prescribed a shopping trip as the best remedy for whatever was the matter with her in her usual pragmatic way. Ross had happily acquiesced, handing her more money than she’d ever seen on her way out the door and promising her a debit card with a kiss on the cheek.

She thumbed through it, intending to put at least half of it in the glovebox to save it being spent, and saw Verity doing her best approximation of a glare at her.

“Demelza, you are going to spend that money or I’ll spend it for you!”

“But-“

“Ross wouldn’t have given you it if he didn’t want you to spend it, and you need new clothes more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“That’s unfair-“

“You own one coat!” Verity screeched, and Demelza privately thought that although Verity was an actual angel, her perception of crisis was slightly skewed. She dreaded to think what she would have thought of the estates where she’d grown up, and shivered slightly as she always did when she thought about it too much.

In the end, her compunctions vanished in the face of the big Topshop, and although she felt a lurch at the sight of the maternity section she began to thoroughly enjoy herself: even if she felt slightly out of place. Until she’d begun working for Ross, she’d never shopped anywhere more upmarket than Primark, and it made her feel a little sick handing over the equivalent of her and the kids’ weekly meals for a skirt. Verity kept eyeing her as if she knew, and Demelza tipped her chin up and pretended she’d never gone hungry in her life.

They were driving back, the bags in a huge pile on the backseat, when the guilt really set in. How could she have spent that much on clothes that weren’t even going to fit in two months? While back home her siblings slept three to a bed in rooms that always smelt of mould?

“Come on,” Verity said, “spit it out.”

“It’s nothing, really, I jus’ feel a little guilty-“

“Oh come on, Demelza, you needed those clothes, and they’ll last for ages!”

“But they won’t!” she burst out, heart pounding.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean- um- I won’t be the same size. Soon. For a while.” She broke off into a whisper, dreading the inevitable condemnation: why weren’t you more careful, you’re too young, are you just trying to tie Ross down?

Verity said none of those things.

Verity just gasped.

“Oh- ‘Melza- do you mean?”

Demelza nodded.

“Oh! Oh, how wonderful!” She was happy, Demelza noted absently, as if this was something to be happy about.

“Demelza? You’re having a baby!”

She forced a smile through cold lips.

“Does Ross know?”

“No! And he won’t yet.” Panic rose at the thought of telling him.

“He’ll be so pleased, I know he will.” Thinking back to their conversation the night before, she highly doubted it.

“Will he? When I get huge an’ cross an’- like an old duck!” It exploded out of her in a sob before she could stop it, great fat tears rolling down her cheeks.

Verity made sympathetic noises and drove as fast as she could back home, bundling Demelza into the kitchen and making her a cup of tea- carefully decaffeinated, Demelza noticed wryly.

“Now stop being so silly.” She said, looking for all the word like a diminutive Mary Poppins. “Of course Ross will still want you when you look like a –duck, was it?”

Demelza gave a watery laugh.

“Look, it’s not my place to say, but as a person who’s known Ross since he was born, I can absolutely promise he won’t be upset about it- fazed, maybe, flustered, definitely, but he’ll be so pleased once he knows, even if it is a surprise.”

Looking into her friend’s kind eyes, Demelza could almost convince herself it was true.

The house seemed quiet without Verity, colder somehow. Demelza seemed to miss having someone to talk to, or at least that was what he assumed she was subdued about. She seemed a little dimmer lately, her eyes less darting and her posture slumped.

The alert had gone out for the pilchard catch as he was driving home, his spirits lifting as he saw the text. He’d gone to every catch since he was a little boy, since his dad had taught him how important exporting the fish was for the people who lived in the village. They’d been struggling recently- the fish couldn’t have come at a better time.

He must have come into the drive at a greater lick at usual because Demelza ran out, looking worried.

“Is everythin’ aright?”

“More than that- the pilchards have come!”

“Oh,” she said, her shoulders slumping again, and she sighed.

“What?” he said, suddenly irritated.

She chewed her lip, unable to meet his eyes. “It’s only tha’- sometimes- I feel like I annoy y’?”

Guilt hit him once again, his eyes closing in a silent apology.

“Look,” he said uncomfortably, still unable to say exactly what something under his left rib was yelling at him to spit out, “I’m used to being alone and having no-one to sort out but me, but trust me: you are far from annoying.”

Her eyes widened, and a tiny smile crept round the corners of her mouth.

“Come on,” he said, and opened the door for her.

It was odd, having to introduce her as his wife and hearing people call her ‘Missus Poldark’, but, Ross decided, he didn’t hate it. He definitely didn’t hate the way her face lit up while they were on the water, the reflections dancing over her curls and a smile splitting her face in two. He found himself laughing too, her happiness infectious. For the first time, it felt normal, the two of them, in broad daylight: as if suddenly the slender stranger with the mouth as hot as a candle flame who shared his bed at night and the grinning girl with scarred knees who lived in the daylight had become one.

They left the car down at the beach, Demelza arguing that a night as lovely as this one deserved to be walked in, and set off across the beach, Demelza’s hand tucked under his arm.

“They like you, y’know,” she said suddenly, as they walked, heather crushing under their feet. “The people back there. Y’one of them.”

“What about you?” He didn’t want to state the obvious- that she had been one of them, too.

“Oh, they’re not sure about me. I’m “uppity” “, she said, laughing.

“But they like you, an’ that’s what matters.”

“And you?” he asked, turning to look at her, all brilliant in the sunset. “Do you like me?”

She gave that secret grin again, his heart jolting. “I could learn to.”

He pulled her closer, all the words he couldn’t say clogging his voice. “And I you.”

And they walked homewards over the cliff, and the sunlight turned them both to gold.