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He heard her well before he saw her: the hurried click of a woman's shoes upon stone was too distinct to mistake, particularly within the quiet confines of Barclay Prison. And besides, there weren't many women here in London especially motivated to see him.
He'd hoped it wouldn't come to this. He still hadn't a clue what to say to her, how he could even begin to apologize for what he had taken from her.
And her child - God, even the innocent child would be entangled in all this, taken from her parents to be raised elsewhere just to flee the specter of her father's unforgivable crimes. A mother would be forced to give up the only living reminder of the man she loved and lost.
Adelaide van Zieks' life would soon be permanently altered, and Genshin had no illusions about his own hand in upending it.
He suddenly felt quite heavy, as if he'd swallowed an armful of stones and they now sat among his organs, dragging him ever closer to the ground.
"Mr. Asougi - !"
And there was the lady of the van Zieks manor herself, cheeks dappled pink and swollen from what could only have been a recent fit of tears. Her hair was all pinned up, hidden under a hat, and her dress strained almost imperceptibly about her rounded belly. She rushed to the bars of his cell, gripping them with such force that Genshin briefly worried she was on the brink of collapse.
"...Lady van Zieks."
Her eyes darted for a moment about Genshin's chest, his arms, his clothing - anywhere, it seemed, except his face. She then looked over her shoulder at the guard who'd escorted her in and waved one trembling hand, adding, "It's all right," at his concerned expression.
"Lady van Zieks, this man is - "
"I know exactly who this man is, good sir," she snapped, and Genshin saw the flash of something frightening in her eyes for just an instant as she stared the guard down. "I'd like a moment to speak freely with this..." she paused to search for the word, then settled curtly on, "with him."
Genshin winced, as minutely as he could manage, and studied the floor by her feet.
The pair waited in silence for the sound of the guard's steps retreating from the room. They stopped shortly outside the door, which he could easily have predicted; in case the honorable lady were to be attacked by the vicious imprisoned criminal, someone had to be nearby to intervene.
Still, there was surely enough privacy for Lady van Zieks to give him a piece of her mind without compromising the propriety expected of a lady of her breeding.
Lady van Zieks took in a deep breath which wavered audibly on its way out, and met Genshin's eyes.
"Oh, Gennie, you look dreadful."
She released her grip on the bars of the cell and reached through them now, letting her palms come to rest on either of Genshin's cheeks.
His stomach turned sharply.
"What? Lady - "
"Oh, come off it. None of this 'Lady' business. Don't..." she swallowed, "...don't you take another loved one from me, Genshin. Not now."
Genshin felt as though his mouth was stuffed full of cotton as he forced out his next words. "Adelaide, I killed him. I am the man who murdered Klint."
"I know. I know, I know, Klint told me everything, he..." She shook her head, closing her eyes as though the dim candles were to her as harsh and bright as the midday sun. "I don't want to speak of it. I'm still trying to understand everything, it's all been so sudden. But the one thing I am certain of is that Klint was grateful to you beyond words, to his very last breath. Even when he spoke of that plan, he did so with - with such reverence."
Genshin was silent.
"Mayhap one day I will despise you. Mayhap there will come a day when the memory of his cold hand in mine is more vivid in my mind than that of his smile when he last called you his greatest friend. But today, Genshin, I find myself without a friend in the world who knows what I'm going through but you."
"I'm afraid I'm likely not long for this world, Adelaide."
"Stop - stop talking like that. I haven't come to visit a criminal, Genshin, I've come to see my dear friend."
He clasped his hands together to conceal their clenching into fists, and their rattled breathing was, for an agonizing minute, the only sound heard in the cell.
"I'm not the only one who looks dreadful, you know."
"...Pardon?"
Genshin cleared his throat once, suddenly feeling awkward. "You said earlier that I looked dreadful. I just mean to say you seem like you may be a bit out of - "
He was cut off at once by the sting of blunt fingernails digging into either side of his face, nowhere near hard enough to draw blood, but more than sufficient to get the message across.
Adelaide's expression was bemused, with something unreadable in her eyes as she cocked her head ever so slightly to one side and said, "You absolute cad!" Her eyebrows pulled together, and she released her grip on his face to wrap her fingers once more around the cell bars. "Honestly, tell a lady she looks dreadful, and a widow nine months with child at that."
Genshin's lips immediately parted, an apology already taking form on his tongue, before he noted the subtle upturn of the corners of Adelaide's mouth.
Laughter. Perhaps the first time her lips had seen its kiss in days.
Almost certainly the first kiss of any kind they'd seen of late.
"I hear it plenty from the staff as it is, believe you me. The maids won't let me go an hour without trying to feed me something, telling me how terrifically frail I look and...well, with the baby."
"Tell me you're eating, Adelaide."
She pursed her lips. "Oh, I'll not have you fussing over me too, and certainly not with that haggard look about you."
Genshin sighed and raised both hands in defeat. "I haven't slept a wink in the last week, I'll confess to that much."
Adelaide's eyes fell. She didn't need to speak; he could see the heavy purple shadows beneath them perfectly well. Even her delicate eyelashes seemed sparse and unkempt.
He knew Adelaide van Zieks well, knew her all sorts of ways: as the impeccably-dressed host of countless parties, social butterfly that she was; he knew her in the early morning hours before she'd gotten her skirts on straight; he knew her late into the evening when decorum slipped from her mind in the privacy of the manor and she tore the pins from her hair and sprawled across the furniture, beckoning her "boys" closer. Genshin knew Adelaide tidy and proper and exhausted and hungry and irritable and warm and sunny and unwilling to get out of bed.
Still, in six years of knowing her, he'd never seen this expression on her face. She was deathly tired, tired in the way that seeps into the bones and rots organs from the inside out.
He'd seen that same kind of tired only once before, in a quiet moment on the ship to London when Mikotoba thought he wasn't looking. He hadn't known what to say then, knew the look wasn't meant for his eyes anyhow.
Genshin had never been too fond of words to begin with, in this language or any other. Too unwieldy, too easy to misspeak, and then you were really in trouble. Leave the speaking to the lawyers and the professors; let him crawl round the crime scene with his five senses and keep all the hard work safely inside his head. Sure, a detective had to speak to people, but detectives were known to have their quirks and no one thought much of it if he seemed a bit off-kilter.
In matters of the mind and matters of the heart alike, he much preferred to be a man of action. He supposed that's why he got on so well with Klint.
In any case, to Mikotoba he'd said nothing at all.
It would seem he hadn't yet figured out the answer now, either.
So once again he said nothing, just touched Adelaide's fingers tenderly, coaxing them from the iron bars until he could hold both of her hands in both of his. They were weak and clammy in his grasp, but he quickly put the thought from his mind.
"Addie." He kissed the intricate little rings on her fingers and met her eyes with a meaningful stare. Adelaide returned a soft gaze of her own, the muscles in her shoulders loosening just the tiniest bit. "You've got to go on living, alright? For all three of us. And for the little one."
She blinked slowly, and Genshin could see the lines form in her forehead as she tensed once more. "See, there you go again, talking like that." He supposed she intended it to sound bitterer, but it was too halfhearted to have any bite. "Mr. Mikotoba and Mr. Jigoku are good, honest men. The jury will see that, Genshin, they simply have to."
"Adelaide..."
"No, you listen to me. If there's an ounce of justice in this whole blasted country, they'll see it, and they'll see you're a good, honest man too." She squeezed his hands and bit her lip. "I promise you I will go on waking up each morning, but we've got a date the very moment you're released from this dank place, Mr. Asougi - a big supper at the manor, and I expect you to show or there'll be hell to pay."
Genshin searched her face, certain without even attempting that his voice would fail him.
Adelaide pulled one of his hands downward, and Genshin's heart stopped as he realized what she was doing. She pressed his palm to her abdomen, fingers splayed out over the firm bump there. Her own voice was barely more than a whisper: "And one day soon we'll introduce the little dear to Uncle Genshin. You'll see."
At that, he could no longer contain himself; Genshin trembled in her grip and felt his eyes burn with the threat of tears. Words tumbled unbidden from his mouth: "Yes, yes, of course, it's a date." He blinked, feeling his chest convulse. "But you must keep your strength until then, Adelaide. Be well and wait for me."
She nodded her assent, and suddenly Genshin's hands were empty and Adelaide's arms reached through the bars and wrapped themselves awkwardly about his shoulders. He froze a moment, then placed his own hands gently on her waist.
The quiet that fell over the cell now had a different character to the thick silence that permeated the air most hours of the day. Pressed together like this, he could feel Adelaide's heartbeat resonating in his own ribcage.
There were too many things to tell her now. But there would be time. He had to believe there would be time.
For now, at least, they were both here and alive. That would have to be enough for today.