The Death of Jane Lawrence(18)

Mr. Lowell turned his attention once more to Augustine, who was clutching tight to the door handle. “Sir, I apologize, I had thought when you asked for the spare bedroom to be fully appointed that, ah, that you meant it for later, when you’d both stay here on occasion. Not tonight. But I don’t know—” He grimaced, looking over his shoulder. “I don’t know that I can stop such a great crowd without causing a scene.”

She didn’t care about causing a scene, not really—but she could see her guardians out among the crowd, delighted and happy and proud, and she didn’t want to hurt them.

She froze, unable to decide.

“Mr. Lowell,” Augustine said at last, “have you also sent ahead the ingredients I had you purchase for dinner?”

“Yes, sir.”

He sat back in his seat, letting go of the door. Mr. Lowell braced it instead. Grimacing, Augustine said, “Then I suppose we will be dining at Lindridge Hall tonight. But I will be sending Mrs. Lawrence back to the surgery at sunset. That way she can fetch her belongings and the crowd need not be disrupted.”

He said it all in a strange, strained voice, but Mr. Lowell only nodded and said, “Yes, Doctor.”

He dropped back to the ground and shut the door behind him.

Jane searched Augustine’s face. He’d very eagerly agreed to the part of their arrangement where they would live separately, even more than the proposed lack of intimacy. He had never gone back on that element, even as they had discussed consummation and flirted around the edges of their business arrangement. It had struck her as odd, but it had aligned with what she’d needed, even as the rest of her plans fell apart, and so she hadn’t questioned it. But now, even given how uncomfortable the wedding procession was making the both of them, she couldn’t understand.

“I wouldn’t mind staying the night at Lindridge Hall. It would no doubt be much easier,” she said. “We can satisfy the legal requirements, then resume our arrangements tomorrow.”

“No,” he said, looking directly at her for the first time since the crowd had formed. He didn’t blush, didn’t flinch.

She frowned. “It is our wedding night. It seems appropriate that we—”

“You will never stay the night at Lindridge Hall.” His expression took on a darkness that she’d never seen before, not even the day that Mr. Renton had died, but then he shook himself. “Please understand that,” he said, voice softening. “Whatever else may or may not change about our … arrangement, that needs to remain true. You will never stay the night at Lindridge Hall, and I always will.”

“Why?”

He ran an absent hand through his hair. His dark suit and shirt were rumpled from the ride already. He looked abstracted and beautiful. Jane once more found herself wanting to kiss him, damn everything else.

She pushed the impulse away.

“Why, Augustine?”

“Because,” he said, “if a patient comes to the surgery when I am out—”

“Mr. Lowell can send for you tonight, if he has to, just as I would if that happened.”

He didn’t answer immediately, looking away from her and out at the crowd. His eyes grew unfocused. At last he said, “Because Lindridge Hall is not fit for you. It’s been empty for many years, and while I employ a cook and a maid, they are not there full-time. It is a very dark place. You’ll be far more comfortable in the surgery.”

“Why must you stay there, then?”

He grimaced. The carriage rocked as the dirt track they were on grew rougher, but the noise from outside continued despite the less pleasant terrain. “It’s my family home and there’s nobody else to keep it.”

“You can’t rent it out? Or stay only a few nights a week?” When he’d first laid down this rule, she’d accepted it at face value; she had marked it as none of her business. But now that she had kissed him, had worked beside him, had learned the sort of man he was beyond her statistical analysis, none of this made sense. Augustine Lawrence should have wanted to stay close to his patients, if not to her.

“It—has a lot of history,” he said at last. “It’s complicated. Call it my pet irrationality. But we will hold to the terms of the arrangement. Won’t we?”

Her unease refused to quiet, but she could rise above it for the sake of the pain she could see in his eyes. She nodded. “Of course. I’ll leave before sunset.”





CHAPTER SEVEN


THE CLOSER THE carriage came to Lindridge Hall, the stranger Augustine became. He shifted restlessly in his seat and worried at the cuffs of his jacket. His eyes fixed not on her, nor on the crowd still following them, but on the horizon beyond.

His agitation disturbed her—what could be so horrible about a neglected home? It couldn’t be so bad, or else he couldn’t live there. But if there was something she needed to know, something that threatened the happiness or safety of their marriage …

Well, isn’t that what you get for agreeing to marry a man you’ve known for a week?

She looked out the window at Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham, the former having taken up a small drum, his cheeks high with color. They were happy for her. They trusted Augustine, approved of the match. They trusted her judgment.

“Are you all right?”