The Death of Jane Lawrence(25)

That wasn’t how she’d planned her wedding night.

She wasn’t sure exactly what she’d imagined, but it hadn’t been a storm, hadn’t been her husband’s strange confusion and fear. Was he all right? Could a man truly believe his wife wasn’t real?

Augustine was too young to have served in the war, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have memories clinging to him like a shroud. After all, hadn’t she herself balked at just the idea of returning to Camhurst? She had spent years tucking away those terrible memories of the shelling and the gas attacks where she would not think of them, and yet she still had nightmares occasionally. Maybe that was what she had roused him from, and why he was too afraid to stay at his surgery, where anybody could hear his weakness, or see him wandering his halls, disoriented and fearful.

Or maybe he stayed out of sentiment, despite whatever nightmares plagued him here. People were irrational. So was she, wanting to be close to him, hoping he still felt the same feelings she did despite their awkward courtship, the rules they had both begun from that they now seemed destined to break one by one.

Was it so strange that he might stay here for similarly strong emotions, illogical but impossible to resist?

Just at the edge of her hearing, she could make out Augustine’s voice. With the sun so high already, he would surely be on his way back to Larrenton. She was amazed he hadn’t already gone. She pulled herself from his bed and dragged on her housecoat, slipped on a pair of shoes, and made her way out of the bedroom and toward the foyer.

Down by the door, Augustine clutched his bag, talking with Mrs. Purl. It was Mrs. Purl who caught sight of Jane first, and Augustine followed the line of her gaze, turning and smiling up at her. Daylight illuminated his face, and he looked healthy. Well rested.

“Good morning, Mrs. Lawrence,” he said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes,” she said, descending the stairway, marveling at how Mrs. Lawrence curled her toes. At her approach, Mrs. Purl quietly excused herself and disappeared down the hallway that led back to the kitchen. “Has the road cleared?”

“Not yet,” he said. “I’ll be taking Mr. Purl’s horse into town. If it’s safe enough by midday for carriages to be out, I’ll send somebody to retrieve you. Otherwise, you may have to stay another night.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad.”

He hesitated only briefly, then asked, “Can I send you anything from town?”

She had two clean gowns in her valise, and bringing more would be troublesome without a carriage. She would manage. But there was one thing. “A parcel may have arrived for me from Camhurst,” Jane said. “A mathematical treatise. If Mrs. Cunningham drops it off, I would very much like to see it.”

“Of course,” he said. “And you may have the whole use of my study.”

She couldn’t stop herself from smiling.

“Mrs. Luthbright will have breakfast set out for you in the dining room in a little bit,” he added. “I will miss you today. At the surgery.”

He looked very much as if he wished to reach out and touch her. She stepped closer, the hem of her skirt brushing over his shoes.

“Forgive me, Mrs. Lawrence,” he murmured. “I treated you horribly last night. It’s been … a long time, since I’ve had guests. Since I’ve had to remember how to have guests.”

“I’m not a guest. I would never judge you,” she assured him. In fact, she was perversely grateful that the storm had wiped out the road and thereby brought her this far into his confidence.

“I wanted you to be here so badly,” he said, “that when I heard your voice, I feared I had conjured you from nothing.”

“But I am here, now. Truly.” She thought, for a moment, to tell him about her own fears, memories of the shelling, the gas attacks, all her childhood pains. She stopped short, unsure of how it would help—but what a strange feeling, to want to share them.

At last he reached for her. He cupped her cheek, his thumb stroking her skin as he gazed into her eyes. “I must apologize for how foolish I was, thinking that you staying the night here would pose any problem at all. In fact, having you here made everything that much easier.”

She felt a surge of pride at that. “If the roads are clear, I would very much like to stay the night again. With you. Will you consider it?”

He hesitated. Barely a breath, but she caught it and the slight tensing of his jaw. “I would still ask you to return to the surgery,” he said, though he kept his tone light. “Mr. Lowell will need the night off.”

She had agreed to those terms, and she would live up to them until they both agreed she need not. “He will,” she said. “I understand.”

“I do have something for you, though.” He pulled a thin book from his bag. “My monograph, on Mr. Aethridge. I thought you might like to read it.”

“Of course,” she said. She took it from him and opened it to the frontispiece, where Augustine’s name was printed in large, bold letters. “How horrid is it, though? The illness, I mean, not the writing.”

“Well, I wouldn’t recommend it for bedtime reading,” he said. “Even with all of the medical theory laid on top of it, it is a terrifying tale. He was always in good cheer, but sometimes, when I think of what he went through, his body turning to bone around him until he could no longer move—it’s not the best for the nerves even on a good day.”