The Death of Jane Lawrence(3)

He took a hasty swallow of brandy. He glanced toward the ceiling. Then he looked back at her, and said, “You would be alone. I spend my nights at my family home, several miles out of town. It would be an inviolable condition, that you never join me there.”

She nearly fell to her knees in relief. He had begun to consider. He hadn’t rejected her, not outright, not this time. She remained standing, but only barely, and managed to smile. “As I said—you are perfectly suitable.”

From the way his brow creased, she’d surprised him again. “You knew?”

“I have heard rumors,” she said. He had only been in practice in Larrenton for a little over two months, and Jane was no gossipmonger, but the Cunninghams always knew something about everybody in town. “Everybody knows you employ a runner at the surgery to fetch you, though most still think it’s because you’re often out on house calls at night. Only a few have noticed the extent of the waiting time, and how it’s consistently necessary to wait.”

“You are observant,” he said.

She laughed.

The sound prompted a final transformation in him. The fear left him entirely, and he regarded her, shoulders straight.

“I should not marry you,” he protested once more, but it was perfunctory.

“A chance,” she said. “Give me a chance. Let me prove to you my worth. I will meet your conditions, if you will meet mine.”

He thought a moment, then nodded. “Very well. Come by the surgery. See what it is like in the particulars, instead of the abstract, before we make any binding decisions. There will likely be blood, and certainly hard work.”

“When shall I come by?”

“Tomorrow, midmorning. Wear clothing you don’t mind getting soiled. I’ll have you take a look at it all, the patient files, the finances, and you can sit in on any calls that come in. While sums may be your calling, you will still need to become something of a nurse, in case anybody arrives at the surgery in my absence.”

“Of course,” she said. “Tomorrow, then, Dr. Lawrence. I shall attempt to prove myself. And you can do your best to scare me off.”





CHAPTER TWO


JANE MADE HER way quickly across the center of town toward Dr. Lawrence’s surgery with the Cunninghams’ maid, Ekaterina, at her heels. Ekaterina was valiantly keeping up one side of a conversation: she had lived in Camhurst before coming to Larrenton, and was delighted to be returning, and with an improved position. Jane couldn’t blame her—not everybody in town was ready to trust a Ruzkan girl, not here, not even so many years after the war—but she could not summon up the slightest interest.

She was entirely fixated on thoughts of Dr. Lawrence and his surgery.

She’d told him the truth, the night before, about her reasons for marrying him. She was fairly certain he’d believed her. That was nice. Most men would have looked for an alternate cause, if Mrs. Cunningham was to be believed. And most men would not have accepted her eagerness to keep the marriage as a business arrangement, eschewing all the expected intimacies.

And yet it had been that premise that had won him. Miracle of miracles!

She’d told herself, when she realized that marrying was soon going to be the best option for her, that she could only marry if that distance was maintained. She wanted courteous indifference, not unwanted touches and a passel of children. She was not built for intimacy; she was built for numbers. For work.

Her guardians, the Cunninghams, were not built as she was. They had always been entirely proper in front of her, but Jane saw the way Mr. Cunningham looked at his wife, saw the shared easy touches as they passed in the hall. When they’d taken her in at her parents’ request, at the height of the war with their youngest child nearly full grown, they were still obviously in love. Jane admired them for it, but she was fully aware that the odds of her finding anything like they had were very low. She was not skilled at forming the sorts of emotional connections that affection seemed to require. No, a normal marriage was not for her. It would leave her harried and uncomfortable and resentful.

But some kind of marriage was a necessity, and so she had contrived to find a husband who would allow her to remain much as she had always been. And Dr. Lawrence, who lived well out of town and had to keep somebody in his place at his surgery, was impossible perfection. A man who wasn’t married, despite being in his early thirties, despite being a doctor, despite being, in his own way, quite handsome—a man like that had a reason as good as hers. It put them on equal footing, poised to make a mutually beneficial bargain.

“Miss Shoringfield!” Ekaterina called from behind her. Jane looked over her shoulder. She’d somehow managed to put a great deal of distance between herself and the girl over the last few streets. Jane readied an apology.

Ekaterina reached her side, smiling up at her. “You certainly are excited, ma’am.”

Her cheeks heated. Ekaterina had come to work for the Cunninghams only six months ago, but she had settled in quickly. To another woman, Ekaterina might have felt almost like a sister instead of a maid. She was certainly amiable enough.

The only problem was that Jane didn’t know how to be friendly. She could be polite, and kind, and could engage over work, but small talk had always been a struggle. Friendship had always been a struggle.

“I think,” Jane said, resuming her walk at a much more reasonable pace, “you will find the surgery very boring.”