The Death of Jane Lawrence(31)

And yet she felt betrayed.



* * *



JANE DID NOT sleep that night. When the sun rose, she dressed and made her way down to the dining room for breakfast. But though dawn drenched the room in gold, it did not pierce the numbness she wore like a shield to guard against the uncertain pain inside her.

It was well-worn armor, crafted first in Camhurst, against the panic in the streets and the fetid gasses that had filled her lungs when the Ruzkans had begun their shelling. She had tempered it in Larrenton while she sat with strangers and waited to learn if she was an orphan. Now it stilled everything within and without her.

She passed the day walking the grounds, then inspecting the curiosities in the study. Malformations and disease. What did it mean, that Augustine kept them? She had assumed, before, that they were only the fascinations of an eccentric mind, but they were dark things, sometimes violent, often linked to death. Perhaps they should have been her first reason not to trust him. She traced the brittle wings of pinned insects and breathed away dust that crowded on fine metal objects, the purposes of which she could not guess.

She took her meals and twice attempted to shake off her bitterness. It is not your business, she told herself. All men have such secrets. If you had followed his directives, if you had gone back to Larrenton before the storm or despite the storm, you might never have known to wonder. But the pain remained, and so, too, did her shell.

A few hours before sunset, Augustine returned to Lindridge Hall.

As he alighted from his carriage, Jane left behind his ledgers on the study’s desk, open to the first mention of Elodie in case she should require evidence. The house was silent around her, the very runner along the floor taut as if with a held breath, waiting for an answer.

She reached the landing overlooking the foyer just as Augustine asked Mrs. Purl, “Where is Mrs. Lawrence? Is she about? Is she well?” He hadn’t seen her yet, and she took the moment to study him. Could a man’s secrets be divined by the angles of his cheekbones, the curve of his shoulders?

“I’ve hardly seen her today,” said Mrs. Purl. “Shall I fetch her?”

It was then that Augustine raised his eyes and spotted her. A bright smile blossomed over those features she’d been inspecting, and now, with his face tilted up to her, she could see no falsehood written in his skull. She gripped the banister and fought back the answering smile that wanted to erupt from her.

His expression fell.

Did he look guilty? Or merely worried? The shame of a man who had done her wrong, or the concern of a husband who fretted over her health?

Her stomach somersaulted. The shell flexed, but did not crack. “Hello, Augustine,” Jane said.

Mrs. Purl quietly took her leave.

“Jane,” Augustine responded. He stepped forward and held out a hand. She hesitated; she did not want to touch him, and simultaneously she wished to fall into his arms, lose herself in the overwhelming certainty she’d felt just a day before. Balanced between the two, she descended the stairs, taking his hand at the final step.

“I’m sorry I left you here for so long,” he said.

“I kept myself entertained.”

“I hope you haven’t been staring at sums this whole time.”

Sums. Was he testing her? Or did he somehow not realize what his books had revealed? Her fingers tightened against his reflexively. “Oh, yesterday I explored the house,” she said. The house with a woman in the windows. The house with a locked door.

Augustine tensed, as if he could hear her thoughts. “And did you find anything of interest?”

“Mrs. Purl found a bag of yours,” she said, instead of all the rest.

He frowned. “A bag?”

“In the third-floor bedroom.” She led him to the dining room. “It was in a fireplace, badly burned. Some of the scalpels were still fine, though, and I’ve cleaned them for you. Was it a very sick patient, then?”

In your parents’ bedroom? She hadn’t thought to question it, then, but suddenly it seemed all of a piece. How could it not be?

“Yes,” he replied after a moment’s thought. “Yes, several years ago. How strange, though, I can’t imagine how we didn’t have the hearth cleaned.” He shoved his free hand into his pocket, but not before she noticed a tremor in it.

He hadn’t known about the bag? Or he hadn’t imagined she would find it?

“Augustine?”

“Sorry, it was a particularly unpleasant case,” he murmured. “Difficult to think about.” He stopped at the entrance to the dining room, turning and smiling up at her. “I did miss you,” he said. “Greatly.”

“And I, you,” she said, half by reflex, half by desire. She hated herself immediately for it.

He must have seen the frustration in her. “There’s a carriage,” he said. “Down at the end of the drive. Are your things packed?”

“No,” she said. “I had intended to stay tonight.”

“The roads are clear now,” he said, glancing not to the front door but to the stairs. “Jane—”

“Let us go in for dinner,” Jane said. “I will pour us claret.”

And she left him there without listening for argument. He followed faithfully.

The dining room was cleaner than it had been on their wedding night, the windows polished, the curtains drawn back to admit the gentle afternoon sun. There were no cobwebs, no dust hanging in the corners, and even the upholstery had been scrubbed. The wine glasses were newly cleaned, and she tried to feel pride in it as she poured the wine at the sideboard. The feeling didn’t come.