His flesh went white, his expression shuttering. Triumph flared in her breast.
But then his jaw firmed. He met her gaze.
“This was never supposed to be a true marriage, Jane,” he said.
She stepped back as if struck.
“You asked me to marry you as a business arrangement only,” he continued, voice lowering. “I agreed, for that reason only. I told you that you could not come here, and you were more than happy to agree as well.” His brow furrowed, and he reached out as if to clasp her shoulders. But his hands fell short, tensing in the air, then falling back to his sides.
“And yet I am here,” she said. “And you have betrayed me.”
He grimaced. “Is it betrayal? Or is it jealousy, this fury over Elodie? Because you do not own this part of me. I did not offer it in the bargain.”
He was right.
Curse her heart, traitorous organ, for hating that fact. She wanted to scream, to argue, but their terms had been clear, and she had never demanded honesty. She had only assumed he would give it to her, that she deserved to know everything, that his life was now hers as well.
She hadn’t known to ask for honesty. She hadn’t realized all that she had wanted.
A miscalculation. An error of judgment.
His hand settled at last upon her shoulder, and it was gentle, not angry. “You should never have had to know any of it,” he murmured. “It should never have touched you.”
“And this morning?” she said, clinging to the sharp edge of betrayal that still remained, aching and blood-soaked in her chest. “You made me think I was going mad. You erased me from reality.”
He flinched, and when he answered, his voice was low and soft, a caress. “I thought only of your happiness.”
“I saw things. I saw Elodie, Augustine.”
The intake of breath through his teeth was sharp. “If you had known it to be only a nightmare, you would have been free.”
Her heart thundered in her ears. “Free from what?”
But before he could respond, Jane heard footsteps fast approaching. Augustine stepped away, smoothing down his waistcoat, as Hunt came around the corner.
“I’m afraid we have exhausted the decanter,” the doctor said, then, “Oh, did I interrupt?”
“Strategizing only,” Augustine said, and he sounded embarrassed but composed. There was no hint of fear in his voice, and Jane drew strength from his playacting. They would offer no hint of weakness to their unwanted guests.
Jane turned to Hunt, the demure smile she had learned to wear for Mr. Cunningham’s clients settled on her features. “I’ll send for Mrs. Purl to replenish it,” she said. Hunt nodded and disappeared.
Jane buried her face in her hands, taking refuge for just a moment. This was too much, all of it. She needed answers. She needed some kind of plan to move forward.
But when she looked up once more, her husband was already ducking back into the sitting room.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MRS. LUTHBRIGHT CONJURED a feast from nothing. The table groaned under the seemingly endless parade of small courses. Half a dozen root vegetables, cooked in just as many ways, their staggered arrival buying time for the stews of dried meats, rehydrated in a desperate rush with wine, off flavors masked with young herbs sown only months ago. Liquor drenched every item to communicate luxury and wipe away any criticism. Jane clasped Mrs. Luthbright’s shoulder and whispered a fervent thanks, but what put a smile on the cook’s face was Jane’s promise to wash the dishes herself. Relieved, Mrs. Luthbright had gone out under the darkening sky, followed less eagerly by Mrs. Purl, whom Jane had promised was not expected to find beds for the raucous crowd inside.
Jane sat beside her husband at the head of the table. Hunt produced from her valise more wine from abroad, sparkling and sour. Conversation ranged widely, tides shifting, words forming changing webs across the long table. At one moment, Vingh was describing a heroic surgery where the patient had writhed despite the ether but his bowels, perforated by industrial equipment, had been stitched whole again after the labor of five surgeons over three hours. （Whether the patient survived the night went unaddressed.） At another, Hunt was discussing the newest advances in the theory of disease transmission. And then the conversation would turn to gossip, to absent friends and hated rivals, to who was receiving funding for what, and what the Crown might ask of its physicians next.
Despite herself, she was entranced.
These were great and brilliant doctors, finely educated in a way she could not match but found herself desiring. In another life, she might have been one of them, able to discuss mathematical theory with the authority of a university graduate. Philosophical debate sprang up and consumed the whole table, and Augustine dove in as well. It was impossible to resist as her intellect thrilled. She found herself sparring with him over points of logic. It was glorious. Delirious.