Distantly, she heard the door open. She heard footsteps on the stairs, the sound of a door opening above, a soft thud. Footsteps, again. Augustine did not look up as Mr. Lowell appeared in the doorway.
“Doctor, I—oh, Mrs. Lawrence,” he said, and his hands loosened on his cap, where he had been wringing it. “I have brought your things from Lindridge Hall.”
“Thank you,” Jane said, too embarrassed to meet his gaze above Augustine’s bowed head.
“I would have come sooner,” Mr. Lowell said. “It was just—”
“No harm done,” she said, throat catching. “No harm done at all.”
His cheeks were red; they must have made a strange tableau. “Will you be needing me to cook dinner, then?”
Her chest burned. “We will be fine,” she said, meaning nothing of the sort.
Mr. Lowell ducked his head and left.
When the front door had shut once more, Augustine withdrew and went to the stove, adding fresh wood from the pile and tending it. “I shouldn’t have left you there,” he said at last. “It was cowardly of me.”
And cowardly to lie, and cowardly to take me to bed to distract me from my questions, and cowardly to make me believe I dreamed a nightmare instead of witnessing your secrets. Through great force of will, Jane did not say any of it. Instead, she covered her cleaned and bandaged feet with her skirts, and said, “It was.”
Augustine began to cook in silence, frying up fish that had been soaked in wine and herbs. Jane thought of fleeing, but just as she’d drifted to sleep as soon as she was seated, now her stomach was reawakened. The scent was heady, as was the wine that Augustine set down before her.
The meal was large enough for two—her and Mr. Lowell, she presumed—but he still gave her the better share, keeping only a little for himself.
She devoured the meal.
“Have Georgiana and the others remained at Lindridge Hall?” Augustine asked, when she was only a few bites from finishing. His own plate was barely touched.
Jane set her fork aside and sat back, swallowing down a mouthful of wine to clear her throat. “No. They left this morning.”
Augustine glanced to the window.
Night was falling.
Go, Jane dared him. Go. Go back to your spirit-infested house, your wretched magic, your horror show. She had seen him covered in blood. She had seen him murdering Elodie.
But then Elodie had turned on her. Jane could still feel Elodie’s fingers on her throat, and that cold pressure once again turned her anger to frustrated confusion. Her appetite turned to ash.
She pushed her remaining dinner around her plate. “The Cunninghams have gone,” Jane said into the drawn silence between them. “Without a word. Did you know?”
He frowned. “No,” he said, “though a letter arrived here for you, two days ago.” The day she had refused to leave Lindridge Hall. If she had left, she would have been able to say goodbye. If she had left, she would never have known what lurked in that house.
She should have left. Damn her curiosity, damn her suspicions.
“You should rest,” he said. “May I help you upstairs? There are two bedrooms.”
“If you are going to Lindridge Hall tonight, you should leave now.”
“I’m staying,” he said.
Jane looked up at him wordlessly.
“May I help you upstairs?” he repeated.
In answer, she tried to stand up, but her feet, now that they had been tended to and rested, roared with pain. Wincing, she fell back into her seat, then nodded. “It appears to be necessary. Yes.”
Augustine gathered her up in his arms and bore her from the kitchen. Through his shirt, he felt warm. More than warm—fevered. Sweat beaded his brow. “You are not well,” she said.
He laughed bitterly, and mounted the stairs. “No, Jane, I’m not. I think that’s very clear.”
They reached the second floor, and he toed open the door to a small, clean bedroom, warm from a banked fire, and perfumed with dried flowers to counteract the smell of human suffering below. Her valise rested by the door. He eased her down onto the bed.
For one last breath, he was close enough for her to smell the sickness on him. His hands were tender as they withdrew from her, and that contrast of bleak honesty and gentle care unsettled her, more than anything else.
He pulled away and made as if to leave, then hesitated in the doorway. He looked back at her, at her bandaged feet.
“Jane,” he murmured, “why did you walk, all the way from Lindridge Hall? What happened?”