She fought to keep her voice even as she spoke.
“Were I to accompany them—and they have requested that I do just that—my expenses would outstrip my annuity even if I were to largely avoid society, which would be impossible given Mr. Cunningham’s new judgeship.” And she would be surrounded by shell-scarred buildings and new construction that tried to replace what had been destroyed, none of which she could stomach even the thought of. But that was too personal to share, by far. “They are willing to pay the difference, but I am not willing to let them.”
The doctor’s mind worked. “But as you can’t remain here unmarried…”
“Exactly. If I’m to stay, I have to find a husband, or things will be quite a bit more difficult than even the capital would be.”
He shook his head, finally looking at her again. “I understand your plight, and I feel for you, Miss Shoringfield, but you do have other options. Surely there are other options. You are…” His cheeks colored, and she remembered again how he’d looked at her from the doorway. Fear, fear that had been caused by her proposal hanging above his head like a sword, knowing he would have to decline. But perhaps it wasn’t just fear—or if it had been fear, it had been fear of a different sort than she’d first thought.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I can’t imagine you will have much difficulty finding a more suitable husband.”
“You are a perfectly suitable husband,” she said, steeling herself and stepping forward again. She could hear his breathing, they were so close. The wariness in his eyes was entirely gone now, replaced by fascination. “And I am not asking you for charity, Dr. Lawrence. I have skills that would be useful to you.”
“Skills?”
“I attended Sharpton School for Girls until I was fifteen,” she said. “And I have kept Mr. Cunningham’s books for the last six years. I maintain the ledger, I work with the banks, I help him set his fees and collect on them. I can only imagine work of the same sort must be done at a surgery.”
He sucked in a surprised breath. “You weren’t speaking in metaphors when you said this was a business arrangement.”
“My remaining annuity funds are not so large as to directly benefit you, I suspect,” she said. “But I do bring mathematical skill, and a methodical nature. I can run the business of being a doctor, and you can focus on the medicine.”
“You know nothing about a doctor’s life, about the business or the medicine.”
“I can learn. I want to learn.”
He hesitated, stunned, then fumbled out, “There is blood, and great sadness, and terror. Being part of it—it won’t be easy.” But it sounded less like a warning and more like a test. An invitation. “It is a calling, not a skill.”
“Ledgers and sums are my calling, just as medicine is yours. The rest I can learn, when the most important element is fulfilled.”
“It is thankless, and I often won’t be home. Night calls, and—”
“But if this is a business arrangement,” she interrupted, “then it is more employment than marriage. I won’t mind your absence. You are suitable.”
She had brought him to social concerns, down from professional; she was making progress. She held her breath.
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.