“I am not your wife, I am your savings account.” She swallowed. “As such, I believe we should keep all conversation from here on out strictly about business. It will be the only way to move past…everything else.”
Sebastian looked as though he was going to defend himself. Then, the wind appeared to be knocked from his sails, and heconceded.
“What business, then?” he asked.
“It was a grave mistake to allow Lord Bancroft to find out about my time with Dr. Pinkton. However, now that it is known, I would like to be fully transparent. Working with the doctor is the only thing that I have ever-”
“No,” Sebastian said flatly. “No, I know what you are going to ask, and the answer is no.”
She pressed on, believing that this would somehow make him hear her. “If I could only continue to attend the occasional visit…” she began, choosing the meekest, least threatening words she could find.
“No,” Sebastian said once more, shaking his head, and she felt that nothing she said would penetrate him.
This time, when she forged ahead, she ignored the tears that burned in her eyes. “In exchange, I will provide you with an heir and a spare without complaint and will give you no further cause for embarrassment. You may return to the country whenever it pleases you, while I shall remain in London. Would that not be amenable to you?”
He looked very much that this was not amenable to him, though Augusta had so carefully chosen her turn of phrase. And yet, her husband looked at her as though she were asking him to gather the moon.
“No,” he said. She wondered if that was the only word he knew. “Augusta, you will end your relationship with the doctor immediately. Put this alienist work out of your mind. We could…” He stopped, running a hand down his face in frustration. “We could start fresh. Go to the country. Start a family...”
He went on, listing out the beautiful things that two people whoactually loved each other would do together, but Augusta did not hear him. Instead, her head spun with his rejection.
The idea of starting fresh was so laughable to her that she struggled to comprehend it at all. After all the work she had done, all the time she had put into this opportunity with Dr. Pinkton, he expected her to happily toss it aside and play-act as his doting wife at the Derbyshire estate? All while knowing that he had never wanted her to begin with.
She realized that the room was silent. Sebastian looked at her, hope quickly draining from his expression.
“You are distraught,” he said. “I am sorry. I did not mean to foist so much upon you all at once. We do not have to think of starting over immediately. I understand if you need time.”
“That is…” she started, then caught herself when her breath hitched. “That is not what I am distraught about.”
Sebastian halted, utter confusion playing across his face. “What is it, then?”
Then, it came to Augusta in a single wave; the rage. This con man in front of her, who had gained his fortunes from trickery and deceit, could never understand the slow and steady building that she had put into her apprenticeship. He could never understand the stolen lectures and secret studying. To him, this marriage was the only important thing that Augusta had ever done. Knowing that made her want to hit something.
“I am talking about my work, Lord Brightwater,” she said, hardly containing the anger in her voice as she grit her teeth.
“Your work?” he asked, incredulous. “Augusta, you have to have known that I could never allow you to continue it. What would we do if anyone outside of Bancroft found out? Our entire family would be in scandal.”
His words were full of censure; the exact censure that she hadalways anticipated hearing from Reginald in the case that he ever found out. Hearing it come from her brother would have been painful enough. Hearing it come from the man that she had loved only days ago was like a knife to the chest.
The sensation brought with it an understanding, clear as the morning sun: Sebastian was not going to bend on this. She truly would never work with the doctor again.
“I see,” she said shakily. “Then I suppose there is nothing more to discuss.”
She turned to leave, hoping against hope that she could once again make it to her bedroom before the tears flowed freely.
“Wait.”
He said it with such desperation that she halted, her hand still on the study doorknob.
“Please, take breakfast with me tomorrow.”
Blind hatred dried the most potent of her tears. Theaudacityof him to make such a request of her when he had just taken away the only thing she’d ever worked for.
“No, Lord Brightwater. I do not believe I shall feel up to it.”
Before he could demand further audience, she fled from the room and made her way down the hall, praying that he did not follow.
God must have looked upon her favorably then, as the study door remained shut.
