Page 15 of Atone, Adonis

She closed herself against the howl of her heart at the thought.

Thomas sighed, his whole body softening with those words. “Good. Thank you.”

She leaned down and kissed his brow. He smelled of blood and fever-sweat and sickness, and it made her want to crumble to pieces. But she wouldn’t. She swallowed that pain instead and said, “Dr. Whitcombe doesn’t think you have much time left.”

He closed his eyes. “I know.”

She stayed beside him, his hand clasped in hers, until he drifted off into a restless sleep. She could do this, she told herself. She could marry the one man she hated most in the world, if it would ease Thomas’s suffering.

She would do it, no matter how much she didn’t want to.

Fred did not return that evening. Julianna had half expected him to appear again before nightfall, contracts in hand and that damnedably smug expression fixed upon his face. She didn’t care how handsome he was, no one ought to have an expression like that who had done what he’d done. He should be forced to wear the mark of his actions on his face like a cattle brand. “C” for coward, just as she’d often imagined Robert might wear an “L” for liar. She hated liars after Robert.

The hours passed with nothing but Thomas’s uneven breathing upstairs and the wind worrying the cottage roof. Julianna found herself almost wishing Fred would come so she could stop waiting for him to arrive. But it was nearly noon the following day when the carriage showed.

Julianna saw it first through the kitchen window: the same dark lacquered panels and crest picked out in gold as he’d had on his first visit. This time with two enormous bay horses tossing their heads impatiently in the traces.

Fred climbed down from the conveyance with the same irritating ease with which he seemed to do everything. She wiped her hands on her apron and went to the door.

“Miss Farrow,” he said when she opened it. “Still wearing dirt as your best accessory, I see.”

“Better dirt than arrogance.”

His mouth twitched faintly. “I thought you might wish to see the Manor. It will be your future home after all. I’ll wait for you to—”

“I’m ready now.”

His eyebrows rose in surprise. Hers might have too at the speed of her own acquiescence had she not ruthlessly suppressed them. She was tired of sitting around the cottage, waiting.

“Unless you have more uninvited visitors you wish to spring upon us?”

Fred froze in the doorway and blinked. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You may think yourself adept at lying but you’ve had the same tell since you were fourteen. Try waving your hands around in the air next time you feel the urge for falsehoods. It will be less obvious than standing as still as a marble and looking like there is something caught in your eye.” She glanced at the waiting carriage. “And we’re walking. It’s less than a quarter mile and I want to see if the oysters are out yet.”

“Oysters?”

“Oyster mushrooms, obviously. They grow along the hedgerows this time of year and they are quite good. I’ll just go tell Thomas I’m leaving.”

She did not wait for his reply before turning back into the cottage. Thomas was awake when she climbed the stairs, his breathing shallow but steadier than it had been during the night.

“I’m going to see the Manor,” she said.

His brows lifted faintly. “Really?”

“Don’t be coy. This is all your doing and you know it.” She couldn’t help but smile at him fondly, though. “If you’re lucky there will be mushrooms in cream sauce for supper.”

“I cannot wait,” he said even though they both knew he was lying. Thomas could barely manage the broth she prepared for him.

She kissed his brow and went back downstairs. Fred was outside, examining the chicken coop with an expression of curiosity, as if he had never seen such a thing before.

“I did not know they came in black,” he said when she arrived at his side.

She stepped past him onto the path. She did not care to discuss the color of chickens. She didn’t care to discuss anything with him. “They do. Let us go and see this Manor of yours.”

Fred fell into step beside her and they walked in silence, the narrow path cutting through a low hedgerow still bare of leaves. Fred occasionally kicked at the frozen ground with the toe of his stupidly shiny boot.

“Alright,” she said eventually, when the silence grew unbearable. There were no mushrooms yet, which was unfortunate. Without the distraction of gathering them, one of them was going to have to speak. “Tell me about the Manor.”