Page 19 of Grave Expectations
"No."
I exchanged a glance with Lincoln. He looked like he wanted to thump Holloway. "Why not?" I asked. "Why do you care what I do?"
"Marriage is a sacred endeavor in the eyes of God. I cannot allow a creature like yourself to enter a house of God and speak vows meant for good, Christian folk. What sort of vicar would that make me? What sort of man?"
"A forgiving one. A kind one." But the more I spoke, the more I saw how hopeless it was. Holloway wasn't the sort of man who feared death, or Lincoln, or me. He thought he was in the right, and nothing could sway him.
"I tried to save you," he said to me. "I tried to remove the devil from you—"
"By digging it out of me with a knife!"
"If I were in better health, and not confined to this hell, I would try again. Now it's up to you to fight the devil alone. If this man you wish to marry truly loved you, he would help you fight it." He sighed and seemed to sink further into the bed. "Be gone, Devil. Get away from me."
I moved off, but Lincoln did not. He leaned down to the figure in the bed and whispered something in his ear. Holloway's eyes widened. His Adam's apple bobbed.
"What did you say to him?" I asked as we followed the warden back to the governor's office.
"I told him that he will die soon, and that he'd better hope his treatment of you does not go against his God's wishes. I may have recited a few lines of the testament that counsel compassion to everyone."
"How do you know he'll die soon? He might recover."
We arrived in the governor's office and he didn't have a chance to answer me. Nor did he respond as we drove off, and I didn't ask again. Neither of us mentioned Holloway or his refusal to grant his permission.
I knew from Lincoln's rigidity that he was seething. His black fathomless eyes stared out the window, and the muscles in his jaw stretched taut.
"We'll speak with a lawyer," I said quietly. "It will all work out, Lincoln. You'll see." A small, cold place inside me hoped that Holloway would die, handing over my guardianship to the state, but it was not the sort of thing I could admit out loud.
Seth drove us to the newspaper offices ofThe Times,where we placed our advertisement for a housekeeper, then drove home. I felt flat, restless, and it only grew worse as the hour for the committee meeting approached. As the first arrival rolled along the drive, I began to regret my insistence that I face them too. While I wanted to present a united front with Lincoln, I was in no mood for their snobbery and, in the case of Lady Harcourt, jealousy.
The first to arrive was General Eastbrooke with Lord Marchbank close behind. They eyed me with curiosity as we sat in the library and waited for the others to arrive. I folded my hand over my engagement ring to hide it until they were all present.
"What'sshedoing here?" Lord Gillingham asked before he'd even fully entered the library. "Get rid of her."
"Charlie is staying," Lincoln said blandly.
"Why?" Lady Harcourt asked, with a defiant tilt of her chin. She looked lovely in a lavender gown, cinched at the waist to show off her feminine figure, her hair arranged in a style that must have taken her maid an age to do. "Are you still insisting we call her your assistant? That's all well and good, but Lichfield needs maids for now."
"We've placed an advertisement inThe Timesfor a housekeeper."
Her face froze. "We?"
"Where did you go, Fitzroy?" Lord Gillingham cut in.
"On holiday," Lincoln said.
Gillingham snorted a laugh but when no one else joined in, he said, "To where?"
"That is none of your affair."
"It damned well is, man." Whenever Gillingham grew angry, his face turned the same reddish hue as his hair. He was well on the way to that color already and the meeting had only just begun.
Lincoln said nothing. He stood by the fireplace, a severely drawn frown on his brow. I sat in the only vacant armchair, and he switched to the other side of the hearth to be closer to me.
"You're the ministry's leader," Gillingham went on. "It's yourraison d'êtreand ought to be your priority. It's not work from which you can come and go. It's your life."
I took a breath to counter him, but Lincoln put his hand on the back of my chair. I would stay silent if he wanted me to—for now.
"Gilly is correct," Eastbrooke said. The general's physical presence always commanded attention when he entered a room, but it was his military authority that made him the unspoken leader of the four-person committee. That and his age. At sixty-odd, he was the eldest. "Holidays are not for the likes of you, Lincoln. Do not disappear like that again."
