“If I win, I’m joining Chapin and Baines again.” Saying it out loud made a lead weight form low in his belly.
Her nose wrinkled as she looked at him askance. “You are? You hated it there.”
“I’d be doing different work than before. Making more money.” Probably. Hopefully. Could he trust Nathan, or was he just selling something improbable to get Archie back? “And what would it matter if I make enough to get Mum into a better situation?”
“You’d be unhappy.” She enunciated each syllable like his hearing was poor. “No one wants that.”
“My happiness isn’t an issue.”
“It should be. And we’ve gone off track again.”
“As usual.”
Florence scowled. “Would you let me finish a thought?” She sighed. “Mother and the girls can move in with me until you’re able to buy something better.” She held up one finger when Archie opened his mouth to protest. “It’s not ideal, but it’s an option, and we—”
“Absolutely not! You don’t have the space or the time.”
“And neither do you!”
They stared at each other for a long moment before the corner of Florence’s lips twitched. “We forgot to order tea.”
Archie laughed despite himself. “We did.”
“Do you want some?”
“Always, and some scones. But is this conversation over?”
Her smile was wicked. “For today. Just think about helping me sell it, but we don’t have to decide now.”
“Good.”
“But Archie, whatever you do, don’t forget what you want.”
He scoffed, looked out the window towards St. Helen’s Square. “What I want is impossible.”
Chapter 27
“Thankyouagainforyour time, Dr. Brunner.” Archie extended his hand and shook that of the Austrian psychiatrist before sitting in the chair opposite him. His office was deep in the bowels of King’s College London and was, impossibly, more cluttered than Archie’s, but with medical journals, notebooks, and diagrams of the brain littering the surfaces and posted to the single wall not covered in bookshelves.
Claus Brunner was everything Archie had expected. Tufts of white hair sprung around his ears, matching eyebrows so thick that Archie wondered if they might cause his thick spectacles to fall off if he winked. He was dressed in a mismatch of layered plaids, and he was tall and slim in a way that, when he stood, he reminded Archie of an umbrella as he unfolded himself.
“This is an interesting case, and I’m glad to be a part of it,” Dr. Brunner said after he and Archie reviewed the particulars. “The impact of verbal cruelty is well documented and has beenused in matrimonial hearings in the United States and continental Europe. England is lagging.”
He laid into the last bit like Archie was at fault for the errors of his countrymen. “But it’s been done before?”
“Yes. Abuse does not need to involve bruises to cause an impact. While we’re still determining how significant that impact may be, children of abusive households bear scars deeper than their skin.”
“I agree.”More than you know. “What I don’t know is if the court will find Lady Croydon’s situation serious enough to warrant a cause for divorce.”
“That I can’t help you with. I’ve never testified in a divorce case before.”
Archie attempted to hide his disappointment. “I was made to believe you have experience with legal proceedings.”
“I do,” Dr. Brunner said, “but those were cases challenging the Lunacy Act. While the marriage may have dissolved after my involvement, that was never the primary aim of my testimony. That act is an atrocity, and puts the burden on the wife to prove her sanity, not the other way around.”
A creeping sense of alarm began crawling over his skin. “Can you prove Lady Croydon is sane?”
His lips flattened. “She’s not my patient, and there isn’t time before the trial for me to evaluate her properly, so it would be unethical for me to advise the court one way or the other. All I can do is provide some legitimacy to your claim of abuse and perhaps offer you some advice.”
