Death of Connor Sanderson: Chap 2: Part 1 & End of Chap 1.

Chapter One: Part 10.
Previous Part.
Reggie’s face was serious for a moment. “Lavinia is no longer an adolescent.” He shook his head ruefully. “I do not blame you Connor, you barely notice she exists. You are much too busy making your mark as Sir John’s houseman to consider courting. Sadly, that matters little to a young woman and her tender heart.”

For a moment, the thought of a tender heart, enchanted him and set his tastebuds tingling.
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Swallowing resolutely, he said, “I’m sure you exaggerate, Reggie.” Connor eased his collar, lifting his chin as discomfort closed a grip around his throat.

These past five years he had thought of Lavinia as a child, but doing the math he now realized that the fourteen year old girl was now a woman, and he had certainly overlooked that fact. The chasm of an almost six year difference in their ages seemed suddenly to have shrunk.

Reggie landed his hand on Connor’s shoulder blade in a resounding slap. “You’re probably right. There are many better catches than you out there!”

Connor remembered to stagger obligingly under a blow that twelve hours ago would have sent him reeling, and grinned, “There are a dozen or so at dinner tonight? And eligible men to dance attendance on her, I’m sure she won’t even notice me.”

Reggie grunted dubiously and said, “What time shall I have carriage waiting?”

“We’ll set off at six, if that suits?”

Reggie glanced at his watch. “I’d better get moving, then. And you had better go and make your apologies to Sir John.”

“I think I may be better waiting until tomorrow.” Connor eased away from the wall and matched his pace to Reggie’s with painful care. He sighed heavily as the electrical storm of activity in Reggie’s preoccupied brain, and the sudden acceleration of his heart rate filled his mouth with saliva and dragged aching thirst through him.

The meeting with Malachi at midnight loomed as a far more pressing concern than Sir John’s annoyance.

 
Chapter Two: Part 1.
Night had fallen, and Connor sat in the darkest corner of the interior of Reggie’s clarence carriage, waiting outside the hospital for him to show his face.

The carriage had room for four passengers, and he would surrender his forward facing place to Reggie when he arrived. The rear facing seats put the glazed panels of the carriage and its brass mounted brass coach lamps at his back. Connor calculated that by rearranging the seating, once they were moving, and until they headed out onto the country lanes, only Reggie would be bathed in the glare of the passing street lamps and his own features would be cast in shadow.

Every line of Connor’s body spoke of relaxation, and if the footman, William, wondered at Doctor Sanderson’s unusually silent demeanor, he made no comment.

“Why not take a seat, William?” Connor suggested as the young footman shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “I’m certain Lord Cranham will not object.”

William smiled widely, touched a hand to his peaked cap, and nodded before climbing nimbly up onto the pillion seat up front, and settling himself beside Harker, the coachman.

The young man was easy to please. After all, it was a fine autumn evening, even if the air was a trifle crisp, and waiting in attendance ready to open the carriage door was the easy part for William. Soon he would be running alongside the horses warning Harker of potholes in the road.

They had been waiting for the best part of half an hour, and Connor’s usual caustic wit had melted away to serious contemplation. He had deception on his mind. Dining at Reggie’s family seat of Cranham Hall, which was outside of London, nestled in the Kent countryside was usually a pleasure. However, acting naturally at a dinner party of sixteen, many of whom knew him well, was suddenly a field littered with landmines.

Faking a spasm of coughing, Connor lay the foundations of his plan, paving the way for his unexpectedly early departure from tonight’s family gathering.

William’s concerned face appeared in the upper section of the window as the young man hung precariously from his seat.

With his face contorting convincingly, Connor breathed through tightened vocal chords, “I’m fine, William. Just a little stuffy in here.”

William disappeared, and Connor smiled. Step one.

Connor’s fingertips played over smooth leather that now felt like splintered glass, and he was enthralled by the cacophony of sound that accompanied a couple walking along the side street some two hundred yards away still, and yet he felt their presence as though they had laid a hand on his shoulder.

He could almost taste the pheromone cloud that wafted on the breeze. He heard the whisper of skin brushing over skin as their hands clung together, and the shortness of breath that starved their hearts of oxygen and caused them to thunder inside their chests. He stared out of the window at the spot that he knew they would appear, and catching a mere glimpse of their rapt expressions as they moved past the carriage confirmed what he already knew, they were in love.

As the percussive beat of their footsteps faded from his acute hearing, he curiously pressed his fingertips to his own wrist and was not surprised to find that rather than racing, his own pulse was slow and sluggish.

He had a grasp on a handful of puzzle pieces but as yet, apart from the certainty that he was forever changed, he had no clue how many more surprises his rioting senses had in store. He felt as though he were hanging on by his fingernails until he met with the compelling and terrifying Malachi. Connor heaved a sigh, and knew instinctively that it would not matter if he did not take in another breath...ever.

I will be there in the morgue at midnight.