Chapter 5 Penny
Penny
Iwent by the smithy first, trudging through the snow and making rapid progress while trying not to run out of breaths that were already short and a bit raspy.
Halfway across the square, I could tell the shop was dark and empty.
The crowd of townspeople was thinning as everyone headed home for their evening meal, or to the tavern for some of Tessa’s roast chicken.
I thought of going there next, but the idea of finding Kit with Tessa, eating the meal she’d made for him while she fluttered her eyelashes and tossed her hair like a freshly groomed horse, made me sick all over again.
Instead, I headed home. I was fully prepared to enter into a cold dark house, so when I pushed the door inward and found a fire in the hearth and Kit sipping coffee on the sofa, relief washed over me.
Kit rose as I came the rest of the way in, and I was relieved not to see the piles of journals that had been his constant companions the past few weeks. They were tucked neatly on the shelves beside the fireplace, which made me wonder what he’d been doing in the absence of that activity.
The faint aroma of cooking food wafting from the kitchen answered my question.
“You made dinner,” I said while stripping out of my boots and wet cloak.
He nodded, and I looked him over, finding his clothes changed and his skin scrubbed clean of the soot and grime from his day’s work. His black hair was damp, further signs of a recent bath, and it was all I could do not to go to him and breathe in the piney scent of his soap.
“What is it?” I gave the air another sniff.
“Chicken,” Kit replied, and I barked a bitter laugh.
“Did you season it with herbs from your garden?” I asked, trying to enjoy the irony that eluded Kit entirely.
His brow furrowed. “We don’t have a garden.”
I crept closer, thinking of welcome home kisses and the embrace I’d come to expect, but Kit didn’t budge.
“Not yet,” I agreed. “Come spring, you will. If we’re still here then.”
Quiet descended as we stood, farther apart than I ever wanted to be. Considering all he’d managed to accomplish since I’d seen him last, I may have worried for nothing, but I had to ask.
“Did Tessa make it by to see you?”
“Tessa?” Kit echoed. “No, thank gods. I didn’t have the patience for one more visitor after Otis…”
He trailed off but didn’t miss my eye roll at the mention of the man he’d spent entirely too long poking and peppering with questions while thoroughly ignoring me. I’d never been more grateful for Rosie’s afternoon arrival.
“I’m sorry about that, by the way,” Kit murmured, casting his gaze aside.
“Sorry for what?” I asked, feigning disinterest.
“When you tried to kiss me—”
“And you threw me on the ground?” I almost felt bad when Kit cringed.
“I was expecting Isla, and then Otis surprised me,” he said. “I didn’t want him to see.”
The confession chafed me. What didn’t he want Otis to see? We weren’t doing anything wrong. It had been an innocent kiss, the kind we frequently shared. The kind Kit usually enjoyed and often instigated.
“What?” I asked. “Why not?”
Kit rolled his shoulders as though burdened by an unseen weight. “He makes me uneasy. I think he may know more about my father than he’s letting on, and he definitely knows things about me that I wish he didn’t. This”—he gestured between us—“is not information I want him to have.”
“Why not?” I repeated more forcefully. I’d been someone’s secret before, a private pleasure and public nuisance. What if that was true with Kit as well? He was plenty affectionate when we were alone, and in front of our recent dinner guests, but that didn’t assuage my doubts.
Kit reached out and caught my hands where they hung at my sides. I wanted that, the touch, the closeness, the comfort, but I felt myself jerking back, driven by anger more than need.
Rebuffed, Kit’s brow creased, and his empty fingers curled in the air between us. “We talked about this. It’s leverage they can use against us, Penny. My father was an expert at manipulation, and it’s a skill he taught many of the other people here. If they know how close we are…”
I took another step backward, creating more distance. “Is there a list I should be aware of?” I snapped. “People who are allowed to know? Or aren’t? Not Merrick. Not Otis. What about Violette? Levitt? Rosie? Old man Arkwright?”
Kit had looked ready to answer, but the last name gave him pause. His frown deepened. “Who?”
Sniffing, I turned aside and scuffed my foot against the floor. “Some ailing old man Tessa threatened to kill so she and Rosie didn’t have to leave town to find a body for the next Oath.”
It had sounded nefarious when Tessa was plotting aloud, but the same plan coming from my mouth seemed absurd. Discussing death and murder and harvesting corpses so nonchalantly was jarring, a part of the culture of Ashpoint I wasn’t sure I would ever get used to.
Kit shook his head. “That would never work. He’s a resident?”
I shrugged, and Kit smirked, looking almost amused by the idea.
“Everyone would recognize him, and murder is as frowned upon here as it is everywhere else. At least these days.”
“That’s what Rosie said,” I replied, then slowed as I eased into an uncomfortable confession. “It might also be why Tessa was going to see you. Among other things.” The heat of shame crept up my neck.
Kit tilted his head. “I’m not following,” he said.
I twisted the ball of my foot over a knot in the wooden floorboards. “I told them you had a place to find bodies.”
“Penny…” His expression shifted into one of exasperation that made me squirm.
“Tessa wanted to know where it was!” I exclaimed, and then the rest tumbled out too quickly to be stopped.
“But I don’t even know where it is, and she said you didn’t trust me because you’re a real man.
A shrewd man.” Tension rippled up my arms the same way it had when I’d stood face to face with her in Rosie’s kitchen, but I kept ranting.
“And she made chicken for you, and she was going to touch you, Kit—”
“Touch me?” Kit interrupted. “Why would she do that?”
I chewed my lip, feeling that creeping sense of sickness returning.
“She said a woman has her ways to make you talk, and she grabbed me…” My voice cracked and I trailed off, hugging my arms around my waist and wishing I’d had time to take a bath, too.
As much as I thought and fantasized about love and intimacy, I was woefully inexperienced with other people.
Besides my recent interactions with Kit, I’d only been close with one other boy as a teenager, and the girls in my hometown were as disinterested in me as I was in them.
When I’d seen Violette pawing all over Kit the day we first arrived in Ashpoint, I hadn’t considered someone could do the same to me, even in jest.
Kit’s dark eyes flitted from my arms squeezing into my middle and back up. I hadn’t explained well, but the look of horror that dawned on his face, chased quickly by anger, implied I’d been clear enough.
“Fuck her,” he spat.
My mouth twisted into a frown. “I think that’s what she wants from you.”
Kit inched nearer until he was close enough I could feel his body heat. “Then she’ll be sorely disappointed, because that’s never going to happen.”
I nodded while digging my fingers into my ribs.
Kit sighed. “Pen, are you all right?”
Sudden tears choked me, and I shook my head.
I was still tucked in and trying to avoid his eyes as he stepped closer and gathered me in a tight embrace.
When his lips brushed my temple with a kiss, I swallowed a sob.
His hands traced soothing circles on my back while I fought to rein in my emotions.
“Pity I wasn’t there,” he murmured. “Would’ve saved us a trip out of town if we had our own resident corpse to turn in.”
I pitched back to find him sporting a faint smile. I huffed a laugh, then buried my face in his shoulder, comforted by the smell of his freshly soaped skin.
“I wish you wouldn’t worry so much about her,” he said at length. “Or anyone else for that matter.”
The linen of his shirt wicked the moisture off my cheeks before I pulled back enough again to fix him with a skeptical squint. “You seem awfully worried about everyone else,” I said, then exhaled. “You worry about everything.”
He smiled sheepishly. “It’s a talent.”
I leaned into him once more, feeling his chest swell against mine through each breath. His calm soothed the internal storm that had been brewing all afternoon, but still I had doubts.
“I don’t want to be a secret, Kit,” I said. “You weren’t secretive in front of Reimond and Thoma. Why can't it be like that all the time?” When I leaned away again, Kit pressed his palm in the small of my back and used his other hand to rake the hair away from my face.
“Because it's different.”
“How is it different?” I pressed.
“They’re different,” Kit replied. “They figured out there was an ‘us’ before I did, and if not for them, I may never have said anything at all.”
Thinking back to his unexpected confession a few days prior made my heart surge. I stared at him, studying his loose curls, freshly-shaven jaw, and full lips I’d come to appreciate more and more.
“I’m glad you did,” I said.
“So am I.”
He reached for my hands again, and this time I didn't pull away. I looked down at his perfect fingers entwined with my scarred ones and expelled a heavy breath.
“It won’t be this way forever,” Kit said after a pause. “None of this will. And, for the record, it’s already the hardest secret I’ve ever had to keep.”
When he lifted my hands to his lips and kissed my knuckles, I felt myself welling up again for an entirely different reason. I pressed into him, snugging my arms around his chest and crushing in despite the ache of our still-healing brands.
It wouldn't be this way forever. That was the best thing he could have said. It meant he saw a future with me. With us. Together.
Kit let me cling to him until the last bits of my unease faded into the quiet calm of the little house.
Withdrawing, I slipped one hand into Kit’s and led him to the sofa where we sat hip to hip.
I laid my head on his shoulder, and he cupped his palm around my side, holding me against him.
It seemed he enjoyed the closeness almost more than me—at least in private.
He sought out my touch, using excuses like fixing my hair or shirt collar to create contact.
It was such a departure from his initially aloof behavior, and it brought more depth to his affection than I'd ever hoped for.
My thoughts circled through our conversation, and something he'd said earlier stuck out as important.
“So it was all about Otis?”
Kit shrugged. “I suppose so.”
“Why him?” I asked. “You said he knows things about you and your father. What makes you think that?”
Kit’s hand slid lower around my waist, where he picked absently at the tail of my leather belt.
“In his later journals, my father mentions his protege, someone he refers to as O.”
I nodded. “I've seen him come up a few times, yeah.”
“Otis seems a likely bet, don't you think?”
Thinking of the pale young man lurking around the forge looking plainly bored to be there didn't give me the impression of a threat. But Kit was as determined to find danger as he was to worry, and I'd learned it did no good to question him. “Could be,” I replied. “He's awfully young though.”
“Youthful. Easily directed. Moldable,” Kit added, sounding increasingly perturbed. “The fact that he works so closely with Harlan makes it worse.”
“You talked to him for a while. Did you figure it out for sure?”
Kit sighed through a grumble. “No. For all my questions, Otis managed to not give me any real answers. I'm no more certain who O is now than I was yesterday. For all I know he could be dead and gone, same as my father.”
At that, I gave a snort. “Good riddance.”
The savory aroma of roast chicken had grown stronger, and it made my stomach grumble. Kit must have heard it, because he chuckled and gave my side a teasing pinch. “Well, I made dinner for you, and I hardly intend to keep you from it. Sounds like you're hungry enough.”
Standing from the couch, Kit pulled me up by one hand and continued holding it as I smiled and replied, “Starved.”
We wandered into the kitchen where he ushered me into a seat at the table, insisting it was his turn to take care of me. I wondered if he knew how well he did that all the time. It was the reason I wanted him, the reason I felt safe in this strange and sometimes scary place.
If he wasn't ready to share what we had beyond our own front door, I could wait.
I'd waited weeks since we met for him to see me as more than the hapless stranger who forced my way into his life and refused to leave.
I'd waited years before that for someone to look at me the way Kit did now.
So, I could stand to be a secret for a while, and not a shameful one this time.