Chapter 21 Penny
Penny
The next day came with much needed good news.
Rosie and Tessa had returned with their body, and it wasn’t old man Arkwright.
In fact, I saw him in the market that morning.
I had been keeping note of his comings and goings since Tessa suggested his murder.
He had a routine that was easy to track.
He made the same walk through the square in the early hours, paid the same visits to the same vendors, and purchased the same boiled egg and pastry for breakfast. Every day.
He seemed happy, always smiling, but I wondered if he was lonely. He had no children, no wife—or husband—and I couldn’t help but think that might have been my future. I had been near certain it would be… until recently.
I wore a smile of my own as I made my way down the lane to Rosie’s cottage. I’d missed her terribly over the past few weeks and had left the forge early to pay her a surprise visit.
When I knocked once, then admitted myself into the cozy little house, I was the one surprised to find Tessa standing in the living area, cradling Rosie’s cat like it was a newborn baby.
My lip curled reflexively, and I fought the urge to retreat.
I might have done exactly that if Rosie hadn’t rushed into sight with a wide grin on her face and her arms thrown open for a hug.
“Penny!” she exclaimed.
She crossed the rug to me, and I entered her embrace, squeezing a bit harder than usual and lifting her onto her tiptoes. Her giggle in response reminded me so much of my sister’s sweet laughter that it almost made up for Tessa standing aside, looking as annoyed by my presence as I was by hers.
I released Rosie, and she smoothed her hands down her dress. Time on the road had left her weary, but her dark eyes danced as she fixed them on me.
“I had planned to relax this afternoon,” she said, “but since you’re here, we might as well get a bit of baking done, hmm?”
I’d come to catch up and visit, but Tessa excelled at talking and had proven able to dominate conversations she wasn’t invited to. Perhaps if Rosie and I busied ourselves in the kitchen, the other woman would get bored and move along.
Nodding, I replied cheerily, “Might as well.”
Rosie went to the adjoining room where the kitchen counters were clear and ready for us to lay out ingredients. When I passed Tessa still holding the scruffy calico, she cleared her throat.
“Hello, Penny,” she said.
I paused to give her a glance. “Hi.”
She huffed and tossed her long hair. “That’s better. I was starting to wonder if you’d lost your sight or just your manners.”
My teeth clicked together in a hard bite. After the previous night, I’d resigned myself to getting better at holding my tongue, but I hadn’t expected to be tested so soon.
“Just my manners, I suppose,” I muttered, then shuffled into the kitchen where Rosie had donned an apron and was holding one out for me.
With Tessa at my back, I focused fully on Rosie.
I had so much to tell her about mine and Kit’s journey out of town, and the cemetery, and how Kit saved me when I was sick.
As much as that, I wanted to lament about the family dinner with Merrick and Violette.
Though, I would probably leave out the part where my half-brother called me a deviant and made me cry.
Yes, I would definitely leave out that part.
Rosie opened cabinets and rummaged for the ingredients she stacked in my arms while chatting enthusiastically about the recipe she wanted to teach me. It had a winter berry compote we’d have to cook on the stove, and she was already insisting I would need to stir it to keep the bottom from burning.
I had made jam with my mother and Sayla plenty of times and was certain this would be much the same, but I enjoyed listening to Rosie’s instructions while I lined the bowls and bags of powdered goods on the wood countertop.
With her own arms laden, Rosie bustled by.
She smiled wide while she bumped her shoulder into mine, then giggled again.
I’d been fortunate to find this home away from home. Even Rosie’s parents reminded me of my own. As much as I enjoyed Kit’s company and our quiet nights together, I needed this, too. The sense of family allowed me to feel close to my farm and the life I missed more than ever.
I especially missed my father. Being far from home had allowed me to deny the dark truth that brought me to Ashpoint.
I could imagine my father was still alive and well and would be waiting when I returned to Eastcliff.
It had only been three months since his passing, but so much had happened in that time.
It felt like I’d started a whole new life, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to lose my old one.
Rosie and I had barely gotten the flour measured into a mixing bowl when Tessa squeezed in between us.
“Rose, you have to tell him about the Oath,” she insisted. “We did a fine job for two women on our own, if I may say so.”
Rosie’s brow furrowed as she reached for a large wooden spoon. “It was rather uneventful, really.” She stabbed the spoon into the bowl, then motioned for me to hand her the sugar. “Nasty work.”
Tessa swung the calico in her arms. A devious smile crept across her face as she turned toward me. “We weren’t entirely prepared… Had to put the body in a stolen wheelbarrow. It was still warm.”
My stomach lurched.
Had they killed someone after all?
I looked at Rosie to refute the story or better explain it, but she busied herself with mixing and avoided my eyes.
“It was my father’s idea,” Tessa bragged. “He mentioned a plague in Ferndale. Said people were dying in the streets.”
“They were,” Rosie muttered. Her umber skin had taken on an ashen tone.
“You went to a town with plague?” I stepped back.
More than that, they touched a body with plague, then ferried it from Ferndale all the way back to Ashpoint. The disease could have been catching. It might have spread.
Tessa shifted the cat to her hip and flapped her free hand at my obvious distress. “We wore masks. Gloves. Proper clothing. Burned it all.”
“We had to run through the woods in our undergarments,” Rosie chimed in, chagrined. “I thought I’d catch my death of cold.”
“Better that than plague.” Tessa chortled.
“Dead is dead, Tess,” Rosie retorted with a scowl.
I thought of Cait and Edgar, caught and killed for similar crimes. Since my father’s passing, death had become a constant in my life. It seemed rampant.
Tessa rounded on me. “What about you, Penny? I heard you and Kit were back days ago.” She sighed wistfully. “He truly is an exceptional man.”
My expression soured, and I moved past her to the stove where I checked the fire before getting a pot to start the compote.
Tessa stooped to let the cat leap away, then dusted her hands together.
“Seems you weren’t lying about that spot of his,” she carried on.
“And to divide the bones into boxes? I wish Rose and I had thought of that. We had the thing in a leather sack, bumping around in the cart and raising an ungodly stench. It’s a wonder the vultures didn’t follow us the whole way home. ”
Rosie gagged and covered her mouth.
“I will say, it’s simpler with bones, isn’t it?” Tessa mused. “Less mess. You got off easy.”
Recalling the night I’d spent clutching the lantern at the graveside while Kit toiled over the frozen ground made my head shake.
Nothing about it had been easy, certainly not for Kit.
He’d struggled and insisted on sparing me the work even though his own body was weak from the hemlock.
Then, when I passed out, he drove me to the mission. He held my hands…
Rosie gave me a bowl of berries to dump in the pan, then followed them with a heaping scoop of sugar.
“I should ask Kit to share his secret stash,” Tessa said. I’d almost managed to tune her out. “I never see him in town. He's only ever working the forge when he's there. He never wanders the market...”
Taking a spare rolling pin, I turned its end down into the pan and began crushing the berries. Deep, purple juice bled into the sugar crystals in swelling splotches.
“Kit’s a private person,” I muttered, and Tessa laughed.
“I would like to get to know him in private,” she teased.
Tension rippled up my spine, and I tightened my grip on the rolling pin. I ground it against the berries, popping them, then twisting so the thin skins shredded. “Can we talk about something else?” I aimed my question at Rosie, hoping she could come up with another topic.
Rosie scooped a lump of butter into her bowl while looking more than a bit overwhelmed. Before she could change the subject, Tessa continued, though it seemed she was speaking more to herself than either of us.
“Perhaps I should pay him a visit at the smithy,” she said. “I hesitate to interrupt his work though. He looks so strapping swinging that hammer.”
A growl edged out of me. Grinding the berries into pulp had only done so much to vent the frustration that had been mounting since I first saw the nag of a woman haunting Rosie’s home.
I was beginning to like her even less than Violette, and that was saying something.
In fact, Violette had improved in my estimation after I’d learned she didn’t care for Merrick much more than I did.
But as for Tessa prowling the town square planning to catch Kit unaware, descending on him with sharp claws and salacious intent, I wouldn’t allow it. I needed to put an end to her fantasies of having any sort of dalliance with him. A firm stop.
I set the rolling pin on the counter with a loud knock. Rosie jumped as I whirled on Tessa and declared, “Kit doesn’t fancy women.”