Chapter 21 Penny #2
Both women looked at me with varying degrees of shock.
I couldn’t decide if it was the statement that surprised them or the way my muscles bunched and my eyes narrowed with my glare.
My ire was all for Tessa, though, and I hoped she felt it.
I hoped it made her think twice before she saved Kit a meal and a seat at the tavern, or came around the forge flipping her hair and swaying her hips.
Belatedly, I wondered how Kit would feel about me making such an announcement.
He really was a private person, and he’d told me that romance of any kind was new to him.
Tessa might spread rumors around town, raising suspicions that could link Kit to me in the way he was determined not to be—for safety, not because he was ashamed.
“Not all men do, you know,” I added in a lower voice.
The sugar and berry mixture started to bubble, and I grabbed a spoon to stir. Constantly, Rosie had said. So it didn't burn.
Rosie, too, returned to her task of cutting the butter into the dry mixture in her bowl.
Between us, Tessa’s expression relaxed, and she crossed her arms. After a moment of quiet, she leaned into my peripheral.
“How are you sure Kit doesn’t fancy women?”
My mouth went dry.
Holding my tongue, watching my temper, and keeping the secret about my relationship with Kit was all becoming burdensome.
I had slept with him the night before. Wrapped my arms around him and laid my head on his chest and felt him beneath me.
I woke that morning with his heat warming me through and his smell in my nose.
If I told Tessa that, she would know how sure I was.
Kit didn’t fancy women. He fancied me.
I didn’t manage to reply before Tessa added, “Maybe he’s just shy.”
I stirred the berries and sugar furiously. Bubbles gathered and popped while the whole thing turned into a deep plum-colored slurry.
“I meant what I said,” I muttered without looking away from the compote. “And I’m sure.”
“He told you?” Tessa asked.
With his words, with his actions, with his kisses… I nipped my lower lip between my teeth, wondering if I could taste him still.
“Yes,” I said softly.
Tessa flipped her hair, and I frowned, half-convinced she would throw a loose strand into my simmering pot. I was about to ask if she would go sit somewhere out of the way when she chimed in again.
“Then I shall make it my business to change his mind.”
Heat surged into my face, setting fire to the tender feelings I’d had moments before.
How many times had people suggested the same of me?
Even my mother and father? Merrick had been particularly outspoken about my need to change, and recently thankful to the gods that I would never father children to pass my curse along to.
I wasn’t even sure I wanted children, but the idea that I was unworthy to be a parent stung.
I dropped the spoon and spun toward Tessa. It felt like smoke might seep out my nostrils as I seethed. “It’s nothing that needs changing.”
Tessa held her ground until Rosie grabbed her shoulder and pulled her away from me.
“Of course it isn’t,” Rosie said, her voice calm and steady.
She reminded me even more of Sayla, then.
My sister had been the only person in my home who never tried to convince me that I should change my preference of men over women.
She sat with me when I wept about having disappointed Father, and when I returned exhausted after a day of being paraded around from one hopeful girl to another.
Ours wasn’t an affluent family by any means, but we owned land, which put us ahead of some.
And while I’d often wondered why my parents were so concerned with my romantic choices since I was the second born son and the farm should not have been my birthright, I understood now.
They never planned to leave it to Merrick.
Rosie sidled up to me and took my hand, then rubbed my forearm in a slow, soothing motion. “Tess is just hopeful because, if not for Kit, she’ll have to settle for Anders.” She gave a wan smile.
Tessa sighed mournfully and cast her gaze aside. “He’s handsome, but so very stupid.”
I snorted. “Should be a smart match for you, then.”
Rosie cinched her hand around mine. “Penny,” she groaned.
Tessa laughed, a coarse sound that made the hairs on my neck prickle. She moved away at last, heading toward the front door. I started to relax, relieved to be rid of her until she called back.
“You’re only Kit’s recruit, you know. Not his personal guard.” Her dark brows drew a hard line above her slitted eyes. “Perhaps I’ll show him what I showed you last time. A woman’s touch is hard to resist.” Her lips quirked a wicked smile, and her gaze dropped meaningfully toward my groin.
Ripping free of Rosie, I gestured to the knife sheathed at my hip. “If you lay a hand on him, I’ll cut it off,” I snapped.
“Penny!” Rosie shouted, her tone so scolding and startled that I winced.
This was what Kit meant. The anger bleeding out of me.
The need to defend this precious thing—this man I so desperately wanted to be mine—in a world that grew increasingly dark and frightening.
I’d felt it most poignantly at the icy graveyard, far from home.
I'd been lost in the dark and dependent on Kit in a way I’d never depended on anyone.
It made me want to cling to him and push away anyone who tried to take him from me.
Merrick had made himself a threat to my tenuous happiness. Tessa had, too, and I hated them both for it. The thought of Merrick’s powerful position within the cult and Tessa’s feminine wiles drew out a side of me Kit said he didn’t recognize. I didn’t recognize it, either.
In response to my threat, Tessa laughed and pranced toward the door. “Watch out, Rose. It seems your sweet man has a bit of spice to him.”
She left, and silence flooded the house.
I stood, unmoving, and chewed my lip.
Rosie rubbed her palms over her face, then turned back to the counter and the abandoned mixing bowl. She stirred and added a splash of milk without giving me a look or word.
After a moment, I shuffled over to stand beside her. My gaze fell to the knife at my waist. Kit had made the weapon and would take it away if he caught me using it to menace women.
“I wouldn’t really cut her hand off,” I mumbled.
Rosie scoffed. “I should think not.” She gave the spoon another swirl around the bowl, then pointed it at me. “And shame on you for saying so.”
I dipped back, frowning. “What she said was bad, too!”
Rosie turned toward me and crossed her arms. “Kit is a grown man. If he has a problem with Tessa, he can handle it himself.”
I was reluctant to admit he told me the same thing.
“I thought you were a grown man, too,” she added.
My chest swelled with a haughty breath. “I am!”
Rosie shook her head. “Well, you’re acting like a spoiled child. Tessa was right. You aren’t Kit’s guard. You aren’t assigned to defend him or his honor. If he truly doesn’t fancy women, then it’s no matter at all, is it?”
I wanted to tell her that it did matter.
It mattered very much, and I could explain why, beginning with the fact that I didn’t fancy women either, and I’d grown up afraid I would live and die alone, and then I met Kit, and I loved him.
I loved him more every day, and we’d kissed in the pecan orchard and spent our nights cuddled up on the road to and from Ashpoint, and I needed to tell Rosie all of it because it was eating me up inside.
On the stove, a thin cloud of steam thickened into smoke. The forgotten pot of compote had turned to goop and was swiftly scorching.
Rosie bolted past me to move the pan away from the heat. “Oh, Penny, you burned it!”
While she fussed and grumbled, I tugged off my apron and hung it on a hook on the wall. I wandered into the living area and sank onto the couch, letting my arm fall across my eyes to block the light streaming through the nearby window.
My once-simple life had become confusing.
Some parts were wonderful, and others were worse.
Kit had warned me that Ashpoint was a dark place, and I was beginning to feel its shadows encroaching.
A large part of that was Merrick looming, but there were other things too.
It made me want to run, but not away. I wanted to go to Kit because he was my safe place.
The stink of charred fruit and sugar filled the tiny cottage.
While I sat quietly, Rosie scraped out the burned compote and set the pot aside.
When she’d mitigated the damage, she turned toward me wearing shades of the exhaustion I’d noticed when I first arrived.
Maybe it had been a bad idea to drop in the moment she got home.
A worse idea to make a mess in her kitchen and stir up trouble with Tessa.
When Sayla was tired, she liked to read or draw together.
With my sketchbook to entertain me, I could keep silent for hours.
Kit and I passed many evenings that way, reposed by the fire, quiet and content.
I missed him, suddenly, craving his company more than Rosie’s.
More than that, I wanted his arms around me the way they had been the previous night.
A lonely ache gripped my heart as Rosie crept over and stood before me.
“What say we skip the baking lesson today?” she asked.
I nodded mutely.
“The kittens are in my bedroom,” she said, reminding me of the calico’s litter that I hadn’t seen in weeks. They barely had their eyes open the last time I’d been here.
She smiled. “You won’t believe how big they’ve gotten.”
I brightened at the thought of seeing the potbellied fuzz-balls scampering about.
Rosie held out her hand to help me up. I took it and tailed her toward the back of the house, and I was grateful. Grateful to Rosie for grounding me and reminding me where I came from. Maybe even who I really was. Who I needed to be for Kit.