Chapter 14 #2
“In his cottage. He has no chairs with which to offer me a seat, his only furniture being a small table and two makeshift pallets. Thus, I do not think it fair to accuse him on that account.” She shrugged. “As to your second concern, we had a chaperone.”
“His sister.”
“Yes.”
“I specified proper, you must remember.”
“Which she is, to the utmost.” Meg sighed, liveliness coursing through her body as strongly as the hunger—and the aches. Had her muscles truly grown this lax in so few months?
“What manner of excuse do you have for his mastery over you?”
“It was my choice.”
“Oh?”
“I petitioned him to teach me everything he knows of Meg Foxcroft. His methods, it seems, include showing rather than telling.”
At her bedchamber door, Lord Cunningham cupped her shoulder. His eyes sobered. “I cannot tell if I am wise or foolish for allowing you these liberties.”
Allowing her? Meg frowned but forgave him, all in the same heartbeat. He was afraid. As was she. “I cannot marry you until I do this.”
“I hope you shall still marry me when you do.”
“You doubt me.”
“I doubt him.” Lord Cunningham guided her back into the wall, face dipping to hers.
“I doubt his scruples, his involvement in your danger, and even this.” He flicked paint off her cheekbone with a gloved finger.
“You must not allow him to beguile you, my dear. I cannot bear for him to ruin you twice.”
“You assume much.” She pulled his hand back down, just as his fingers ascended into her hair. “About Tom and … who we were before.”
“It is not my wish to distress you.”
“How much do you know?”
“Dear.”
“Please.”
His sigh spread over her face, warm but oddly disagreeable, like a fruit left unattended a day too long.
“It is no secret among residences of Juleshead that your courtship with McGwen was anything but respectable. He enticed you into the night, as if you were a common trollop, and for all his years of courtship—could you call it that—he failed in his one chance to make it right. He did not marry you.”
Disappointment throttled her, but the words felt unreal. She had many offenses against Tom. He had acted untoward so many times and made her livid more than that.
But beneath the beard and brashness, she had a recurring sense she could … well … trust him.
Maybe it was the way he had rushed into Joanie’s chamber and rubbed the girl’s face the night his sister had been injured. Or maybe it was just the way Joanie looked at him. As if he were the sun and moon. As if he could do anything.
Meg didn’t know. She didn’t know him well enough to know.
“I am sorry.” She lifted her head. “You only mean to protect me, for which my gratitude knows no bounds. But tales grow larger sometimes in the hands of little people.”
“You do not believe me.”
“I believe you do not know the truth any more than I do.” Meg ducked under his arm and pulled open her chamber door. “Goodnight, my lord. Tomorrow, I promise I shall give myself fully to Lady Walpoole and her lessons.”
He nodded, bowed, and forced a smile she detected was not sincere. How long would he stand by and permit her to hunt down the truth? What would she do when he stopped?
She was restless.
Meg had imagined the warm bath and the japanned tray of food would have induced sleep after so long a day. It didn’t. She lifted her eyes to the mirror across the room, almost proud that her cheeks glowed a soft, sun-burnt pink.
She did not wish to examine today.
If she was invigorated, it was only the result of physical labor and the sweet countryside air. Which was quite ordinary. After all, had she not been injured and bedridden endless days in a row? Then kept inside, like a fragile figurine, lest anyone attack?
Finding her wrapper, she shrugged it on and left her bedchamber. She navigated to Violet’s door and gave a light tap.
“Who is it?” Jenny’s sleepy voice.
“Miss Foxcroft.”
Seconds later, the door opened to Jenny’s tousled hair and watery eyes. “Oh, miss, you quite frightened me.” From slumber, it seemed. “Come in.”
“You may retire. I shall stay with the child.”
“But his lordship—”
“Shall not mind, I assure you.”
Jenny looked as if she might argue further, but the thought of rest must have been too overpowering. She nodded and ambled from the room.
“She snores, and I hate it.” Violet sat cross-legged on top of her coverlets, a doll on each side of her and a book in her lap. She appeared stronger, and though her cheeks lacked much color, her little bow-shaped lips were more pink than blue. “Did Father send you to read to me?”
“No.” Meg sat on the edge of the bed. “In truth, I was quite forbidden to attend dinner, so I thought I might seek out company with you.”
Violet grinned at this. “What did you do?”
“It is too terrible to tell.”
“Tell me!”
Meg laughed and scooted closer. She whispered her naughtiness of boy’s trousers and red paint into Violet’s ear, and the girl threw back her head with a cackle.
“I bet Father glowered.”
Glowered? Meg almost laughed. “That is a big word for such a small child.”
“I read a lot.” Violet nodded to her book. “I have already read this one fourteen times. The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes.” She flipped to the next page. “I love Margery.”
“Shall I read to you?”
Violet nodded, and after they’d situated themselves against pillows and Violet had pulled both dolls into her arms, Meg began.
She read in tones that were hushed and animated.
Though she found little delight in the story itself, Violet’s swift corrections to Meg’s mispronunciations had both of them giggling.
When the book was finished, Violet sighed and yawned. “Miss Foxcroft?”
“Hmm?”
“Will you read a little longer?”
“You must sleep now.”
“I hate sleeping.”
“Come now. It shan’t be as terrible as all that.” Meg slid off the bed, tugged loose the coverlets, and helped Violet under them. “Do you wish to sleep with your dolls?”
“No. I am not a baby.”
“Oh. But of course.” Meg removed the toys to their own doll-sized beds on the floor. “Better?”
“Will you stay?”
“I fear all this reading has made me tired too.”
“Just a little longer. Please.” The last word—spoken without that usual demanding pitch—softened Meg’s resolve. The child was unruly. She was pampered.
But she was as destitute as little Margery Meanwell in the children’s book. Not of shoes, care, food, and shelter—but of company, affection, and hope.
Meg nestled next to the girl under the coverlets, a little surprised when Violet cuddled into Meg’s chest. For a long time, she prayed.
Help Violet to be well. Her hair was damp and cool against the pillow, and Violet’s skin was warm against hers.
Do not let Lord Cunningham suffer greatly. Make him happy. God, make me love him.
Violet’s breathing turned heavier, slower, a little wheezy.
Keep me safe. Meg’s eyes slid shut. Make me a better woman than I was. Sleep drifted, like a fog settling over her, then lifting again. Help Joanie. Help … She pulled back the name Tom, because she was afraid to think of him.
All evening long, he’d crowded on the outskirts of her mind, and if she lowered her bulwarks once, he would barge in. Help him, God. The prayer came anyway. She must have been too tired to keep up the walls.
How quiet he’d been today as she stood two feet away and stroked paint onto his cottage. “Ye’re doing it wrong,” he told her once. He’d walked over, grabbed her wrist, and swept the brush up and down in a smooth and vertical motion. “See?”
She had nodded. “You must forgive me if I am inept. I have never painted before.”
“Yes, ye have.”
Her pulse had sprinted, and her skin tingled a little where his work-roughened fingers had touched her bare wrist. She should have worn gloves. But how could she have known he would touch her?
He spoke next to nothing over the next two hours. He never did put on his shirt.
But when Joanie finally emerged from the cottage, declaring dinner would be finished soon, Tom took Meg to the water pump, watched her clean the paint, then did the same himself. He rode her back to Penrose Abbey on the back of his horse.
“If it is agreeable to you, I shall come again in a day or two. I do hope our second lesson shall be a trifle more enlightening.”
He had swung her off his animal without dismounting himself. “Ye willnae come alone.”
“No, I will not come alone. Good day, Mr. McGwen.”
He looked at her a second longer than he should have. Slow, careful—not angry or exasperated as she had first suspected. Almost … wary? Of her? He rode away without saying anything.
That silence haunted her into sleep.