Chapter 19
The kiss followed him like a whip lashing his soul and flesh to shreds. He rode faster. Air beat at his face, watering his eyes, and the muddy countryside became a blur to him.
That was different.
She was different.
The way she poured over his lips. The surprise. The yielding. Then the vigor, as everything else wore away and she lost her fears and her mouth ceased to tremble. The taste of her clung to him. Poisoned him.
Like the muffled words he’d heard behind the closed breakfast room door. “You must put an end to such nonsense … if you require your wife to possess decorum.”
He clutched the reins, leaned forward, gaining speed the same time his heart clenched again. He’d be hanged before he’d see her marry such a fool. She didn’t belong at Penrose Abbey, and she didn’t belong with Lord Cunningham.
She belonged with Tom.
She’d been happy.
Loved him.
He had been the one she looked at with glowing fascination, and she the one he needed to keep drawing breath.
He’d been caught in the throes of destruction.
He’d been lost when she found him. Out of his mind.
He’d sat alone by the forge, at thirteen years old, and emptied an entire bottle of Meade’s gut-biting ale.
The next morning, Meg had smelled it on his breath. “You going to make that your salvation, are you?”
“What do ye mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
He wasn’t certain he did, but he’d never touched a bottle since. He couldn’t bear the way she’d looked at him. But he’d still needed a salvation, and almost unconsciously, Meg became that. He’d needed her too much. He still did.
Now he was freefalling alone, and the holes in his soul were only yawning bigger.
Against his will, he glanced up.
The sky stared down at him, the clouds gray and shifting as sunlight ringed the edges. He’d distracted his mind against every sermon the vicar read. He’d closed his heart, because it was easier to believe God did not exist than that He’d said no.
Jagged emotions ripped through him. Pebbles burst on his flesh like the sensations he’d felt back in his childhood cottage when he’d said his prayers with Mamm. She’d called it the breath of God.
Part of him wished he could get that back.
That he could believe again.
He just wasn’t certain he could.
“What are you doing?”
With one final tug, Uncle yanked the white-flowered plant from the courtyard garden. He fingered the roots. “Licorice plant.”
Meg edged closer to him, rubbing her arms for lack of anything to do with her hands. Her heart ticked faster. “His lordship has been very kind to us. I think it only just we leave his garden intact.”
“Huh. Still there.”
“What is?”
“Your spirit.” Her uncle stuffed the roots into his pocket. “Add a little honey, this will make syrup. Good for coughs.”
“Which none of us has.”
He spared her a quick glance before jerking his head back away. He’d disappeared all morning and had missed luncheon. Only an hour ago, a servant had spotted him out here. “Peering at all the flowers,” the scullery maid had said, “like they was paintings in the prince regent’s Blue Velvet Room.”
Meg had moseyed back and forth from her chamber to the courtyard entrance three times before she’d finally gained enough mettle to face him. The silence she’d been dreading expanded between them.
Say something. She bit the inside of her cheek. Anything.
He moved to the next flower bush.
She followed. “Tom calls you a goat.” Instant regret flooded her, but it was the first sensible alignment of words she could form. “You do not get along well, I presume.”
Uncle harrumphed. Was that all?
“You must have disliked him greatly to deem him so utterly unsuitable a match.”
“Tom’s a good boy.”
“Then why did you—”
“He wasn’t for you.”
“Why not?” With intensity, her lips began to tingle.
The morning’s catastrophe was like venom in her veins—not deadly, only troubling enough to make her weak and startled.
His aftertaste was beautiful. No. Terrible.
What made him think he had the right to kiss her?
More outrageous still, why had she let him?
“You’re young.” Uncle rubbed a hand down his coat as if brushing off dirt that wasn’t there. “I know what’s best for you, and I do what’s best for you.”
“Without any regard for what I know myself?” Why was she defending the old Meg? “Never mind. I do not wish to quarrel. In fact, I sought you out with intentions just the contrary.”
“It’s in your blood.”
“What?”
“Being cantankerous.” A whisper of pride dulled the sharp edges of his voice. When he glanced at her, a little sheepish, the first smile crooked his lips. “Thought it over today. Won’t be going to Juleshead. Going to stay here. With you, Meggie girl.”
“And you’ve no inkling who might be responsible for this?”
“No.”
“Or what we might have possibly done wrong to warrant such hate?”
“We’re not perfect.” Her uncle reached over and with leathery hands grabbed her fingers. He gave a swinging little squeeze. “But we do what we can to make people well. All we can do.”
She desperately wanted the words to be true. But someone had penned those letters, and someone was willing to kill—just to prove it wasn’t.
Finding the place was not as difficult as Tom had imagined.
The house sat alone, two miles out from the east end of Juleshead on an acre of unkempt cherry orchards and splintery grape arbors. The roughcast yellow walls, hipped slate roof, and curtained sash windows lent the house a look of domestic innocence.
Tom nearly scowled.
Innocence indeed.
He scaled the stone porch steps and rapped on the door. He assumed he should knock. He’d never visited such an establishment before. Nor listened to stories of those who had.
He may not be a saint, but he knew right from wrong well enough. This was about as wrong as what happened in Meg’s alley.
“Fawgive me.” A plump older woman answered the door after several long minutes.
“Didn’t hear you knockin’ there, stranger.
” She grabbed his arm and guided him into a floral-papered hallway, where she motioned him to sit on the bottom step of a staircase.
“New here, ain’t you, governaw? Don’t you worry none.
Mamma Lieselotte here will find you a pretty little sweet chuck. ”
He remained standing. “I didnae come for that.”
“You shy one, you.”
“I want to speak with ye about Elisabeth.”
“Of course you do. You must be him wot come to take her things.” Lieselotte tucked a frizzy white ringlet back beneath her lace cap, giggling. “She always says to me she has a cousin somewhere, and I had nigh ’bout given up hope she had.”
“Nay, miss, I’m nae family. I just wish to ask ye some questions.” He waited until she was finished distracting herself fingering dust film off the staircase banister before he proceeded. “How did she die?”
“She was ill, poor little bird.”
“Of what?”
“Something a pint of gin and merry heart might o’ cured, if you asked me. Was my husband wot thought something was wrong. He figured she … well, far be it from me to speak unkindly of the dead.” Lieselotte climbed two of the stairs. “Come up, and I’ll show you the girls, love.”
“Who came?”
“Pardon?”
“Ye must have sent for a doctor.”
She clucked. “We take rights fine care o’ our sweet wenches, we do. Sent for Mr. Foxcroft right off. He’s the apothecary, you know. A fine and handsome gent.”
“He was unable to help?”
“You know the sad story, don’t you, governaw?” Lieselotte shook her head. “Died, she did, right with Mr. Foxcroft still in the chamber with her.”
Ice rushed through Tom’s veins. He gripped the banister. “ ’Twas unexpected.”
“ ’Deed, it was.”
“Ye must have questioned it.”
“Wot’s there to question?” Lieselotte crossed her jiggling bare arms across her bosom.
“I don’t pretend to knows the way of Him wot made us.
Just try to make the best of it. You oughts to do the same.
” She made one more head bob up the steps.
“But if you really wants to know ’bout Elisabeth, I say you talk to Bibby. ”
“Who is that?”
“The last person Elisabeth spoke to ’fore she died.”
“Am I to pretend I am unaware of the way you look at me?”
Meg turned another page of The Lady’s Monthly Museum—an insufferable magazine Lady Walpoole had shoved into her hand two hours ago.
“You must express some measure of discipline in your reading,” she’d scolded. “I should be very pleased if you finished this before I return.”
Meg had occupied her time in the music room watching birds out the window, counting the motifs in the Persian rug, and occasionally browsing the next page in the magazine. She retained very little of the text. Who cared a fig about colored fashion plates and celebrated British ladies?
Especially when the only thing she could think about was the kiss.
The one that should not have happened.
“Violet is asking for you.” Lord Cunningham must have grown weary waiting for her answer, because he turned to the rosewood cellarette. He poured sherry from a crystal decanter. “It seems she can no longer be pacified with books and dolls.”
“We all require friendship.”
“Which you deem I have forfeited.”
His wine glass stilled at his lips, and his eyes sought hers with overt distress. “I have not, Margaret. The incident can be explained.”
“That is not necessary.”
“I think it is.”
She tossed the magazine onto a stand and stood. “It is over, my lord. I think the tragedies of that night better left unvisited.”
“The same explosion that threw you from your horse and had my footman nearly trampled wreaked an equally unfortunate reaction in my own mount. He bolted.”
“And did not cease running until he reached Penrose?” She released an annoyed breath. This was not her intention. She had no desire to make him defend his actions when it hardly mattered anyway. “Excuse me. Violet is waiting—”
“As have I, which seems to matter very little to you.” He gulped down the sherry, then grimaced as if both the taste and the circumstances were unfavorable to him.