Chapter 20
The ride back and forth between Juleshead and home was beginning to wear on him. Saddle sores blistered his bottom, making him eager to dismount the moment he reined to a stop in front of Mrs. Musgrave’s.
He guided the horse behind the shop. He was torn betwixt the driving need to seek out answers here in the village and the frantic desire to see Meg—safe and well—every single day. The three-some hour distance made that difficult.
Securing the reins to a cast-iron hitching post, Tom knocked on the back kitchen door.
It came open almost instantly, and Joanie flew into his arms. “Tom! You’re back.”
He laughed, dragging her into the kitchen with him. “ ’Tis only been a couple days, lass.”
“And the best I’ve had in years.” Mrs. Musgrave stirred into a glazed terracotta mixing bowl with a wooden spoon. The too-warm room carried a lingering aroma of cooked sausage and muffins. “She can trim more hats in one afternoon than I can do in three.”
“And look.” Joanie left the room and came back with a straw, flower-brimmed bonnet. She tied it on and grinned. “Do you like it?”
“Nay, I don’t.” He motioned her to take it off, laughing. “Ye’ll be having every young dandy in the village looking to court ye. I’ll darken the daylights of anyone who tries.”
Joanie’s cheeks tinted pink. Before she could respond, Mrs. Musgrave pulled the child close and kissed her head. “Leave my girl alone, Tommy. Enough of your jesting. Now go along, dear, and finish sewing that last hat before this rapscallion whisks you away from me.”
“Rapscallion, am I?”
“Hush with you.” Mrs. Musgrave muttered something cross under her breath, but her eyes gleamed with affection. When they were alone, she ushered him into a chair. “Sit down and let me fix you something. You are hungry, are you not?”
“Starved.”
“Good.” Within minutes, she had a hot plate of sausage, fruit, and blueberry-jam toast before him. He tried to eat slowly. He was hungry enough to ravish everything in two minutes flat. “I spoke with those who knew Elisabeth.”
He’d updated Mrs. Musgrave on what he’d found in the registry the day he visited the church. She’d shaken her head, dubious that the two had any connection.
“She died like your husband. While Mr. Foxcroft was still in the room.” She perked. “Then it is true.”
“We dinnae know anything for sure.”
“Tommy—”
“I’ve known Mr. Foxcroft a long time.” His hunger dwindled. “I’m not saying he did this. Only that someone thinks he did.”
“But you will not consider the possibility yourself.”
“He would not do this.”
“He did.”
“What makes ye so sure?” Tom pushed his chair away from the table, a fume of anger traveling through him. “Last time we spoke, ye had as many questions as me.”
“I still do, dear. I do not mean to be unkind.” She sighed and sat in the chair across him.
“You remember the day you discovered me in Dr. Bagot’s chamber at the inn?
I was not there to give him treats as you presumed.
I wanted to speak with him. I wanted to find out if what happened to Elias was accidental or deliberate. ”
“He was gone.”
“Yes. So I wrote to him instead.” She hesitated. “The letter came two days ago. Without a body to examine and more knowledge of whatever was ailing my husband, his answer was inconclusive. But he did think it strange. That it should happen there, with Mr. Foxcroft, and without warning.”
The taste of blueberries soured in Tom’s mouth. He came to his feet. “I need ye to keep Joanie a wee bit longer. I’ve someone to speak with. Someone who knew Elisabeth.”
“We have so little idea who all Mr. Foxcroft might have hurt. Is it not too hopeful, my dear, to think a loved one of this unfortunate woman might be whom we seek?”
“Aye. Maybe.” Tom gripped the back of the chair with frustration. He wanted to curse. “But it’s all we have.”
There. She’d found him.
Meg stepped through the kitchen and leaned into the adjoining stillroom doorway.
The small, mustard-colored room was crowded with a brick oven, two tables, and a pottery still.
Various dried flowers hung from a board attached to the ceiling, and their strong floral scents sent a flicker of familiarity through her body.
Which was impossible.
She’d never been down here in her life.
“Took a look at the medicine cabinet.” Uncle did not so much as look up as he stuffed dried chamomile into a jar. “Missing some tinctures.”
“That is generous of you. I am certain Lord Cunningham shall appreciate you refilling his stock.”
“Get a stool.”
“Pardon?”
“You need to know these things.”
“Oh.” She smiled, but finding no stool, cleared off a space on the table and pushed herself up. She watched with mild interest as her uncle poured alcohol into the jar, crushed the flowers, shook it, then screwed on the lid.
“Needs to sit.”
“How long?”
“Couple fortnights.” He lumbered across the room and slid the jar onto a shelf. She wasn’t sure it belonged there among what appeared to be a stock of freshly cut soaps, but she did not argue. “Still need clove essence. Case of any toothaches.”
“I can speak with Cook. I am certain she can attain whatever you need.”
He nodded, went to work brushing his mess from the table. Then he turned to leave.
“Uncle?”
He glanced at her, one wiry brow jerking up.
“I did call you that. Did I not?”
A brusque nod.
“Good.” Good? She gripped the edge of the table until her fingers cramped. Why was it so difficult for her to speak with him? “We have talked so little. I have so many questions.”
He blinked. Nodded again.
“You see, I did not … well, I did not lose all of my memories. I have this faint image of a cottage. A man and a woman and ducks. I was hoping you might tell me more.”
He shrugged.
“They are my parents, are they not?”
“Likely.”
“What were they like?”
“Don’t know much. Didn’t talk to my brother for years. Never met your mother.”
“Why?”
“We fought. I was finishing up my apprenticeship in Juleshead while he was writing for a magazine near Eastbourne. Lived in a little cottage outside town, he did, near the sea.”
She could almost catch the whiff of salt on the air as it rustled through the bluebells and cornflowers. Homesickness struck her. “How did they die?”
“Measles.”
“How did you find out about me?”
“Got a letter from a neighbor. By the time I got to Eastbourne, you were over the sickness and living with a widow. Brought you home. You screamed at me to take you back.”
“I did not understand.”
“No.”
“You must have been very patient.”
He turned his face away, but not before she noticed the rising red on his cheeks.
The endearment such memories obviously stirred in him.
“Took a week before you’d talk. Then one evening you just came and crawled onto my lap.
” His laugh was a little shaken. “My girl.” With an awkward grumble, he went into the kitchen, leaving an aura of nostalgia in his wake.
Meg wiped her eyes. So many doubts swarmed her, like bees stinging her peace. The letters, the threats, the questions.
One thing she knew now.
She had loved her uncle. He had loved her back. If he was the monster the letters accused him of being, was that even possible?
Nerves taut, Tom rapped on the flimsy kitchen door of the coaching inn. He rubbed his hand over his jaw. His skin was smooth. Too smooth. Why had he ever allowed Joanie and Mrs. Musgrave to talk him into this?
Over supper yesterday, he’d made the mistake of telling them both about the dinner party he would attend at Penrose Abbey.
Mrs. Musgrave had bustled away in search of her husband’s Sunday tailcoat and pantaloons.
“With a little snipping and trimming, it shall be perfect,” she assured him, pressing the coat to his chest for inspection.
Joanie had found the razor. “Please, Tom. Just so we can see what you look like.”
He’d spent an hour resisting them both. In the end, he stood still like a ninny while Mrs. Musgrave stretched a paper tape across his shoulders and Joanie held the mirror in front of his face.
Each clump of red beard floating to his feet made him groan inside.
Tom bristled back to the present when the kitchen door whined open.
“Well.” Betsey straightened and swooped a couple loose wisps behind her ear. “Mr. McGwen, I would hardly have recognized you.”
“Is your father home?”
“Need to speak with him ’bout something?” She leaned out the doorway, snickering. “I’m not rightly particular about courtin’ rules. You can just ask me, if that’s why you got all shined up for.”
From behind, Mrs. Creagh seized the girl’s arm and hauled her back. “What you want, McGwen? The likes o’ us working folk don’t have time for natter.”
“I came to speak with Mr. Creagh.”
“He’s busy.”
“It’s important.”
“Huh.” Mrs. Creagh muttered a few choice words, then shouted over her shoulder at Betsey. “Get upstairs and fetch your fat-skulled father. No dawdling!” She motioned Tom into the kitchen, shooing a couple chickens back out the door before she slammed it shut.
She went back to chopping celery and carrots with hard thwacks. “So. What you want with the likes o’ Mr. Creagh?”
“It’s a private matter.”
“Came for Betsey, I reckon.”
“Nay, madam.”
“Now there’s a clever one.” She raised her knife at Tom, her smile hard. “That girl hain’t worth the shillings it’d take to feed her. Hain’t got a sensible thought in that flighty little head.”
The slight urge to defend the girl rose in him. Perhaps if the woman did less to beat Betsey down, she would have flourished with a little more grace. And sense.
Mr. Creagh entered before Tom could say so. “What’s this about?”
“I’d like to speak with ye alone.”
Mr. Creagh kicked shut the door. Likely so Betsey would not squeeze back in. “Anything you wants to say can be said in front of me wife.”
“Sir—”
“Out with it, McGwen, ’fore I lose my patience.”
Tom swallowed hard against the notion this wasn’t right. He spared a pitying glance at the missus. “It concerns Elisabeth.”
Mr. Creagh blanched. Speechless.
Thwack.