Chapter 21 #2
Something untoward nearly sailed from his lips, but he clamped his mouth shut. He backstepped inside, clasping his hands behind his head. “Joanie is abed.”
“You were not, I see.” She moved to the table, where the Bible was sprawled out in front of a hastily scooted-back chair and a burnt-out candle. Her brow rose.
He frowned. “This isnae mine.”
“It would be no disgrace if it were.”
He whipped the book shut, then lit a candle to busy his hands.
Meg stood still.
Awkward.
Seconds drifted, and the pounding inside his chest sped out of beat as the cottage warmed in the soft orange glow.
“The curtains look lovely,” she said, untying her cloak.
“Aye.”
“You painted the mantel.”
“Needed done.”
“These are new too.” She roamed toward the kitchen, where he’d hung a worn copper ladle, basin, and pan. Old treasures Mrs. Musgrave had sent home with him. “Joanie will use them much, I am certain. She is a very domestic child.”
Quietness again, save for the breeze whistling through the chimney and Gyb clawing at the rug with a sleepy yawn. The air smelled sweet. Like violets.
“May I sit?”
“Aye.” Tom pulled out a chair. Circled the table.
“You may sit too.”
“Nae need.”
She stared up at him. Her hair was loose and bed ruffled, and airy wisps floated about her face just like they’d done a thousand years ago.
Och, but there was a softness about her.
That same look she’d given him when he’d been lying on the street at twelve years old, wiping blood from his lip as the urchins fled away.
He had not wanted her pity then.
He didn’t want it now.
“Thought ye’d find me languishing, did ye?” He rubbed his neck, frustrated. “If ye came for me, ye wasted yer time.”
“It is my time to waste.”
“I dinnae need your help.”
“I would not know how to administer it, even if you did.”
His nerve ends bounced with energy, tempting him to shift back and forth. He grabbed the back of the chair instead. “What do ye want?”
“For you to sit.”
“Then?”
“I thought we might talk.”
“About what?”
“Whatever you wish.”
The temptation to sling her back into the cloak, throw her over his shoulder, and lug her home almost won. He sank into his seat and sighed. “ ’Tis the middle of the night.”
“Something I imagined would be of little consequence if stories of our midnight excursions are true.”
He scowled.
She smiled.
Maybe he was only tired, but her lips stretched wider, and her eyes danced with warm, alluring candlelight. Did she tease him?
Aye.
This side of her he knew.
Against his own resolve, his lips responded to her—upturning, breaking with a laugh as he shook his head in ragged amusement. “Ye’ve nae wits about ye, lass. Ye always think ye can be running about to do as ye wish.”
“This from the man who lured me to mischief.”
“Och.”
“From the man who stole my stockings.”
“Stockings?” He cocked his head at her in mock denial. “Who told ye about that?”
“That was terrible of you.”
“That’s what ye said.” The laugh hurt. The memory hurt. “I gave them back.”
“All of them?”
“Some.”
“You must have found it great sport to exasperate me.” When he did not answer, she sighed and rested her chin in her hands. “You are not the only one.” She soared off into some nonsense concerning Lady Walpoole. A languid and sleepy recount of how the woman tortured Meg to death.
The stories amused him.
Lulled him.
In an old and easy way, he was drawn back into answering everything she said in hushed tones and laughing when she made faces. He didn’t measure his words. He sensed she didn’t either.
Sitting between them on its pewter chamberstick, the candle dripped shorter and shorter.
Gyb climbed on his lap.
Meg slumped on the table, holding her head up with her hand, yawning and smiling while Tom told her about the time he’d sunk a fishing boat three miles from shore.
“Surely I was not the only one who noticed your absence.”
“When I made it to the docks, ye were the only one there.”
“Meade would have realized, doubtless.”
“Next morning, mayhap.”
“And …”
“And what?”
“Well.” Her drooping eyes fell, and a rush of pink collected on her cheeks.
“You must have known the village chits cast eyes upon you. I imagine they would have all rallied to your rescue had they known you were in peril.” She troubled the edge of her bottom lip.
“Captain Godfrey is a very interesting, amusing man.” A longer pause. “As is his sister. Do you not agree?”
“I know what ye’re doing.”
“What?”
Grinning, he scooted back his chair. “Trying to fight, lass, and I’ll have none of it.” He was too aware that the windows were fading into a purplish dawn. That the owl no longer cooed outside. That this—whatever this was—was almost over. “Time to take ye home.”
She didn’t say anything as she draped on her cloak and they walked on foot back through the dew-glistened fields. When the abbey came into view, sunrise reflecting off the distant stained-glass windows, she spoke without looking at him. “Tom?”
His senses whirred. “Hmm?”
“You were nice to sit with.”
Then she was gone, taking a little of his hopelessness with her.
She’d seen this before, only sooner. The precious side of Tom McGwen.
Her boots made light clacking sounds as she ascended the grand Penrose staircase, cloak billowing behind her. The touch of everything was strange. The oily banister sliding against her palm, the still air, the tickle of loose hair wild about her neck.
She floated, as if in a trance.
Emotions glided through her, too many thoughts to process, like a painting with no true form. He had not done anything, she realized. Nothing that should have affected her this way.
What was it?
Pity?
Guilt?
Maybe, at first. Or maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe ’twas only that the abbey had been dry when he left. She’d been dry. Like a flower starved for light, she’d shriveled—but when she sat across from him in the cottage, his sunrays had kissed her petals.
Life had mingled with her blood again. All the unease dissipated. They’d bantered a little. Then talked about nothing. He’d been weary and she half asleep, and though he never told her about his brother, somehow he didn’t have to.
Just being with him calmed her.
Seemed … right.
Ridiculous, ridiculous. At the top of the stairs, some of the air blew out of her.
She had stacked so many offenses against him and harbored so much anger, did any of this make sense?
Was she so lonely she needed him? Someone she knew, against all doubt, truly loved her? Was that what this was about?
Rounding the corner, Meg came to an abrupt stop in front of Violet’s bedchamber. The door was ajar and light glowed from the crack. Had the child risen from bed?
Opening the door, Meg stepped into the pink-softened room. Her body tightened. “Uncle.”
He glanced up, one of his weathered hands on Violet’s sleeping forehead. His hair was unbrushed. Clothes a little creased and smudged, as if he’d been tramping through the forest or lingering at the beach. “Shh.” He placed a finger over his lips, nodding to the child.
Meg nodded her understanding. She tried to summon relief that he had returned, that whatever Tom had threatened had not frightened him away.
But something about the way he lingered over the bed, the way his body leaned over Violet, clasped her chest like an iron fist. “Where is Jenny?”
Uncle’s forehead creased as if he were about to scold her for disrupting the quiet. He folded Violet’s bedlinens under her neck. “Let her rest. Come.”
Bumps of apprehension scurried up Meg’s arms. What was Uncle doing in this room?