Chapter 22 #2
“In case ye find anything.” He left before his mind could process the truth. That his last lead had fizzled, smoked into nothingness, and was gone.
She missed him. Strange that she would. She remembered more days without him than days with him.
Her expelled breath was the only sound in the otherwise quiet room. She perched on the edge of the bed, staring from one wall to another as the mattress squeaked in time to her dangling feet.
His laugh resonated through her.
Stop.
He was careless, unruly, wild. Nothing about Tom should endear him to her, but everything did, mayhap all at once. The way he tempted her into the unexpected. The hardness of his arm beneath worn, man-scented fabric. The light in his eyes. The darkness in his eyes too.
She understood him, and more fascinating than that, he understood her.
Not just the Meg Foxcroft of old. Whoever she had been was gone, lost in a sea of experiences and memories she could no longer touch.
But Meg now.
Meg who made the wrong choices and raged at him. Meg who pushed him away. Meg who promised her hand in marriage to someone else—and Meg who needed help but had never been able to give any in return.
He had loved her when she wasn’t able to love him back.
Stop. A headache meandered along her forehead, and she massaged her temples in circular motions. She stood. Dear God, help me. Guide me.
She was uncertain what to do. Urgency bruised her, because Violet was dying, Uncle carried secrets, Lord Cunningham was losing hope, and whoever wished her dead was only a breath away.
She wanted Tom.
She missed him.
Maybe … just maybe, she …
No. Walls of denial rose, but a powerful, tremulous yearning knocked them down. In her heart of hearts, she already knew the truth.
She was in love with Tom McGwen.
“There he is.” Mrs. Musgrave ushered Tom into her drooping wingback chair. She grasped his chin and rubbed her thumb up and down across his cheek. “I shall never tire of seeing my young Tommy under all that beard.”
He slumped into the chair. Closed his eyes. “I cannae do it.”
“Do what?”
“Save Meg. Find the man who did this.”
“You will.” A shuffling sound, as if she’d scooted over her feather-stuffed stool and nestled close to him. She patted his arm. “Know how I know?”
“How?”
“Remember that first time I met you? I was helping Elias assemble a hat in the main room, and I heard this creaking and thudding on my roof.” She chuckled.
“It was you. Climbed up there to watch little Miss Foxcroft, you did, from behind the chimney. Elias said you were trouble, but I said you had pluck. I knew right then you could do anything you wanted to.”
“This isnae so easy as climbing yer lattice,” he said through a smile.
“But you are just as strong, just as determined”—another pat—“and just as smart.”
He laughed, shook his head. As much as he knew her praise was overly enthused, the words still bolstered him. Mrs. Musgrave believed in him.
Something Papa had ceased doing.
And Meg.
Something he could not even do for himself.
Moving from the chair, he scratched at his forehead and faced the window. The one overlooking the ash-piled remains of the apothecary shop. Someone must have set to work removing the burned debris, because many of the black-charred timbers were gone.
The space was heartbreakingly empty.
“Tommy, dear, there is something I have not told you.”
Tom turned, raised a brow.
“I did not think of it before. Not until you stopped by this morning and told me of your plans to call upon Mr. Willmott.” She lifted Lenox and held him tight, despite his protesting meow. “My memory is not what it used to be. I fear you know that better than anyone.”
Tom nodded her on.
“All this time, I kept trying to remember who was in my shop that day. Just before I found the letter. I knew Mrs. Whalley was there because she spilled her coin purse and we never could find her last sovereign.”
“Who else?”
“There was Mrs. Hardy come to loan me the ginger I asked for, then a couple of the Stanton daughters, then …”
Tom’s back arched a little tighter. “Then who?”
“I am not saying he might have … that it was him who left the letter.” Mrs. Musgrave cuddled Lenox into her cheek with a torn look. “It was Mr. Willmott. And I am still not quite certain why in the world he came.”
The small tap at her door was too soft to be Lord Cunningham and too patient to be Uncle. Meg waited until the fourth knock before turning from her bedchamber window. “Who is it?”
“Tillie, miss.”
“I do not wish to see anyone.” All day long, she’d remained here. Ever since she accosted Lord Cunningham in the library. Ever since the truth about Tom—about herself—spiked like a mountain in the valley of her chest.
Somehow, locking herself in kept everything out.
The danger.
The choices.
What she would do—what she should do—when she left this room. Why had Tom not come for her? She’d watched the drive for hours. She’d stared at the gates, anxiousness pulsating through her body.
He never rode through.
She wasn’t certain he ever would.
Emotions roiled through her, and she twisted her hands.
This was madness. That she should fear now, of all times, that he would not return.
Even if he did, was she obligated to regard her previous commitment to Lord Cunningham?
What would his lordship do when she left?
Penrose Abbey would grow bleak. He would feign indifference, move about this empty house, riffle through his books—then he would wake up one morning and Violet would be dead.
Threads of duty convoluted around her, because no one would be here to comfort him.
He needed her.
She needed—
“Miss?” Tillie again. A muffled noise, then, “S–sent this up for you, his lordship did. Says you should be eating something.”
Meg pulled open the door. “Tillie.”
The platter shivered in the girl’s white hands. Her mouth was twisted, sour. Her frame a little hunched. “Sorry, miss. I just … I just …”
“Here.” Meg grabbed the platter and scooted it away. She touched the girl’s arm. “What is it? Are you ill?”
“Yes.” Tillie muttered a swift apology, then ripped from Meg with a frantic, blubbering gag. She doubled over in the hall and retched. Then circled her stomach with a moan. “Something be wrong,” she gasped. “With … all of us.”
Tom stood for too long outside the white iron fence. The house glowed this time of evening—the whitewashed brick luminous, the open windows candlelit. Pleasant sounds vibrated from within the parlor.
One of the twins pounding a buoyant tune on the pianoforte.
Someone nattering.
Mr. Willmott shouting a hearty story that garnered a cheering laugh from all gathered round him.
Not him. Tom shook his head, gripped the cold metal of the fence. He was unsettled, a storm brewing in his chest—perhaps because the house he was about to invade exuded so much calm and normalcy.
He pushed through the gate anyway. His steps were weighted, and when he rapped on the door, his stomach fell a little as all the cheerful noises faded to stillness.
A maid answered with a confused smile. “Sir?”
“I need to speak with Mr. Willmott.”
“I am afraid he is—”
“About to ring your neck.” This from the man himself, who gently shoved the maid aside with a pinch-lipped look. His wig was gone, and without the cascading brown locks, he appeared a little smaller and a little softer in the face.
More fatherly.
Husbandly.
“See here, McGwen, this is outside of enough—”
“It concerns Elisabeth.”
“Which I have already told you I know nothing about.”
“Then ye will have no qualms in speaking with me.” Tom braced his legs. He’d fight his way in if he needed to. He’d do whatever it took.
Mr. Willmott must have sensed as much. “You better have a bloody imperative reason for cutting up my peace.” He mumbled a complaint to the maid for allowing pestering little pups to bang down the door at such an hour, then motioned Tom to follow him through the house.
The door of his study squeaked as he barged inside and squeaked into his chair behind a cluttered desk.
The room was small. The walls were decorated with unskilled oil paintings, likely done by his twins.
Every object in the room, though a little dusty and messy, seemed to hint at some sentimental attachment.
“I want to know the truth.”
“Pah, you little fool, I already told you. What is this about?”
“Mrs. Musgrave says you visited her shop.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“I wanted a stovepipe bonnet to set upon the wig I wear when I visit this elusive, ahem, dead Elisabeth.” He pressed his palms flat on his desk. “What do you think I was doing?”
Tom bit the inside of his cheek. The same doubt pulled through him. Not him. It couldn’t be. Too many things that didn’t fit.
“It seems you have succeeded, yet again, in bothering me with trifling matters that are none of my concern. I am justice of the peace, McGwen. Not your guardian angel.” He stood.
“Though I doubt it is of little consequence what I was doing, I visited Mrs. Musgrave’s shop to pick up blue velvet ribbon for Lydia.
Is that satisfactory, or should you like me to fetch my daughter to attest to this purchase? ”
“No.” The word rushed out on a wave of guilt. He should not have come. This was preposterous. His connections linking Elisabeth to the wigged man to the letters to the apothecary shop … they were all weak and falling apart.
“I am sorry.” Tom turned for the door. He took one last widespread glance at the room. “I will not bother ye again.” He reached for the knob … but froze.
Something across the room.
The round side table under the window, where a stack of books and magazine pages littered the crochet doily. A paper wolf peeked out beneath the hardbacks. Part of a pussy cat. A rooster.
His mouth dried.
The remaining worn pieces of Elisabeth’s cutout collection. Mr. Willmott was a liar.