Chapter 26
“Let me go.” Air moved underneath Tom, and stained-glass colors blurred across his swaying vision. He must have kicked or thrashed, because the arms supporting him clutched tighter.
“Do that again, and you’ll be face down on the floor.”
Meade. Some of the terror shifted. A gruff order, a door whining, then a bed creaked beneath Tom’s weight. He twisted in pain. Almost cursed.
Meade spat one instead. “Lie still, or you’ll be in the dead house.”
“Meg.”
“I said lie—”
“Where is she?” Tom reached out, snatched the man’s shirt, threads tearing. Everything swam, like leaves carried in a current bobbing up and down beneath the surface. His stomach upheaved. Why did he smell burnt flesh? “Get Meg … I want to see Meg.”
“She be with Dr. Bagot.”
“I want to see her.”
“You can’t.”
“The devil I can.” Tom lifted up, fire blazing his side, but a hard shove pinned him back.
Meade growled a succession of insults. Then a voice—a softer one—coaxed him back.
“Let me sit with him. You go on.” Joanie, sweet Joanie. With hair pushed behind big ears, she tucked the coverlets over Tom’s torture-wracked body. Her movements were quiet, nurturing, and steady.
Somehow, that calmed him.
“Shhh.” She swiped a cloth across his forehead, the linen cool and damp. “Don’t try to say anything. The body can do naught of fixing if the mind’s troubled too. That’s what Mamm always said.”
Sounded like something she would say.
Joanie was like her.
“We got the wound cauterized while you were still on the floor. Dr. Bagot wanted the bleeding stopped before we moved you.” She sighed. “But that was hours ago. You were coming awake anyway.”
Questions reared, but he wrestled them down. He knew he should ask. Now that the chamber was quiet, Joanie was alone with him, and he still had his consciousness.
But he couldn’t.
Minutes ticked by.
Then, on the wisps of a prayer, “Meg?”
“The bullet was lodged in her shoulder. Dr. Bagot removed it.”
“She willnae die?”
“No.” Joanie sang the question as if he were ridiculous. “She is already awake. Lord Cunningham is with her and Violet too. I don’t think she ever had a mother. Violet, I mean.”
An unexplained churn of relief and disappointment worked through Tom’s gut. “What happened? How did ye … did they find us?”
“You didn’t come home.”
“What?”
“To the cottage. You said you would, but you didn’t.” Joanie shrugged. “My brother always keeps his word. One thing Mamm and Papa taught us both.”
“Ye went looking for me.”
“The next morning, I walked to the road and got a ride with some wrecker. He gave me this.” She lifted a Spanish silver cob from her pocket. “Said he found it after his last shipwreck. He was terrible nice and took me all the way to Meade.”
“The constable?”
“He came too. We thought there might be trouble.”
Tom nodded, rolled his head to glance at her. “And Mr. Foxcroft.”
“Back upstairs in the attic chambers. He patched himself up and wouldn’t even let the doctor touch him before he went to tending the servants.”
Tom wasn’t certain if he should ask—if he wanted to ask. He swallowed hard and her name came out more raspy whisper than anything else.
“The constable took her to the village lockup. He says she’ll hang.” Joanie’s cheeks blotched red and white. A tiredness hung in her gaze, a sudden fragility. As if it were too excruciating in a world of so few friends to lose someone this close. “She was nice to me, Tom.”
“I know.”
“I want to go home and … rip apart that hat she gave me.”
“Nay.” He shook his head, reached across the bed, and grabbed Joanie’s hand. “Ye keep the hat, lass. She gave me things too.” Meals when he’d been hungry. Those soft, encouraging pats when he’d been so deprived of human touch.
A listening ear.
The truth when no one else would give it to him.
He’d found a little bit of Mamm in her smiles, a little bit of home in her kitchen, and the first real sense of responsibility with every carriage door or clock or leaking roof he’d fixed.
Now the memories were changed, appalling, and bitter.
Everything about her was different. He’d lost the millinery shop to horror as much as he’d lost the apothecary shop to flames.
Och, maybe Joanie should destroy the hat. Maybe Tom should extract every part of her from his being, because Mrs. Musgrave deserved to be despised.
He turned his head away, lest Joanie see his tears. God, show mercy.
Because despite everything, he couldn’t help wondering how wrong it would be to keep a piece, just the tiniest piece, of Mrs. Musgrave still in his heart.
Pippins curled beneath one of Meg’s arms and Violet snuggled against the other. Purrs filled the room. The delicate scent of fur as well as lavender soap faded away the stench of terror.
Lord Cunningham came and went too often.
With bothered, distant looks, he seated himself next to her bed or brought lemon balm tea with tentative smiles.
“I want to see Tom.”
“He is improving substantially. Dr. Bagot is optimistic concerning his recovery, and as you are already aware, the man is never optimistic about anything.” Lord Cunningham had given her a light and forced laugh, sat down for another ten minutes, then bounded away with an excuse she couldn’t even remember.
How much easier her mind settled in his absence. Deep, sluggish breaths rose and dropped her chest, the rhythm soothing, like the man’s voice from her memory. She allowed sleep to take her. Dreams of the pink pinafore, white lilacs, and waddling ducks stole her back to a simpler life.
One where her shoulder did not throb in testament to her pain.
In punishment for what she’d done.
When she awoke, Violet had braided a strand of her hair and someone had brought a tray of food. The tempting aroma of rice pudding and gingerbread stirred a grumble in her stomach.
“I already ate three.”
“Hmm?”
“Three gingerbreads.” Violet reached over Meg, snatched a star-shaped gingerbread from the tray, and presented it. “You slept a long time after Dr. Bagot gave you the medicine.”
Medicine? Why did she not remember?
“Laudanum.” For the first time, Meg noticed the figure on the opposite side of the room. Uncle occupied a wooden chair, and though evening had already fallen, the many wall sconces and candlesticks brightened his face.
One eye was swollen shut, ringed with dark purple and red. A cut slashed through his left brow, another through his lip. “Eat.”
“I shall feed you.” Violet seemed eager to nurse for once in her life. “Just take gentle care to sit, and I shall spoon it right into your mouth.”
“Violet.” Meg winced as she sat up, then pulled the girl into her arms. She nuzzled her face into the sweet, childlike curls. “You should not have stayed with me all day. You must rest.”
“I am tired of resting.”
“Go along to your chamber and take Pippins with you. You may return in the morning.”
“I wish to stay here.” Violet crossed her arms in defiance, but at Meg’s wearied look, she sighed and nodded agreement.
She scooped Pippins into her arms and climbed off the bed.
“But I shall return on the morrow. Father and I both. You must get well again so you can marry, and you must hurry and do so before I …”
Gloom stifled Meg. She wasn’t certain if Violet finished the sentence or Meg was only too dispirited to listen. Whatever the case, when the child left the room, Meg’s eyes already stung from blinking back the tears.
“Eat,” Uncle said again.
She glanced at the tray of food. Then back to his face.
“Eat, Meggy.”
“You killed everyone. Just like the letters said.”
A grunt, one that bounced back and forth between the walls of the room. He stood and hobbled for the door—
“Uncle, wait.” She ripped back the covers, threw her legs over the edge of the bed. A sob clenched her insides but the words came out seething, “You do not dare lie to me now. I will not let you.”
“Leave it be.”
“I cannot.”
“What’s done is done.” He grabbed the knob—
Meg hurried from the bed, knees buckling, and in one spiraling motion, Uncle turned and caught her.
He swept her into his arms. Instead of draping her back atop the bed, he walked back to his chair and sat with her in his lap.
Strange, how familiar he smelled. Like wool and herbs and pipe smoke. “Do not touch me,” she whispered, turning away her face.
With a calloused hand, he patted her head into his chest. She should never have derived comfort in this—in him—but she did. “Why did you ever take me,” she murmured against his shirt, “if you were only going to ruin me this way?”
For a long time, he didn’t say anything. The chair rocked a little, squeaking into the silence, until he finally scratched the stubble on his chin. “I worked here. Years ago. Valet for the elder Lord Cunningham a few months after his son left for school.”
Surprise scratched a nervous pattern inside her chest. “You never told me.”
“Didn’t tell you lots of things. Too busy teaching you. Keeping you out of trouble.” The chair thudded still. “Alistair Cunningham was sick. Found him one night by his bedchamber window. Sitting in his wheelchair with a dagger to his chest.”
Understanding galloped through Meg faster than she wanted it to. No.
“He begged me to do it. Said he was tired of suffering. I said no.” Uncle gave a quick, hard shake of his head.
“Kept on though. Weeks. Every time we were alone. One day I did.” Muscles tightening, he picked Meg up and carried her back to bed.
He moved through motions he knew well—checking her wrist pulse, touching her brow, readjusting the bandage.
Anything so he did not look at her face. “Told me it was right for so long I started to believe him. ’Til he was dead. Knew then it was wrong cause I couldn’t get his face out of my head.”
“Uncle.”