Chapter 26 #2
“Left Penrose and took an apprenticeship in Juleshead. Thought saving lives might make up for the one I took. Should have known it wouldn’t.
” He grumbled, itched his head, every movement jerky.
“Didn’t kill anyone else. Musgrave already had a stroke once.
Had a bad heart too. Stopped breathing in my shop and couldn’t do anything to save him. ”
“There were others.”
“Helped the ones I could. You did too.”
Something sputtered through her veins. Warm, startling—and a little like peace. All this time, she had doubted herself. She’d cast blame upon her own shoulders as swiftly as she’d cast it upon Uncle and Tom.
Had it mattered so much that she couldn’t remember the inside of the apothecary shop? That she had no recollection of the nighttime excursions or sitting on Uncle’s lap or walking into church with either of them on her arm?
She knew Tom.
She began to know Uncle.
More than anything, she should have known herself. Enough to trust who she’d been—that she’d made the right decisions, that she’d loved the right people, that she’d kept her hands washed in innocence—even if she couldn’t remember.
With a resigned nod, Uncle turned his back on her again.
This time, she caught his sleeve and pulled him back. “Uncle.” She lifted her arms, and though he hesitated, Uncle bent down and met her embrace. His rough lips pressed against her forehead. Once, then twice, then a third and lasting time.
She wasn’t certain what to say to him. If she should tell Lord Cunningham the truth about his father’s death or leave the past where it had stayed buried for so long.
She only knew one thing.
Meg Foxcroft—and all the people she’d loved—were not as lost on her as she had once believed.
Sometime that night, Tom left the chamber. Meade was asleep, and Joanie had left to assist the doctor in the upstairs quarters, else they would have stopped him.
He should have stopped himself.
Energy reared, then bottomed as he walked the hall with quickening breaths. Sweat tickled down his temples. The chances of finding her chamber in this cursed old abbey were sparse—especially when he had to stop every minute or so to lean against the wall and clutch his wound.
But something drove him on.
She drove him on.
Why had it always been that way? For as long as he could remember, he’d sloshed out of his fishing boat every late afternoon and run straight for the apothecary shop. His stories were never grand, his news never significant.
But he’d always wanted to tell her, and she had always wanted to listen.
“You smell like codfish.” The memory slinked back to him. Dull evening light, that old oak bench back of the shop, and the array of daylily leaves strewn on her lap. “You come out here to help?”
“Och, nay.” He’d plopped down next to her with his hands behind his head. At sixteen he’d been small, a little gangly, and his one consolation was the new growth of thick red beard appearing on his cheeks. Had Meg noticed?
After all, he noticed things.
Like the way tiny new hairs curled around her face. Especially now, in late August, when the days were hot and sultry. Or the fact that she wore her dress more often. The one with the faded red flowers on creamy muslin, instead of the trousers rustling on the alley clothesline.
That and how much she smiled at him.
How lively her eyes became when he talked.
“What do you think I should put in it?” She’d lifted the half-woven basket from her lap. “My button collection or Uncle’s tobacco pouches?”
“Ye can do better than that.”
“I supposed you would say something ridiculous.” She’d laughed anyway, leaned her head into his shoulder for a second, then weaved another leaf into the tiny basket. “Very well. What is better than buttons, Tom McGwen?”
“Well.”
“I didn’t think you had a better idea.”
He harrumphed, then dug something from his pocket. “What about this? Found it today caught on one of the nets. Guess it’s one of those things ladies hide in their boots in case men ever pester them.”
“A hatpin?” She examined the tiny, two-beaded pin with a grin. “I do not think ladies hide them in their boots. Besides, I don’t wear hats.”
“Ye dinnae need to.” Impatient, struck with a wave of vigor, Tom swept away the basket and pulled her up. “Ye can put treasures in it. Things ye find.”
“I never find anything.”
“We’ll go to the seashore. Look around.”
“Now?”
“Aye.” He’d made swelling promises, told her all the things they’d find hidden beneath the sand or tucked inside the cliffside crevices.
Truth was, they’d searched hours into the night without discovering anything.
The basket had sat on top of the kitchen dresser for years, filled with nothing but multi-color buttons, the old goat’s velvet pouches, and one rusty hatpin.
Why she ever looked at him like she did, Tom didn’t know.
The seashore had been so small. Anything he’d ever had to offer her was small.
Doesnae matter. He shook away the past, but it clung to him now like saltwater, intensifying his thirst. All he knew was that he wanted her. That he missed her.
That he had to see her, his Meg—and he had to see her now.
Around the next bend of the hall, light poked out from a barely open door, and he knew she was inside. He leaned against the door jamb, widened the crack.
His heart faltered.
First at the sight of her—sweet, whole, and sitting up in bed. Braids cascaded down her nightgown, and the same drooping curls he’d loved a hundred years ago still wisped around her face.
Then his heart took its second plummet. Lord Cunningham leaned next to her, riffling through a book, while a little blonde-curled lass rumpled the coverlet on the bed.
Och, lass.
Some rash and insane part of him itched to tear through the door, fight Lord Cunningham away, and scoop Meg into his arms. He wanted to carry her to the cottage because she belonged there. She’d sewn the curtains. She’d dreamed it into existence. They both had.
Instead, he slipped past the door before she caught sight or sound of him. All this time, he’d done everything he knew to bring Meg back. He’d always believed she’d want him to.
If she remembered.
If she knew.
Breathing heavy, he rubbed his eyes with the back of his sleeve and found his chamber. Something he’d never considered flamed inside of him, hot and melting like lava crackling through his chest. He could tell her every story, show her every place, and teach her every lesson.
But he couldn’t make her love him.
Only Meg could do that.
Tom had left the house. His absence darkened the stained-glass windows and swept the lofty abbey air with a chill of gloom. Why had he run? Why now—when she had not strength to find him—would he leave her alone?
Hollowness enlarged within her, a lost and untethered sense that everything was over. Mayhap Tom had told the truth when he’d tangled with her lips on the floor. Maybe they never would have married. Nor been contented. Nor ceased to fight.
Even before.
What had made young Meg so certain, all those years, that Uncle was not right?
Her love for Tom McGwen must have been steadfast, but they’d fueled their passion with childish rampages, the scarce coins Tom kept in his blacksmith chamber, and some faraway dream that someday they’d build something of their own.
Some elusive, dreamlike cottage. Painted red, of all ridiculous colors.
Moisture stung her eyes. Mostly because … well, she loved red.
And she didn’t even remember why.
Tossing away the coverlets, Meg awoke Tillie. “I need to dress.”
“But Dr. Bagot says—”
“Please.” The tears must have flashed all over again, because Tillie looked abashed for one second before she consented. “You will be finding his lordship, won’t you? He said I ought to tell him if you stir.”
“Yes.” Dread dampened her palms. “I shall find him.”
“In the garden, he be. At the folly.”
Pain throbbed from dull pinpricks to plunging knife blades as Tillie maneuvered Meg’s arm through a leaf-patterned dress and wheat-colored jacket.
She gritted her teeth all the way through her hair being combed, braided, and coiled in a circle back of her head.
With one last pat of vanilla perfume, Tillie ushered Meg out the door.
Never had she been less ready to face him.
The corridors were too short, the journey to the courtyard over too fast. For several minutes, she stood concealed in the shadows of the cloisters, watching the folly, while a garden-scented breeze rustled her dress.
Then he saw her.
He rose from the bench, lifting an ornate hardback as if somehow beckoning.
When she joined him at the entrance to the folly, he tugged her to the bench.
“I shall have you know I debated the last three days if I should bring my poems to your chamber. I decided against it, in the event such trifling pleasures should dissuade you from rest.”
She glanced at her hands, twisted and wringing in her lap.
Silence.
The dog slept at Lord Cunningham’s feet, his soft snoring lazy and soothing in the tension-charged space.
“My lord, there are things I must tell you.”
“I wish to leave them unsaid.”
“They concern your father.”
Lord Cunningham leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped.
“It is strange, is it not? Often, matters that affect us most directly have a way of finding us too late.” He nodded.
“You need not pain yourself with delivering the minutiae of my father’s death.
Shortly after I married, I found the note. ”
“Then you knew.”
“Yes. My father was very clear in his reasonings, and I respected him enough then—and now—to leave the details undiscovered. The demise was his own choice. I am just fainthearted enough to believe it renders less pain if left in obscurity.”
“That is …” A loss for words shook her. Relief stirred, as calming as his all-too-familiar scent of cinnamon and leather. “That is very brave, my lord.”