15. Penny
Penny
M orning came more quickly than I would have liked. I rolled out of bed sleep-drunk and stumbled from Kit’s childhood room into the hall. Thoughts of coffee lured me, and I might have made a beeline straight to the kitchen if the scene in the living area hadn’t stopped me in my tracks.
Kit sat in the middle of the floor surrounded by open books and puddles of yellowish wax that had once been candles.
Every page I saw was scrawled in the same slanting script used in the journals Kit had shown me in his home.
There were more, now. Many more. A cursory glance counted fourteen volumes.
The few familiar ones were badly worn, their pages torn with curling edges, but others appeared near pristine.
My gaze traveled from the sprawl of books and candles to the shelves on the wall. They had clearly been rifled, the bottom one bare but for two small tomes left behind. I glanced back at Kit, who sat cross-legged with his head in his hands and a tin cup of coffee by his foot.
He looked exhausted in his rumpled, road-worn clothes, and the soft curls of his black hair were worried into tangles. His shoulders were hunched, and his head hung low. I didn’t know it was possible for him to look so small.
I wasn’t sure if he saw me. He neither stirred to my arrival nor looked my way until, finally, he spoke.
“He kept writing,” Kit mumbled, the words almost lost to the palms of his hands. “Of course he kept writing.”
He peeled his hands away from his face to reveal eyes ringed in shadows and lingering redness from what must have been tears. His gaze roamed across the sea of books containing hundreds upon hundreds of pages.
“He didn’t even mention my name. Not once. Not a word about me leaving, nothing. Sure talked about his new protege, though. Certainly seemed more proud of whoever this ‘O’ is than he ever was of me.”
He stared ahead into the cold, dark fireplace, his expression vacant. No, not vacant, sad . A kind of sorrow felt so deeply that it needed time to work its way out.
I stood by until Kit hummed a low note. He let one hand fall atop the journal nearest him, where it struck the page with a thump.
“ This was his legacy, after all.” He glared at it. “This place and whatever unfortunate soul came after me. I was only ever a disappointment.”
My focus drifted to the cup beside his foot, and I motioned toward it.“Do you want some more coffee?”
“I want nothing if it’s not whiskey,” Kit grumbled.
After the previous night’s sparse dinner, we had little left in our packs but dirty clothes and camping supplies. Definitely not any whiskey, and I was certain Kit knew that.
I considered going ahead for my own coffee but couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Kit alone with his misery.
From the looks of it, he’d been at it all night.
I thought back to how I’d scoffed when he called himself soft.
What I hadn’t seen before seemed obvious now: the stony exterior was merely a shield. This was what lurked underneath.
Walking on tiptoes, I picked my way across the floor using my arms to balance while dodging the corners and edges of the journals.
When I stood almost over Kit, I crouched and slid the volume from under his splayed hand.
Being sure to leave it open to the page he had marked, I moved it to the side.
That made room for me to sit with my knees drawn up to my chest, hugging my arms around my shins.
Beside me, Kit’s head dipped in a steadily sinking motion, only to jerk up at the last second in a spiteful war against sleep. I glanced over my shoulder at the couch behind us.
“Do you want to lie down?” I asked, barely above a whisper.
Kit heaved a breath and began to unfold, struggling through slow movements until he confessed, “My legs are numb.”
Standing, I stooped and offered my hand.
He stared at my arm, then my face, and he looked so defeated that it made my heart ache. I had grown used to stern Kit, somber Kit, even scolding Kit. I wasn’t prepared for sad Kit.
He took my hand, and I pulled him up, catching him when he pitched forward and almost crashed into me. The brush of his body against mine made my stomach twist. I extended my other arm, ready to wrap him up completely if need be, but he righted himself and shrugged me off.
“Do you need anything? Besides whiskey?” I asked as he navigated the sea of books and toppled onto the couch in a graceless heap.
He sat with his arm thrown over his eyes to shield them from the light streaming in the bare windows.
“Could you sit with me?” he murmured.
My skin prickled with gooseflesh, and I rubbed at the nape of my neck as though I could smooth it back down. I meant to say yes, but I wasn’t sure I spoke at all before I made my way toward him.
The couch was long enough to allow for some distance between us, but I tested my luck and kept close, almost touching his leg as I lowered myself onto the cushion beside him.
“I don’t want to be like your brother,” Kit said slowly. “He treats you poorly. I’m afraid I’ve treated you poorly, too.”
The change of subject took me by surprise, and shame followed on its heels. I hadn’t meant to frame Merrick as some kind of villain. He was the kind of man who excelled at things and took no time for those who didn’t. I just happened to be someone who didn’t.
“I may have given you the wrong impression?—”
“Don’t make excuses for him,” Kit cut in. “I did that for my father, too. For too long.” His arm slid away from his face, and he looked over at me. “You’re a gentle soul, Penny. You deserve to be treated kindly.”
Beyond the veil of exhaustion, something warm lit Kit’s eyes. Almost affection, or maybe I was too hopeful. I didn’t think he was like Merrick, not in any of the ways that mattered.
Merrick wouldn’t have bothered to step between me and a punch I rightly deserved as Kit had done at the pub.
Merrick wouldn’t have tolerated hours upon days of my ramblings—he didn’t even abide it when we worked the fields together.
Merrick certainly wouldn’t have stood up to a cruel interrogator or asked me to sit with him when he was sad.
When Kit resumed staring at the ceiling, I found myself bold enough to rest a hand on his knee.
Kit’s eyes drifted down to that single point of contact and stayed there. He blinked, seeming to think for a moment before a long breath escaped him and he sagged against me. I managed not to jerk away in surprise.
“I should have told you who he was,” he mumbled into my shoulder. His left hand rested against my right on his leg, but he was so tired that I wasn’t sure he noticed. “You should have heard it from me, not Vi.”
The click of my swallow was audible. “I understand why you didn’t say anything. Why you didn’t want anybody else to know.”
“Still should’ve told you.” His words slurred. “How can I expect you to trust me if I can’t trust you enough to be honest?”
“You don’t owe me anything,” I assured him. “Least of all apologies. I wouldn’t have made it this far if not for you. Wouldn’t have gone anywhere at all.”
Kit shifted to lay his full weight against me as he slowly lost the fight against sleep.
Carefully, I pulled my arm out from under him and draped it along his shoulders and down his back. Something zipped through me, drumming up nerves I swallowed down. Kit didn’t fight it, didn’t squirm away.
Impossible as it seemed, he nestled in and tucked his head against me.
I watched his chest as it rose and fell with deep breaths. In contrast, I felt like I was suffocating, wound too tightly and thinking too much about the position in which I found myself .
I should have been worried about the journals that detailed unknown horrors of Oaths and rites of passage.
Kit insisted it shouldn’t concern me, but I was concerned for him .
I’d seen the horrible scars that marred his chest. He’d been branded like cattle, marked as the property of his father’s god.
He said I deserved to be treated kindly. He deserved the same.
Reaching across with my free hand, I looped one finger through a lock of Kit’s coal-black hair.
You’re a fool, Penwell.
Merrick’s frequent statement haunted me, taunted me, and Sayla’s impish teasing followed close behind. About Father being confused by my strange proclivities. About the time I kissed Dawson Hilliard. About me and all my wisdom.
This wasn’t what we came for. I wasn’t here to cuddle up to a man I barely knew, and who might be horrified by how often I thought about his strong arms and muscled chest.
We were among dangerous people, some of whom already doubted my fealty to a dark god I knew almost nothing about. But I let myself enjoy this closeness and the warmth of a body pressed against mine.
When it was over, I would do my best to forget it ever happened.