“I told you, child.” Simon slid his gun to the table. “We left Mama by the oak tree. Remember?” In the predawn light and a chilled drizzle, Simon had led his children to the freshly dug mound.
Neither of them had cried.
They just stood there, staring at the colorful oak tree, the roots in the mud, the leather-tied cross at the head of the woman each of them needed.
“Me go get her.” Mercy scrambled from her chair. She hurried to him, grabbed his hand, tugged at him with pudding stains on her face.
A throb attacked his throat. He shook his head, pulled her onto his lap. Soft blond curls brushed his chin, scented of lye soap and little child and…Ruth. Dear heavens, why did she smell of Ruth?
Both fists rubbed her eyes, and a tremor of tears shook her. “Me need to tell her something.”
“Tell her what?”
“Baby is broke again.” She pointed to where her corn husk doll lay beside the bowl of pudding, one arm snapped. “I need to tell her.”
“I’ll fix her.” John stood. He reached across the table, snatched the doll, and handed it to his sister. “Mama showed me how before.”
Mercy squeezed it to her chest. “Baby is crying and sad.”
“Then take her outside and let her play.” Simon eased the child back to her feet. “Go on with you now. Find a strong husk and John shall make it into the arm.”
With a brightened face, Mercy nodded and raced for the door.
In her absence, the cabin silenced.
John still stood beside Simon’s chair, his hands in his trouser pockets, his eyes waiting and watching and older than they had ever seemed before.
He understood the grave.
He understood yesterday.
He understood the man locked in the root cellar, the blood Simon had cleaned from his knife, and the torn shreds of blue dress they had burned before Mercy awoke.
Simon stood, seized his son, thumped his back and tried to swallow the tears. “Keep your sister away from the root cellar.” The words escaped husky and raw, as he ripped from the hold and started for the door.
“Sir?”
He glanced back, cleared his throat.
“Where are you going?”
“To find out why this happened. To make certain it never happens again…to anyone.” God help him from entering the root cellar and tearing apart the man inside.
Keeping his promise to Ruth may be harder to keep than he realized.
“If I live to be a hundred, I shall never understand why you come back here.”
Georgina glanced out the carriage window, frosted glass blurring the neoclassical features of Sowerby House. Four red-bricked turrets rose from each corner of the stately home, shrouded in fog, and the entrance pea-gravel drive was flanked with massive stone urns.
A painting stung her mind.
One of a little boy, leaning against one of these same urns, in his yellow skeleton suit and his rich brown curls—
“Yet perhaps I do.”
She snapped her attention back to her cousin. “Do what?”
“Understand why you come back here.” The carriage pulled to a stop, and Agnes Simpson’s tiny frame leaned forward. A few strands of limp brown curls fell around her face, escaped from the severe chignon, and though her features were still youthful for a woman eight and twenty, they possessed a distinct grimness.
