She made a small leap for them. “I am blithe.”
“Ye’re not.”
“I am.”
“Not.”
“Tom, you’ll crinkle them!” Flustered and giggling, she made a final groping circle around him before slumping her shoulders in defeat. She opened up her palm.
In which he placed—unharmed—the flowers. “Get yer things and come with me. Ye can stay with Mrs. Musgrave.”
“No. There is too much to do here.”
“Ye dinnae like to be left alone. I can tell.”
The look she gave him was one part wistful and the other part grateful. She dropped the purple blooms back into the vase, her profile troubled.
“Lass?”
“It isn’t that, Tom.”
“What’s bothering ye?” When she didn’t answer, a low rustling of regret hummed in his ears. Then she’d noticed.
“What did you do with it?”
“Nothing.”
“Tom, you didn’t—”
“Nay.” He had not done what he’d wanted to do. Rip the pages out. Toss them into the hearth. Forget the memories that swelled through the Bible like ripping torrents. What had he hoped to gain by drinking the words last night? They were poison to him. A battering reminder of what he’d lost. “I put it in the barn. With some of my old things.”
Joanie’s eyes brimmed with moisture for just a second, then she nodded, smiled. “Good.”
“I cannae promise I’ll read it.”
Another nod.
He pulled her to his side with a quick squeeze. “I’ll be back tonight. Mayhap sooner.” Extracting his coat sleeve from Gyb’s playful claws, he started for the door—
“Wait.” Joanie swooped to the floor and grabbed something. She delivered it to Tom with a smile. “You dropped your piece of wig.”
He took the coarse clump of hair. “Wig?”
“It is, isn’t it?” Joanie sniffed. “Smells just like Corporal Simmon’s always did, from back home. Like orris roots, almost. Why do you have it?”
“I—” His mind whirled. Faces flitted through his mind, people he knew, villagers he’d passed on the street and doffed his hat to.
A wig.One face bleeped with rapid-fire speed.
Curly brown periwig.
Strawberry jam.
Fleshy chin.
Mr. Willmott?Though surely the man could not be the only village resident who donned a brown wig. Besides, the justice of the peace had been kind to Tom. Since he’d first arrived in Juleshead, Mr. Willmott had weathered through Tom’s scrapes and trouble with an annoyed but steady forbearance.
He was rule-bent, married, and upstanding.
