The lass stood close to him, as if she feared being abandoned in the colorful room of hats and feather plumes. Likely, she feared Tom too. She knew the story.
Unless she remembered it herself.
“You have not been eating enough.” Mrs. Musgrave settled into her chair by the window, motioning to a platter of freshly baked desserts. He tried not to stare at the apothecary’s burnt remains through the curtains. “Sit down and eat something. Both of you.”
He glanced at Joanie and nodded, but she shook her head in bashful protest. “We are not hungry,” he said instead.
“Pshaw. Growing children are always hungry.” She chuckled. “Perhaps old women too, hmm?”
“This is my sister.” The words felt short, even to his own ears. He was not certain how to say it gentler. “Joanie.”
“Most wonderful to meet you, my dear.”
“She will be staying in Juleshead.”
“I see.”
“Meade has not enough room, and I thought perhaps—”
“You are certain you do not wish to try one?” Mrs. Musgrave swooped up her tortoiseshell cat from the floor and smiled at Joanie. “Sit here in my chair and eat as many as you like. I shall get you a cup of tea.” Hobbling toward the side door, she waved at Tom. “You will help me, won’t you, Tommy?”
No part of him wished to follow her. She’d only say what everyone else already had.
Except it was more than that.
He sensed it in the way she walked as he followed her into a tiny timber-framed kitchen, where a copper kettle boiled in the hearth. She plopped down Lenox. The cat scurried under a cupboard as fast as Tom wanted to.
“Tommy, dear, you know this is not right.”
Frustration locked his jaw. “Ye know I cannae be leaving her with Meade.”
“You cannot leave her at all.”
“I know nothing about lasses.”
“You knew about Miss Foxcroft.” Mrs. Musgrave’s eyes misted, and her hand shook a little as she grabbed a cracked teacup from a peg. She filled it with steaming tea. “Did you go to the grave?”
They had already placed a marker for Mr. Foxcroft? How had Tom not known?
“The churchwardens wanted to do one for Miss Foxcroft too.”
“She is not dead.”
“I know.”
“They had no right to—”
“Now, now, Tommy. We shall have none of that Scottish temper of yours.” She edged closer to him and took his hand in her wrinkled ones. She demanded his eyes.
Because she knew.
That he kept stealing glances out the window to the apothecary. That he could not eat. That he could not get rid of the smell, and that he was dying, and that nothing would ever be the same again.
“Take the young child home with you, and if Meade says a word about it, I shall come after him myself with a hat pin.”
“Meade willnae listen.”
“Youare the one not listening.”
