Stepping back, he flinched when she wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her nightgown. As if the touch of him had soiled her. As if he were still the stranger she had spotted on North Chapel Street that first afternoon seven years ago.
“Get out of my chamber before I scream.”
“If ye were yerself, ye would want to know the truth—”
“I said get out!” With blazing cheeks and wild eyes, she groped for a glass pitcher on her nightstand and flung it at him.
Water sprayed his chest. Glass busted at his feet.
“Get out and stay out. If you ever dare come in here again, Lord Cunningham shall lock you up or worse, and I shall be glad of it.” For the second time, she rubbed at her mouth. Some of her composure cracked. Her voice weakened. “Just leave … please.”
Parts of him splintered like the glass he crunched over.
He nodded, fled her chamber, as the shocking realization knifed through him.
Meg was not found at all.
What was she doing awake? Tom slipped inside his too-tiny chamber, the open window bathing the room in milky moonlight and warm air.
From a pallet on the floor next to his, Joanie sat upright. She still wore her shoes. “Tom?”
Tossing his boots in the corner, then unbuttoning his vest, he sank down next to her. “Meade kicked ye out of his bed, did he?”
She giggled. “No, he’s too nice.”
Too nice.Harrumph.
“I said I wanted to sleep in here.” Joanie slid a glance at him, smiling. “With you.”
Tom pulled the shirtsleeves over his head, threw it against the wall, then stretched out flat on his bed. He pulled a woolen blanket over his shoulders. “Ye cold?”
“No.”
“Meade fed you?”
“We went to the market and bought apples and mangel wuzels. Then we went fishing. Meade let me hold the pole, but I wasn’t good at it.” The floor creaked as she rolled to face him. “He said he wanted to call you terrible names, but he couldn’t say such things in front of a wee lass.”
Tom rolled his eyes. He’d hear all the names himself, come morning.Morning.The word reached back out to slap him. Now what?
He hadn’t fished in too long. Who knew if Mr. Flemick would welcome him back. What of Joanie? She couldn’t sit up here in this sweltering room all day. Nor follow about Meade to hear him curse. Or watch him drink. Or overhear the man throwing horse shoes across the room, in another ill display of temperament.
“Tom?”
“Hmm?”
“Who was the pretty lady? In the painted carriage?”
“Ye best go to sleep.”
“She must be very rich.” Joanie rustled her blankets. Her voice drifted softer, groggier. “She had such pretty shoes.”
Silence swept over the room, save for the night bugs chirping outside the window and a distant dog howling its misery. Tom’s eyes weighted. He willed his mind, his lips, not to recall tonight. He thought of the old Meg instead.
Chasing her down a snowy alley last Christmastide.
Swinging her into an arched, limestone doorway, where Mr. and Mrs. Baker hung their rosemary and holly.
“Tom, let me go this moment or I shall tell Uncle you cannot come for the feast.”
