Page 35 of Atone, Adonis

Julianna had gone back to hovering by the threshold but stepped fully into the room now. The kitchen firelight caught the purplish shadows beneath her eyes. “I’m not hungry.”

He looked at her. “Then what finds you here?”

“I was going to make a broth for Thomas. I was in such a rush earlier I didn’t think to bring any with me. I don’t know if he’ll eat it but—”

“It will comfort him. When he realizes where he is.”

“Yes. I thought it might.”

“You could have sent down for the chef to make it,” he said, but he knew why she hadn’t.

She’d wanted to make it with her own two hands, to infuse the thing with as much love as she could. He’d done the same for Eva. It was why he was making her favorite broth for Thomas now.

Julianna’s eyes skimmed over the remains of onion skin and carrot top, the scattered sprigs of rosemary too short for the bouquet. And then she looked back at him. “It seems I didn’t need to. Thyme instead of rosemary but you’ve basically got it. How did you know what he’d like?”

“I didn’t.” Fred stirred the soup and left it to simmer. “Not what Thomas would specifically like but—” He trailed off, not intending to finish that sentence.

“But what?”

“This was the broth that soothed Eva when she was ill. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to assume Thomas might benefit from the same.”

Her gaze lingered on his hands where they rested beside the pot. “You’re making this for Thomas?”

“It’s certainly not for me. I had my eye on the cold chicken, personally.”

“I don’t understand.”

Fred skimmed the surface of the soup again, then tasted it before adding another pinch of salt. “You don’t understand why I should want something more substantive than broth?”

“Of course not. I don’t understand why it’s you who hemmed Eva’s gowns and made her meals. Were you her sole caregiver? Surely, she could have stayed here after you—”

She stopped and shook her head and he hoped she might let this line of conversation drop. The last time they’d broached the subject of the accident he’d nearly had an attack of nerves. But she was staring at him, waiting, her brow furrowed and her head tilted to the side again.

“Who else would have done it?” he finally asked, knowing that wasn’t any sort of answer.

The memories came back to him anyway. Eva’s confusion. How she had cried. She hadn’t lasted the year in France after they’d fled, no matter what he’d done to make her life calmer, easier.

Julianna opened her mouth, then closed it again. Fred returned his attention to the pot because it seemed the safest place for his eyes to be. He knew she was staring at him though, and that she was aware the story he’d been telling the past decade didn’t quite add all the way up.

“Thomas prefers a little bread with his broth,” she said eventually, allowing him to keep his secrets for now. “If you soak toast in the bowl, he can manage it.”

“I’ll give the chef instructions for his breakfast.”

Fred went back to skimming the top. And after he’d done that for far longer than was plausible, he began unnecessarily stirring. All the while, she kept looking at him.

Finally she said, almost reluctantly, “I am sorry about Eva. She was always kind. I didn’t know—word didn’t reach us here when she passed.”

“No. It wouldn’t have.” He looked at the soup again and then down at her feet. “You should not be standing on this floor without stockings. You’ll catch cold.”

The corner of her mouth quirked up. It was the first time he’d seen her smile. Or, rather, the first time he’d seen her smile at him, in over a decade.

“And would you make broth for me too if I did?”

“If you wished it.”

She made some noise at the back of her throat that he didn’t know what to make of. He didn’t know if she knew what to make of it either, because then she said, “I should not have come down here.”

“You may go wherever you like, Jules. This is your house now.”