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It was spring, Caty realized, with a horrible lump in her throat. In Cornwall, the daffodils would be coming out already in the meadows, the trout lilies would be sprouting up by the river, and in the woods, there’d be the delicate pink and white of spring beauty. It was only here in the city that the seasons lurched from frost to fever with no in between.

Why had they ever left Cornwall?

Because Elias had wanted to. Cornwall was too small for him. He’d had grander things in mind. Elias—refusing to name the month, glaring at the jury from under his hat. This was his fault; he’d brought them to this. This nightmare she couldn’t seem to wake from.

“Mama?” David staggered out to the kitchen, his face blurred with sleep. He was thinning out, growing up, starting to look more like a boy than a baby, but at times like this, he looked like the baby he had been, his cheeks still soft and round.

“Thee needs thy sleep,” Caty said, but she couldn’t resist holding him close, resting her cheek against his soft curls, red like hers.

It was horrible to think he’d grow up and be a man like Elias or Levi, taking what he wanted, not caring who he hurt.

“I told him to go back to bed.” Elias loomed in the doorway, exhausted and annoyed. “If thee coddle him . . .”

Did Elias think the children had no idea what was going on in this house? Caty wasn’t sure what they’d guessed or understood, but they knew their cousin had gone and never come back. Murdered. They needed comfort too.

Or maybe she was the one who needed comfort.

Caty gave her son one last squeeze. “I’ll be in presently,” she murmured to him. “Go now. I’ll be here when thee wakes in the morning.”

“And make me oil cakes?” David asked hopefully.

“If thee are good.” He’d learn soon enough that being good brought no rewards. She’d tried and tried and look what it had brought her. Let him enjoy while he could.

David scampered off to bed, excited at the prospect of a treat. Elias moved aside to let him pass, advancing on Caty.

“Come to bed,” Elias commanded.

“I’ve the oats to set.” There had been a time she’d found his arrogance wildly attractive, a sign of his authority. Now she knew it for what it was. The sort of man who’d lie to his wife and make a scene in court. “Why didn’t thee tell me that Levi had threatened to tell of thee?”

Elias shrugged. “It wasn’t for thee to know.”

Not for her to know, but he’d shout it to the world in Federal Hall. “Does thee think those lawyers don’t know of thee and Elma? They were toying with thee—and thee gave thyself away! The friend and protector of Elma!”

Elias cast a quick look over his shoulder. “Hush. Do thee want to wake the boarders?”

He’d not been so careful of the boarders when he’d been having his way with Elma with the door open. “Did Levi see thee together?”

“He might have.” Which meant he had.

Caty remembered Croucher standing up there in court, with that nasty smirk on his face, talking about Elma’s lover being so wild for her he hadn’t bothered to close the door. “Why didn’t thee just couple with Elma in the front room for all to see?”

“It was only the once—and no one saw,” Elias hissed back, and then realized what he’d said.

“In the front room?”

“Thee were away!” Elias dropped his voice. “Isn’t it enough? Isn’t it time thee stopped throwing this up against me?”

There were no words to contain her emotions. Caty turned her back. “I have to set the oats,” she said in a strangled voice.

If he’d come to her, if he’d apologized—but he didn’t. He wouldn’t. She heard him turn and go, his steps heavy on the uneven boards of the floor. Caty tossed oats into the pot with a shaking hand.

“Caty?” Hope stood in the doorway in her shift, her feet bare, her light brown hair in a long braid over her shoulder. “Is it true? What he said? Did Elias—?”

“Thee shouldn’t listen at doors.”

“I wasn’t listening—I came down because I wasn’t sure if thee had remembered the oats!”

As if Caty weren’t the one who remembered everything in this house. Hope only helped when she felt like it and then felt a glow of virtue. No, that wasn’t fair, Hope did her share, but Caty wasn’t in the mood to be fair.