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small sounds of life, but Cora wanted to talk with Thomas. She
was still humiliated from her hysterics that night on Barley Hill.
So what if she’d seen a figure looking down at her from the second
story? Arthur had explained that he’d gone upstairs to look for
Mary and glanced down to check on her.
And she’d fainted. And Thomas had carried her home. She
blushed deeply just thinking about it and, struck with the irra-
tional fear that Thomas was thinking about the exact thing,
rushed to fill the silence. “Do you have the list for the chemist?
He tends to forget things unless he has it in writing.”
“Yes.” He pulled a slip out of his pocket. His handwriting was
neat, slanted letters. There was an ink stain on his middle finger
that she realized was always there.
“Do you write? Music, I mean. You play so well.”
The corners of his lips turned down, but his eyes crinkled up
and she was sure he was trying not to betray his delight. “I try,
here and there. It’s rubbish.”
“I’d like to hear it sometime.”
“Really?” He turned toward her, hazel eyes filled with such
honest hope she realized how deliberately careful nearly all of
his expressions were. Not guarded and secretive, like Arthur,
but . . . shielded. As though he was afraid of ever feeling what he
actually felt, of putting on anything other than a brave, practi-
cal face.
He was terrified all the time.
Her heart fluttered with the recognition of someone else who
understood what it was to forever try to be strong and constantly
come up short.
“Really,” she said, her voice as gentle as her smile. She hesi-
tated, then, before she could think better of it, put her hand in the
