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Wayne shrugged but didn’t say anything.
“No one goes hungry in our town,” Clive said.
“You told us that when we came here,” Wayne said. “And we took it to heart. If we have scraps or extra, we give them away.”
“This is the same thing,” I said. “Miss Cooper is a teacher. I have books.”
Clive leaned forward and peered into his whiskey. “If you’re willing to have us into your home and share your books, then I suppose we could try school.”
“No promises that it’ll work,” Wayne said. “Higgins men aren’t known for our brains.”
“Most men aren’t,” I said.
We all chuckled and sipped from our drinks.
“Lord Barn
es, we were sorry to hear about Samuel Cole,” Clive said.
“He was a good man,” Wayne said.
“You hear anything around town?” I asked quietly.
Wayne glanced nervously around the room before returning his gaze to me. “We have some fresh beef coming in tomorrow. You should stop in and get some.”
“I’ll do that,” I said. “Now, who wants a refill? I’m still buying.”
The starry sky and full moon shed light over the snow as I drove us home. Oliver’s and Twist’s hooves made a pleasant clip-clop. The world seemed untouched and perfect under the glow of that yellow moon.
Jasper’s shoulders sagged slightly from the whiskey. On the way there, his posture had been upright and stiff, but now he resembled a mere mortal.
“You and Miss Cooper,” Jasper said.
“What about us?”
“You fancy her.” He paused as he looked up at the sky and let out a long sigh. “She fancies you.”
“I’m sure of the first thing, anyway,” I said.
He fell silent, adjusting his hat, then buttoning his coat up to his neck.
“It’s been three years,” Jasper said. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t remarry. Not all women are like Lady Ida.”
“True. Miss Cooper doesn’t seem the type prone to either madness or hatred, regardless of the weather,” I said. “Ida was fragile even before she had Josephine.”
“Did you know how fragile she was before you married?” he asked.
“No. I was in love. You remember.”
“I do. I remember exactly.”
“You saw it from the beginning, didn’t you?” I asked.
“I hoped I was wrong.”
I shuddered as I slipped into the memory of the night I’d found Ida standing over our two-week-old Fiona’s crib with a knife.
Ida wore nothing but a thin white nightgown. Her fair hair had been crudely chopped and fallen in tufts around her bare feet. I grabbed her by the waist and tackled her to the floor. She didn’t struggle as I pried the knife from her hand and tossed it across the room. Seconds later, she went limp as a rag doll on the braided rug and curled into the fetal position. Fiona had wakened during the commotion and started screaming. Josephine, at age ten, had come running from the room she shared with Cymbeline. She paled and slumped against the doorframe at the sight before her. Her mother on the floor with hair like a baby chick. Me, on my knees, weeping. The knife glittered in the moonlight.
