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“Yeah,” Tabitha said insolently.
“I’m serious and I want you to be too. Do we have an agreement?”
Tabitha thought about what Edilean was saying, and she took the smirk off her face. “You get me off the streets and I won’t steal from you or lie to you. I won’t say the same about what I’ll do to others, but I’ll stay away from you.”
“You steal from men and you’ll find yourself in prison if not hanged, but that’s up to you,” Edilean said. “Now, come along. I have to tell Harriet.”
Ten minutes later, she’d made her way through the crowd to Harriet, who was haggling with a man about the price of beans. “He’s a thief,” she said when she saw Edilean. “And look at these things. They have bugs on them.”
“Take ’em or not, it don’t matter to me,” the man by the wagon said.
Muttering to herself, Harriet put them in her basket with the other produce she’d bought, and glanced at Edilean. “Why do you have that look on your face?” She leaned closer to her. “And why is that dreadful woman following you?”
“This is Tabitha.”
“The one you..
.” Harriet looked back at Tabitha with eyes of wonder. “She looks like a lady of the evening.”
“She is, and it’s my fault,” Edilean said as she took Harriet’s arm and pulled her to one side where they wouldn’t be heard. “I’m going to buy Mr. Sylvester’s farm.”
“Are you?” Harriet’s face showed new amusement. “And what will you do with it? Plant roses?”
“That’s a good idea. I can see white roses with dark red plums.”
Harriet put her hand to Edilean’s forehead. “You’ve had too much sun.”
“I’ve had too much of everything and not enough of anything.”
“When we get home I’m going to give you some laudanum and you can sleep.”
“You and your brother and that blasted laudanum!” Edilean said.
“What about my brother?” Harriet asked stiffly.
“Nothing about your brother! Harriet! Will you stop acting as though you’re my mother and listen to me? I’m going to buy a farm, and you and I are going to run it. You’re going to handle the money, because you’re so good at pinching every penny until it screams, and I’m going to handle...” Edilean wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she’d never been more sure in her life that she was going to do this.
“You can’t buy a farm. You know nothing about farming,” Harriet said. “You can’t—”
“This morning you were complaining that I’d never done anything in my life, and now all you can say is that I can’t do what I want to. No!” Edilean said when Harriet started to defend herself. “You stay here with Tabitha while I go talk to Mr. Sylvester’s widow.”
“You cannot think to leave me here with that... that woman!”
“Yes, I can,” Edilean said as she pried Harriet’s fingers off her arm. “And you’ll be perfectly safe because believe me when I tell you that I know from experience that she’s not very good in a fight.”
Harriet looked as though she was going to faint.
Edilean turned to Tabitha. “Don’t do anything to scare her or I’ll not let you in on this.”
Tabitha nodded but she looked at Harriet with a wicked gleam in her eye.
“Do buck up, Harriet,” Edilean said. “After you give her a bath and clean clothes, you’ll see that she’s fairly presentable.”
“Me?” Harriet said. “I am to bathe her? Are you mad?”
“Probably,” Edilean said over her shoulder as she hurried toward the Sylvester wagon. “I am probably totally insane.”
Part Two
