Closer.
“He is truly very much the amiable host.”
“Meg.”
She begged her head to turn, her eyes to look elsewhere, but the pull in his eyes was like lightning zipping back and forth across her chest. She was struck with the numbing danger. Mesmerized by the power. “Kiss me again, and I shall pummel your face,” she warned.
“I’ll come.”
“What?”
“To yer dinner party.”
“Oh.” With a hard—perhaps too hard—shove to his chest, she escaped the chair and darted to the other side of the room. She brushed her hand along a row of meaningless books. “It shall be held at the close of the week. You shall set the odds to even.”
“Ye know the lordy doesn’t want me here.”
“Of course he does.”
“I dinnae know if ye do either.”
Silence.
Against her will, she angled back to him, drawing down a book, clasping it to her chest. She knew what he wanted. What heneeded.
He’d been starved and deprived so long of the one thing he’d been secure in.
Her love.
She didn’t wish to see the emptiness inside him. The sadness. The part he blinked and tried to hide away with another easy smile.
“I just wanted to see ye were safe.” He plucked his hat from the sofa and left.
Her wrists pulsed with rapid speed. She stood in the same place—clutching the book, entirely frozen—for much longer than made sense.
CHAPTER 20
The ride back and forth between Juleshead and home was beginning to wear on him. Saddle sores blistered his bottom, making him eager to dismount the moment he reined to a stop in front of Mrs. Musgrave’s.
He guided the horse behind the shop. He was torn betwixt the driving need to seek out answers here in the village and the frantic desire to see Meg—safe and well—every single day. The three-some hour distance made that difficult.
Securing the reins to a cast-iron hitching post, Tom knocked on the back kitchen door.
It came open almost instantly, and Joanie flew into his arms. “Tom! You’re back.”
He laughed, dragging her into the kitchen with him. “ ’Tis only been a couple days, lass.”
“And the best I’ve had in years.” Mrs. Musgrave stirred into a glazed terracotta mixing bowl with a wooden spoon. The too-warm room carried a lingering aroma of cooked sausage and muffins. “She can trim more hats in one afternoon than I can do in three.”
“And look.” Joanie left the room and came back with a straw, flower-brimmed bonnet. She tied it on and grinned. “Do you like it?”
“Nay, I don’t.” He motioned her to take it off, laughing. “Ye’ll be having every young dandy in the village looking to court ye. I’ll darken the daylights of anyone who tries.”
Joanie’s cheeks tinted pink. Before she could respond, Mrs. Musgrave pulled the child close and kissed her head. “Leave my girl alone, Tommy. Enough of your jesting. Now go along, dear, and finish sewing that last hat before this rapscallion whisks you away from me.”
“Rapscallion, am I?”
“Hush with you.” Mrs. Musgrave muttered something cross under her breath, but her eyes gleamed with affection. When they were alone, she ushered him into a chair. “Sit down and let me fix you something. You are hungry, are you not?”
