He’d spent an hour resisting them both. In the end, he stood still like a ninny while Mrs. Musgrave stretched a paper tape across his shoulders and Joanie held the mirror in front of his face.
Each clump of red beard floating to his feet made him groan inside.
Tom bristled back to the present when the kitchen door whined open.
“Well.” Betsey straightened and swooped a couple loose wisps behind her ear. “Mr. McGwen, I would hardly have recognized you.”
“Is your father home?”
“Need to speak with him ’bout something?” She leaned out the doorway, snickering. “I’m not rightly particular about courtin’ rules. You can just ask me, if that’s why you got all shined up for.”
From behind, Mrs. Creagh seized the girl’s arm and hauled her back. “What you want, McGwen? The likes o’ us working folk don’t have time for natter.”
“I came to speak with Mr. Creagh.”
“He’s busy.”
“It’s important.”
“Huh.” Mrs. Creagh muttered a few choice words, then shouted over her shoulder at Betsey. “Get upstairs and fetch your fat-skulled father. No dawdling!” She motioned Tom into the kitchen, shooing a couple chickens back out the door before she slammed it shut.
She went back to chopping celery and carrots with hardthwacks.“So. What you want with the likes o’ Mr. Creagh?”
“It’s a private matter.”
“Came for Betsey, I reckon.”
“Nay, madam.”
“Now there’s a clever one.” She raised her knife at Tom, her smile hard. “That girl hain’t worth the shillings it’d take to feed her. Hain’t got a sensible thought in that flighty little head.”
The slight urge to defend the girl rose in him. Perhaps if the woman did less to beat Betsey down, she would have flourished with a little more grace. And sense.
Mr. Creagh entered before Tom could say so. “What’s this about?”
“I’d like to speak with ye alone.”
Mr. Creagh kicked shut the door. Likely so Betsey would not squeeze back in. “Anything you wants to say can be said in front of me wife.”
“Sir—”
“Out with it, McGwen, ’fore I lose my patience.”
Tom swallowed hard against the notion this wasn’t right. He spared a pitying glance at the missus. “It concerns Elisabeth.”
Mr. Creagh blanched. Speechless.
Thwack.
Thwack.
Thwack.
“Sir, if ye will step outside—”
“Oh, don’t bother. Go on and talk to him, Barty. You think I don’t know ’bout your little trips to the bawdyhouse?”
Color reddened from his neck to his pockmarked face. His voice bellowed. “What you mean by barging in here and—”
