“There is a man we must revere. I salute you, my friend. I never had a brother, but if I had, I cannot imagine the pain involved in knowing his death was upon my hands.” His words slowed. “And yet you sit here, smiling, unaffected, as one who has no stains on his conscience. I commend you.”
Breath shallow, she turned to Tom.
He leaned back in his chair, no sign of discomposure, aside from the tips of his ears burning red. His eyes remained on Lord Cunningham. Unblinking.
No one raised their glasses.
Mr. Rushworth cleared his throat.
No, no.Some raw and protective fury tingled throughout her body, making her hand shake as she lowered the fork. She wanted to speak. She didn’t know what to say.
Tom scooted his chair from the table and left.
CHAPTER 21
A gouge from a drunken fool meant nothing.
Tom shrugged off the insults the same time he ripped his blasted neckcloth loose. He slung it to the stable floor. He should not have come. Meg had told him not to, and he hadn’t listened.
“Ye never listen.”Papa only said it twice after Caleb was buried. Once, three weeks after the accident, when Tom had been helping Mamm chase down the loose guinea hens. He’d forgotten to latch the pen.
He forgot everything those days, because he couldn’t eat and he couldn’t sleep.
Mamm had only smiled, sad, and put on her muddy boots to help him catch the animals. Papa had watched from the window.
The second time had been four months later.
Tom had thought about it for six nights in a row—what he would say to make Papa punish him or forgive him. Whatever had to be done to make things right. When he finally approached Papa’s bedchamber, while Mamm was tucking the little ones into bed, his knees had been like unstable sea legs.
“Sir?”
Papa had been stripping off his clothes, hair mussed and pipe still smoking from the stand beside the bed. He’d looked at Tom with a void expression.
“I’m sorry.”He had so much he’d wanted to say. That was the only thing that came out.
Papa draped the clothes across the chair back.
Tom lifted the back of his shirt. He turned, breathing fast, a sob bubbling up in him.“Ye can whip me. Ye never finished whipping me.”
“Go to bed.”
“I wasnae allowed to play there. I didnae listen to ye.”
“Ye never listen.”Papa’s rough hand had landed on Tom’s shoulder. He was never certain if the squeeze was a reprimand or the first—and last—unhating feeling the man had left.“Go. Dinnae make me tell ye again.”
Tom had cried most of the night, stifling the sounds in the feather pillow lest any of the other children hear him blubbering. He never pleaded with Papa again for forgiveness.
Now he never could.
That same old sickness opened up inside him as Tom moved down the row of cribs and found his horse. He slung on the saddle.
Och, enough of this.
’Twas over.
Done.
He didn’t need Papa’s forgiveness, and he didn’t need God, and he sure as brimstone didn’t need Meg Foxcroft. Lord Cunningham had been right.
