His senses whirred. “Hmm?”
“You were nice to sit with.”
Then she was gone, taking a little of his hopelessness with her.
She’d seen this before, only sooner. The precious side of Tom McGwen.
Her boots made light clacking sounds as she ascended the grand Penrose staircase, cloak billowing behind her. The touch of everything was strange. The oily banister sliding against her palm, the still air, the tickle of loose hair wild about her neck.
She floated, as if in a trance.
Emotions glided through her, too many thoughts to process, like a painting with no true form. He had not done anything, she realized. Nothing that should have affected her this way.
What was it?
Pity?
Guilt?
Maybe, at first. Or maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe ’twas only that the abbey had been dry when he left.She’dbeen dry. Like a flower starved for light, she’d shriveled—but when she sat across from him in the cottage, his sunrays had kissed her petals.
Life had mingled with her blood again. All the unease dissipated. They’d bantered a little. Then talked about nothing. He’d been weary and she half asleep, and though he never told her about his brother, somehow he didn’t have to.
Just being with him calmed her.
Seemed … right.
Ridiculous, ridiculous.At the top of the stairs, some of the air blew out of her. She had stacked so many offenses against him and harbored so much anger, did any of this make sense? Was she so lonely she needed him? Someone she knew, against all doubt, truly loved her? Was that what this was about?
Rounding the corner, Meg came to an abrupt stop in front of Violet’s bedchamber. The door was ajar and light glowed from the crack. Had the child risen from bed?
Opening the door, Meg stepped into the pink-softened room. Her body tightened. “Uncle.”
He glanced up, one of his weathered hands on Violet’s sleeping forehead. His hair was unbrushed. Clothes a little creased and smudged, as if he’d been tramping through the forest or lingering at the beach. “Shh.” He placed a finger over his lips, nodding to the child.
Meg nodded her understanding. She tried to summon relief that he had returned, that whatever Tom had threatened had not frightened him away.
But something about the way he lingered over the bed, the way his body leaned over Violet, clasped her chest like an iron fist. “Where is Jenny?”
Uncle’s forehead creased as if he were about to scold her for disrupting the quiet. He folded Violet’s bedlinens under her neck. “Let her rest. Come.”
Bumps of apprehension scurried up Meg’s arms. What was Uncle doing in this room?
CHAPTER 22
“I have to leave.” Tom hated the dullness that Joanie tried to smile away as she arranged light purple blooms in a clay vase. The plants in front of the cottage had just speckled with their first dots of color.
“Should I pack you something? You’ll get hungry.”
“Nae time for it.”
“Mrs. Musgrave would make you eat.”
Leaving his pipe to cool on the mantel, Tom grabbed his coat and followed the kitten’s gait toward Joanie. He snatched out the flowers.
“Tom—”
“Look blithe, or I’ll not give them back.”
