Feeling lighter.
Less alone.
“Did you speak with Mr. Willmott today?”
“Aye.” Tom wrung the last little bit of water from his trousers. “He doesnae think Elisabeth was murdered.”
“Oh?”
“He thinks she killed herself.”
“Then he did not write our letters?”
“All I know is that he lied to me.” When she handed him an ironstone bowl, he dipped out a large serving of clumpy pease pottage. “I shouldnae believe anything the man says.”
“But you do.”
Tom hesitated. He glanced up at her face, where she stood behind the table, her wrinkles more defined in the flickering light. “Aye.” The word finally left him. “Aye, I do.”
A pulse of silence.
Then softly, “What will you do now, dear?”
“Tomorrow I’ll speak with the constable. We’ll ride to Penrose Abbey together.” He pulled out a chair and sipped from the bowl’s rim as he sat. “Mr. Foxcroft needs to be locked up. At least until we know more.”
“Yes.” Mrs. Musgrave turned away. “Yes, you are right of course.” When she didn’t speak or sit across from him, a weave of discomfort needled across Tom’s chest.
He glanced at her silhouette, made stronger and blacker by the candlelight. “Something wrong?”
“No, dear.” When she finally faced him, tears spilled from her wide, furiously blinking eyes. “Everything is finally almost right.”
He started to stand—
Something collided with the back of his skull, the force knocking his face into the table. The soup spilled. Searing hot liquid seeped under his nose as a hand grabbed his shirt and ripped him from the chair.
He toppled into the floor with spotted vision. Everything spun. The rafters above him, a stranger’s bearded face, then Mrs. Musgrave.
“You’ve burnt him,” she chided, swiping something soft across Tom’s skin. “I told you he mustn’t be hurt. Not him.”
Confusion ripped through Tom with a fresh shock of grief.No.
“Tie his hands and feet.”
Lord, please.
“Careful.”
His heart throbbed too fast, the rafters began to swim, and everything in the world faded into nothing. He drifted away on the wave of one thought.Not ye.
CHAPTER 24
The silence grew claws and scratched across her throat.Say something.
Orkey had left. “To give m’lord time,” he’d said, “while I see what I can be scroungin’ up in the kitchen.” He’d already finished off the fruit bowl. Evidence that the boy had suffered so much lack.
She wasn’t certain she blamed him for this.
She didn’t know who to blame.
