Unless something was wrong.
Unease spiked through Tom’s exhaustion as he resisted the urge to climb the side of the shop, pry open the window, and collapse onto his own pallet. He rounded the street instead. As blackness dimmed and quieted the village, the Kingfisher’s Tavern was the only establishment not blowing out their candles and closing their shutters for the night.
Don’t.
He tried to pull himself back. He was too afraid now, of all times, he would be tempted to gulp down any poison that would numb his pain. He entered anyway, breathing in smoke, and scanned the wood-framed taproom.
A hulking figure, toward the end of the bar, ended Tom’s search.
He elbowed and pushed his way through unwashed fishermen and light-skirts. Someone in the room strummed a hurdy-gurdy. Another belted a song in Cornish.
“There be the ’ero.” A hand snatched Tom and slung him against the wooden bar. More clapped his back. “I say’ee ought to toast to the man wot runs into a burnin’ buildin’ to save our own. What do’ee say, gents?”
A clamor of cheers blasted Tom’s ears. Fire singed his nerves. “Get off me—”
“Here. Drink this.”
Ale sloshed onto Tom’s shirt, then a woman’s clammy arms slinked around his neck—
“Back to your drinks, fools.” Meade. Grunting, shoving, the bar clearing. Then, quieter, “Take to the ale or give it here.”
Tom slid over the dull tankard that had been thrust into his hands. He wiped at his shirt. “The shop was locked.”
“I locked it.”
Tom glanced at the blacksmith’s face. His cheeks were too red, eyes too squinted and bloodshot. Somethingwaswrong. “The ratcatcher—”
“That all you care about?” Meade downed the ale. “Gone five days. No word. Nothin’. All you want to jabber ’bout is the ratcatcher when I been—”
“Ye knew I was looking for Meg.”
“I be many things, but no nursey. You were different. Older. A man almost, but she—”
“What’re ye talking about?”
“Blast you, boy, there be a pint of a girl sleepin’ in my bed this very minute. I don’t be knowin’ who she is or what the devil I’m supposed to do with her while you’re gallivantin’ about, but she—she …”
Tom gripped the edge of the bar in gut-sinking confusion. “She what?”
“Had this sewn into her coat.” Meade smacked a letter against Tom’s chest. “And says she belongs to you.”
CHAPTER 4
No.This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be right. Papa would never have stood for such a thing, and Mamm would have cried against it.
“Know her?”
Of course he knew her. He had carried her about on his shoulders, pleaded with her to stop following him when he played, and planted her atop Sam, their family spaniel, for rides about the yard.
The same child lay curled in Meade’s wrinkled bed linens. Her hair was long, gleaming, a darker blond than it had been at four years old. Her cheeks were pale. Her lips thin. Her brow troubled, even in sleep.
“Been here two days now. I didn’t be knowin’ what to do with her.” Meade shifted closer to the bed, his candlelight twitching her eyelids. “I put her in here. Brought up food.”
“Ye kept her in here like a prisoner?”
Meade scowled, but said nothing in his own defense.
Panic drilled at Tom’s temples. He reeled back and shook his head. “Must be a mistake.”
