Because she would wear proper dresses, ones that hadn’t been patched and sewn from all her adventures. And he would smoke a pipe every evening from his upholstered chair. Together, they’d entertain the most esteemed villagers, including the clergyman, and not even tattling Mrs. Whalley would find blunder in them.
A sigh gathered at her throat when they reached the weathered, green-painted apothecary shop. The bowed windows reflected the orange streetlight.
“I’ll be by to see ye in the morning. Save me a bit of bread pudding if ye think of me.”
Ifshe thought of him?
She thought of nothing else.
Sadness choked her, an unprepared pierce of longing and too many other things to count. He should not have kissed her tonight. In all the years she’d known him, he had only done so on the rarest occasion.
Always when she was unprepared.
Or when she was angry at him for some trivial thing.
Or when he was leaving.
Like now.
“I want to go with you.”
He shook his head and grinned, messing with the wet hair draped across her shoulder. But it was in him too, in his eyes—a reluctance to walk away.
In all these years, he had never departed Juleshead.
Neither had she.
“It will be fine,” he whispered, glancing at the window to make certain her uncle did not stir from inside. “I shall be back in a fortnight or sooner.”
“Unless they ask you to stay.”
“They won’t.”
“What if they do?”
“Ye worry too much, lass.”
“And you not enough.”
He pulled her under the arched doorway, finger over his lips, gesturing her to be silent. “Go on before that old goat comes out here waking the world with his uproar.”
Tears stung. She was ridiculous for them, she knew. But they flooded over anyway, in testament to her fears, and she closed her eyes when his calloused finger thumbed them away.
“Och, but there is a bit of softness in that ferocious heart of yers.”
“Do not tease me.”
“What do ye want me to do?”
“I want you to …” She glanced at his face, the splendor of every handsome angle and hard chisel of his jaw. Then his eyes. Blue. Alive. Like the sea, early in the morning, when the ripples twinkled with burning sunlight.
Then … his lips.
Her heart lurched in wild anticipation. Leaning into him for the first time, she swallowed his neck with her arms, kissed him, and pulled back so fast she had to fight for air. “I want you to leave before Uncle catches us. Go.”
He laughed but stilled her hand before she grabbed the door. “Meg.”
“What?”
