He pulled away, shaking his head, another wave of anger gaining momentum—but she grabbed his elbow before he reached the door.
“Very well, my dear. The child may stay. After all the times you have wandered over here to fetch my poor kitty from the tree or unclog my chimney, I suppose I can do no less for you.”
Tom reached into his pocket for a fistful of coins.
“I think not.” Mrs. Musgrave folded back his hand. “You may repay me by eating well. Miss Foxcroft would wish you to take care of yourself, would she not?”
Tom nodded, and like a torturous addiction, his eyes roamed back to the window. A breeze stirred the ashes. He almost wept.
What Meg wanted was to be found.
He had strength enough for that and nothing else.
“Tomorrow,” Lord Cunningham said over a dinner of fricasseed rabbit and marrow pudding. “I shall accompany you, of course, and we may even take my king’s chariot, if that is agreeable.”
She nodded, thanked him, but the food remained untouched. Her knees bounced beneath the table.
How could he smile so easily over this?
As if they were planning an outing. One where they would go hunting for ribbons, or browsing the bookstore—not putting back the pieces of her life she had lost.
Pieces she wasn’t even certain would fit together.
Or make the picture she hoped.
Excusing herself from the dinner table with murmurs of a headache, she retired to her chamber and draped herself across the bed. She watched the colors in the stained-glass window fade to black.“Look at the ducks.”The voice from her past. A comfort, somehow, though it seemed fainter and less distinct with each memory.
Like someone she had not heard in years.
Remember.She rolled to her back. Pressed her hands to her head. Squeezed.Remember, remember.She could not go tomorrow. She could not face the world—and the past—without some sort of footing to hold her up. Why was everything void? What was wrong with her?
She was empty.
So utterly, utterly empty.
Lord, I’m scared.Her hands fisted in her hair. Pulling, as if the tension would turn the key. But it didn’t. Tears leaked from her eyes so fast the dark room became a blur.
Then a knock. A quiet “Miss Margaret?”
Her chest deflated. Lord Cunningham. Why did he have to come now? He had called her courageous this afternoon, and even though she swiped at the tears with her sleeve, he would hear cowardice when she spoke.
“Miss Margaret, may I speak with you one moment? Please, I shall not bother you long.”
She sighed. Pushing her hair from her face, she slipped to the door and cracked it open.
He widened the crack. He entered, when it would have been far more appropriate had he stayed without. “I was not being modest when I told you I rarely possess insight on the delicacies of human emotion.”
She held back the quiver in her chin by sheer force of will. Her tears were not half so obedient.
Lord Cunningham smiled again. Slower this time, as if he understood her turmoil. “You poor, lost pet.” He hesitated, then touched her hand, then pulled her against him in an embrace as warm and sweet as cinnamon. “Whatever we discover tomorrow, I wish you to know that you are not alone. If the situation is unfavorable, or you find by some strange chance that Penrose Abbey possesses greater allure to you, then home you shall come.”
Home.Despite the bulwarks she built to conceal her fears, a sob leaked into his linen tailcoat. She wasn’t certain what the word meant. Whether home was here or there or if she would ever recall what the word had once meant to her.
But the desperation to remember drained from her as fast as the tears.
She could face Juleshead, whether the lady in the pink pinafore or the man with the soft voice awaited her or not.
Because she was not alone.
