The food settled like millstones in his gut.
“You went to see the lady again.” With the table cleared, Joanie untied her linen pinafore and allowed Gyb to play with the strings. “The one from the carriage with pictures on it.”
“Meade told you?”
She nodded.
“What else did he say that wasnae his business?”
“You don’t want me to know?”
He scooted from the table. “Almost dark outside. Time ye get to bed, hmmm?”
“So you can visit a friend too?”
So he could figure out a way to stop what was left of his pathetic life from unraveling. He needed to keep things together. Needed to keephimselftogether.
For Meg.
And his sister.
With a solemn nod of understanding, Joanie tucked Gyb into her arms and slipped away.
The kitchen was too quiet without her.
He opened a window, found one of Meade’s old pipes, and breathed in the tobacco-scented smoke. His head buzzed. He needed to get out of this place. He needed to be closer.
After he’d departed the gates of Penrose Abbey on his livery-rented horse, he’d scoured the neighboring tenant houses and nearby cottages for anything empty.
Almost hidden from the road, a thatched roof and brick chimney had caught his eye. He’d ridden closer.
The place was lifeless, save for a small herd of wild geese in the overgrown yard.
The fence was gray and splintered.
The whitewashed walls grimy.
The door face-forward on the ground.
But as he’d leaned inside, brushing back cobwebs, some of the turmoil in his brain stilled. As if the old place, the old boards, the creaking floor—so close to Meg—might give him something tangible he could fix. Something he could control.
“Tom?”
He glanced back at the kitchen doorway. Joanie stood with sagging shoulders, her eyes wider than crown coins.
“What is it, lass?”
“There’s a spider.” She wrung her hands. “In the rafters.”
“A wee spider won’t hurt ye.”
“Oh.” She nodded, as if he were right of course, as if she should have known better. She turned to leave—
“Wait, lass.” He dumped the ashes of his pipe into the hearth, then preceded Joanie up the narrow stairwell and into the chamber. He took off his boot and bit back a grin as he utilized his childhood skill of climbing furniture and edging up walls.
Meg might hate him.
The killer was yet unfound.
