She bounced on her toes. “Like a cracking good time!”
“Right then, let’s have at it.” After planting the lamp on the wagon seat, he guided her back to the tent, where his three students had gathered near his uncle, passing around a large jug of water.
Bram set Penny squarely in front of him. “Men, meet our new assistant for the day, Miss Penny Inman.”
8
Eva could hardly blame Penny for missing out on tea with the reverend and his sister. Had she an excuse, she would have skipped out on it as well. But then Penny hadn’t appeared for reading hour, which was alarming. Though to be fair, the girl might’ve gotten preoccupied with the new litter of kittens in the barn. Yet now, seated across from Penny’s empty chair for lunch, worry crept in to nettle the corners of Eva’s mind. Monday was potato soup day. Penny’s favorite. Surely she’d arrive winded and rosy cheeked from some grand adventure any minute.
Holding to that hope, Eva dawdled with slow bites, listening hard for the trill of a song to come waltzing through the door. Perhaps her sister was simply running late for some obscure girlish reason ... and yet by the time her spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl, there was still no sign of Penny.
Odd, that.
She nibbled the nail of her index finger. It was an inescapable fact that girls would be girls. She herself had missed a meal or two in her day, running off with Lottie or chasing after Bram, for yes, though she hated to confess such an inappropriate action, the truth was that she had.
But this was different. Though admittedly she felt a bit abandoned by her sister, she couldn’t help but worry about Penny’s absence. What if she’d had an accident? Tripped over a rug and bumped her head? It was always hard not to jump to conclusions when it came to her sister, for she dearly wished to protect the girl from any sort of harm. Yet stifling Penny was just as hurtful.
Balling up her napkin, Eva wandered to the kitchen. Mrs. Pottinger was always grateful for help with kneading, especially since she’d taken on the feeding of five strapping men. After Eva had worked out her frustrations on several mountains of dough, Penny still hadn’t turned up.
Was her little sister merely coddling a sulky mood? She was getting to that age where such dispositions became more frequent. Eva headed up to Penny’s room, trying to recall if she’d said anything that might’ve set her sister off.
“Penny?” She rapped on the door, and when no answer came, she tried the knob. Inside, the rosebud-sprigged counterpane lay serene and smooth with no sign of a pouting girl curled beneath. The window seat—a favorite perch—was empty as well. Nothing seemed out of place, save for the open wardrobe. Eva advanced, glancing inside the hulking piece of furniture, and then her heart really did stutter.
Penny’s coat and bonnet were gone.
All the worry she’d been stiff-arming since Mrs. Mortimer had first questioned Penny’s whereabouts rushed in like a mongrel horde. She pressed a fist to her belly, sick with concern. Had she said anything to Penny that might’ve caused her to run off?
Oh,poppet! Where areyou?
Eva sped to her own bedroom, vainly trying to outpace the horrid memory of another such instance a year ago when she’d quarreled with Papa, and he’d stormed off....
It had been strange seeing her father laid out on the kitchen table like that, his forehead gashed, blood flowing. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The right side of his chest sank unnaturallywhere the horse’s hooves had caught him, making every breath a wheeze—when he could catch one. Mostly he struggled for air. Eva had held his hand in a tight grip, heart breaking with a loss she wasn’t ready to own.
Yet the strangest thing of all had been when he rallied, ordering everyone except her from the room. His pale blue eyes burned with an eerie intensity as she leaned over him, and she knew it was now or never to reveal her secret.
“Papa, I must tell you—”
“No. No time.” He struggled to suck in air. “I’m sorry, Eva. So sorry. I never should have—” He grimaced, the muscles on his neck standing out like cords.
“Papa, don’t talk. Just listen. I—”
He grabbed her hand. “Take care of your sister. Always. And the house, don’t—” He convulsed with a gasp. “Don’t lose it.”
She kissed his knuckles, her tears falling freely. “Yes, Papa.”
“Promise!” he rasped.
“I vow it. I will not fail you. Not again. I love you.” Her throat closed then. Tightly. Forbidding her own breaths to pass. He could have no idea how sorely she’d failed him in the past, which was a poison she’d swallowed for far too long. “Papa, please, before it is too late, I must ask your forgiveness because I was the one who—”
“Blackwood,” he hissed, his eyes bloodred. His lips grey-blue. “Beware of Blackwoodsssss ... hissss.”
His words degraded into a death rattle, a sound not meant for the ears of the living.
And then he was gone, the bulwark of her life, leaving her broken, scared, scarred. Abandoned. Just as her mother had done. And Eva had no one to blame but herself.
She shrugged her arms into her coat sleeves, shoving away the memory, then snatched her bonnet and dashed out the door. She was not going through that again. She would not lose Penny because of her failings too. God may see fit to send trialsher way for her own wrongdoings, but Penny didn’t deserve to suffer. Fiddling with her hat ribbons, Eva called for Dixon while trotting down the stairs.
“Yes, miss?” The housekeeper sailed into the front hall just as Eva stepped foot on the landing. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
