“Apple strudel,” Rosie replied, trading her scandalized expression for a faint grin. “It's a new recipe.”
The familiar tickle hit the back of my throat. I tried to clear it, prompting a rattling cough that drew Rosie’s father’s notice.
“Are you well, Penny?” he asked.
I nodded. “Just a nuisance, I think.”
Her father smiled. “Well, take care of yourself. And good luck with the strudel. I can’t wait to try it.” With a pat on his daughter’s arm, he headed toward the bedrooms and out of sight.
In the kitchen, Tessa stepped back to lean against the wood counter. “Speaking of new recipes, we have roast chicken at the tavern tonight. I seasoned it with herbs from my own garden. You should send Kit by, Penny. Tell him I’ll save him a plate.”
I clenched my teeth to bite back a spiteful response as Rosie steered me into the kitchen. Ignoring Tessa, Rosie began gathering bags and jars of ingredients, including alarge crock of apples picked and preserved from an orchard outside Ashpoint. I followed her lead, busying myself donning an apron and yanking the strings tight around my waist.
Tessa remained reposed against the counter and thoroughly in the path of progress. Rosie paused her bustling to give her friend a weary look.
“Are you going to help, Tess, or simply take up space?”
“I just wanted to chat with you, Rose,” Tessa replied. “You don’t mind, do you, Penny?”
The way she said my name made my skin crawl. Everything about her did, including the thought of her saving a plate of food and a seat for Kit at the tavern. Our last encounter with her there had ended with me spilling my entire stein of ale for the sake of escape. Kit had managed to slip away even before that, hiding at the bar and away from Tessa’s attentions.
After the developments of the past few days, I should have been smug enough to brag that the man she had been so desperate to ensnare now kept my company in the way she wanted him to keep hers. We spent mornings and evenings lounging by the fire, but soon, I hoped we would be entangled in my bed. Kit’s affection and tender kisses spurred my imagination to wander and filled the time I spent awake at night, touching myself and wishing they were his hands on me instead.
I thought that was where things were headed, and Kit seemed amenable as well. He had, at least, until an hour ago, when an offered kiss had ended with me on my backside on the shop floor.
“By all means,” I told Tessa while washing up in the sink. “Chat.”
Rather than move out of our path, Tessa smiled andhopped up to sit in the limited counter space. Rosie’s glare turned stormier still as she tried to position the mixing bowls and utensils around her intrusive friend.
After drying my hands on a flour sack towel draped over the faucet, I stood aside and waited for instruction. Truth told, I would have rather been at home or even out in the snow than here. Maybe the cold outside would cool the heat of my anger and help me think more clearly. Tessa was not a threat to what Kit and I had. And neither was one rejected kiss. He was distracted, surely. Thinking of other things. He had a better mind for concentration and productivity than I did, able to focus on things I found tedious or tiresome. That was likely it.
But while Rosie scooped sugar into a bowl, I couldn’t dismiss the sense of rejection. The fact that Kit hadn’t bothered to apologize or even acknowledge me afterward only added salt to the wound.
“I thought we should consider our plan for the second Oath,” Tessa began, surprising me by discussing something of relevance for once. “Namely that I don’t know where to begin looking for a body, lest we start lurking around nearby towns hoping to find some vagrant dead in the street.”
Rosie directed me to add water to the mix and crack the few eggs she’d retrieved from a basket beside the sink.
“It’s too bad it can’t be anyone from here,” Tessa continued while fiddling with her hair. “Old man Arkwright has been in poor health for months. He’s bound to pass any day now.”
“That’s terrible!” Rosie exclaimed.
“He lives alone,” Tessa insisted. “What say when everyone else leaves town, we just move in over there?Claim to want to take care of him? I’ll cook and you clean. Give it a week or so, and if he doesn’t decline rapidly enough, I could add something extra to his evening tea.”
The mention of tainted drinks made me think of mine and Kit’s poison ritual. It had been hard not to tell Rosie—I wanted to give her the same advantage—but when I mentioned it to Kit, he’d been adamant. Trading secrets like that put everyone at risk, and Rosie was more likely to survive a dose of poison than the punishment given to those caught cheating their way through initiation.
Rosie stood with a jar of vanilla in her hand. Her knuckles were white where they wrapped around the small bottle, and her dark eyes flicked toward the bedrooms where her father had gone before she replied in a hushed voice, “Tessa, you can’t be serious. You’re talking about murder.”
Tessa licked her finger and swiped it through the granules of sugar spilled on the counter. “I’m merely commenting on Mister Arkwright’s failing condition and how two young women would be safer staying home and collecting…” She paused, then continued with emphasis, “Local resources, than venturing into the wilds unescorted and unguarded.”
“No.” Rosie shook her head. “We’ll do things the proper way. And how would we even present Arkwright’s body? They would see his face and know what we’d done.”
Tessa sighed noisily. “Trawling the streets it is, then. Hoping whoever we stumble across doesn’t have a terrible disease that infects us both.”
“Kit has a place,” I quipped.
Both girls turned toward me with expressions of interest.
“Is that so?” Tessa asked.
