Kit reached out and caught my hands where they hung at my sides. I wanted that, the touch, the closeness, the comfort, but I felt myself jerking back, driven by anger more than need.
Rebuffed, Kit’s brow creased, and his empty fingers curled in the air between us. “We talked about this. It’s leverage they can use against us, Penny. My father was an expert at manipulation, and it’s a skill he taught many of the other people here. If they know how close we are…”
I took another step backward, creating more distance. “Is there a list I should be aware of?” I snapped. “Peoplewho are allowed to know? Or aren’t? Not Merrick. Not Otis. What about Violette? Levitt? Rosie? Old man Arkwright?”
Kit had looked ready to answer, but the last name gave him pause. His frown deepened. “Who?”
Sniffing, I turned aside and scuffed my foot against the floor. “Some ailing old man Tessa threatened to kill so she and Rosie didn’t have to leave town to find a body for the next Oath.”
It had sounded nefarious when Tessa was plotting aloud, but the same plan coming from my mouth seemed absurd. Discussing death and murder and harvesting corpses so nonchalantly was jarring, a part of the culture of Ashpoint I wasn’t sure I would ever get used to.
Kit shook his head. “That would never work. He’s a resident?”
I shrugged, and Kit smirked, looking almost amused by the idea.
“Everyone would recognize him, and murder is as frowned upon here as it is everywhere else. At least these days.”
“That’s what Rosie said,” I replied, then slowed as I eased into an uncomfortable confession. “It might also be why Tessa was going to see you. Among other things.” The heat of shame crept up my neck.
Kit tilted his head. “I’m not following,” he said.
I twisted the ball of my foot over a knot in the wooden floorboards. “I told them you had a place to find bodies.”
“Penny…” His expression shifted into one of exasperation that made me squirm.
“Tessa wanted to know where it was!” I exclaimed, and then the rest tumbled out too quickly to be stopped. “But I don’t evenknowwhere it is, and she said you didn’t trust me because you’re a real man. Ashrewdman.” Tensionrippled up my arms the same way it had when I’d stood face to face with her in Rosie’s kitchen, but I kept ranting. “And she made chicken for you, and she was going to touch you, Kit?—”
“Touchme?” Kit interrupted. “Why would she do that?”
I chewed my lip, feeling that creeping sense of sickness returning. “She said a woman has her ways to make you talk, and she grabbed me…” My voice cracked and I trailed off, hugging my arms around my waist and wishing I’d had time to take a bath, too. As much as I thought and fantasized about love and intimacy, I was woefully inexperienced with other people. Besides my recent interactions with Kit, I’d only been close with one other boy as a teenager, and the girls in my hometown were as disinterested in me as I was in them. When I’d seen Violette pawing all over Kit the day we first arrived in Ashpoint, I hadn’t considered someone could do the same to me, even in jest.
Kit’s dark eyes flitted from my arms squeezing into my middle and back up. I hadn’t explained well, but the look of horror that dawned on his face, chased quickly by anger, implied I’d been clear enough.
“Fuck her,” he spat.
My mouth twisted into a frown. “I think that’s what she wants fromyou.”
Kit inched nearer until he was close enough I could feel his body heat. “Then she’ll be sorely disappointed, because that’s never going to happen.”
I nodded while digging my fingers into my ribs.
Kit sighed. “Pen, are you all right?”
Sudden tears choked me, and I shook my head. I was still tucked in and trying to avoid his eyes as he stepped closer and gathered me in a tight embrace. When his lips brushed my temple with a kiss, I swallowed a sob. Hishands traced soothing circles on my back while I fought to rein in my emotions.
“Pity I wasn’t there,” he murmured. “Would’ve saved us a trip out of town if we had ourownresident corpse to turn in.”
I pitched back to find him sporting a faint smile. I huffed a laugh, then buried my face in his shoulder, comforted by the smell of his freshly soaped skin.
“I wish you wouldn’t worry so much about her,” he said at length. “Or anyone else for that matter.”
The linen of his shirt wicked the moisture off my cheeks before I pulled back enough again to fix him with a skeptical squint. “Youseem awfully worried about everyone else,” I said, then exhaled. “You worry about everything.”
He smiled sheepishly. “It’s a talent.”
I leaned into him once more, feeling his chest swell against mine through each breath. His calm soothed the internal storm that had been brewing all afternoon, but still I had doubts.
“I don’t want to be a secret, Kit,” I said. “You weren’t secretive in front of Reimond and Thoma. Why can't it be like that all the time?” When I leaned away again, Kit pressed his palm in the small of my back and used his other hand to rake the hair away from my face.
