“We had to run through the woods in our undergarments,” Rosie chimed in, chagrined. “I thought I’d catch my death of cold.”
“Better that than plague.” Tessa chortled.
“Dead is dead, Tess,” Rosie retorted with a scowl.
I thought of Cait and Edgar, caught and killed for similar crimes. Since my father’s passing, death had become a constant in my life. It seemed rampant.
Tessa rounded on me. “What about you, Penny? I heard you and Kit were back days ago.” She sighed wistfully. “He truly is an exceptional man.”
My expression soured, and I moved past her to the stove where I checked the fire before getting a pot to start the compote.
Tessa stooped to let the cat leap away, then dusted her hands together. “Seems you weren’t lying about that spot of his,” she carried on. “And to divide the bones into boxes? I wish Rose and I had thought of that. We had the thing in a leather sack, bumping around in the cart and raising an ungodly stench. It’s a wonder the vultures didn’t follow us the whole way home.”
Rosie gagged and covered her mouth.
“I will say, it’s simpler with bones, isn’t it?” Tessa mused. “Less mess. You got off easy.”
Recalling the night I’d spent clutching the lantern at the graveside while Kit toiled over the frozen ground made my head shake. Nothing about it had been easy, certainly not for Kit. He’d struggled and insisted on sparing me the work even though his own body was weak from the hemlock.Then, when I passed out, he drove me to the mission. He held my hands…
Rosie gave me a bowl of berries to dump in the pan, then followed them with a heaping scoop of sugar.
“I should ask Kit to share his secret stash,” Tessa said. I’d almost managed to tune her out. “I never see him in town. He's only ever working the forge when he's there. He never wanders the market...”
Taking a spare rolling pin, I turned its end down into the pan and began crushing the berries. Deep, purple juice bled into the sugar crystals in swelling splotches.
“Kit’s a private person,” I muttered, and Tessa laughed.
“I would like to get to know himin private,” she teased.
Tension rippled up my spine, and I tightened my grip on the rolling pin. I ground it against the berries, popping them, then twisting so the thin skins shredded. “Can we talk about something else?” I aimed my question at Rosie, hoping she could come up with another topic.
Rosie scooped a lump of butter into her bowl while looking more than a bit overwhelmed. Before she could change the subject, Tessa continued, though it seemed she was speaking more to herself than either of us.
“Perhaps I should pay him a visit at the smithy,” she said. “I hesitate to interrupt his work though. He looks so strapping swinging that hammer.”
A growl edged out of me. Grinding the berries into pulp had only done so much to vent the frustration that had been mounting since I first saw the nag of a woman haunting Rosie’s home. I was beginning to like her even less than Violette, and that was saying something. In fact, Violette had improved in my estimation after I’d learned she didn’t care for Merrick much more than I did.
But as for Tessa prowling the town square planning tocatch Kit unaware, descending on him with sharp claws and salacious intent, I wouldn’t allow it. I needed to put an end to her fantasies of having any sort of dalliance with him. A firm stop.
I set the rolling pin on the counter with a loud knock. Rosie jumped as I whirled on Tessa and declared, “Kit doesn’t fancy women.”
Both women looked at me with varying degrees of shock. I couldn’t decide if it was the statement that surprised them or the way my muscles bunched and my eyes narrowed with my glare. My ire was all for Tessa, though, and I hoped she felt it. I hoped it made her think twice before she saved Kit a meal and a seat at the tavern, or came around the forge flipping her hair and swaying her hips.
Belatedly, I wondered how Kit would feel about me making such an announcement. He reallywasa private person, and he’d told me that romance of any kind was new to him. Tessa might spread rumors around town, raising suspicions that could link Kit to me in the way he was determined not to be—for safety, not because he was ashamed.
“Not all men do, you know,” I added in a lower voice.
The sugar and berry mixture started to bubble, and I grabbed a spoon to stir. Constantly, Rosie had said. So it didn't burn.
Rosie, too, returned to her task of cutting the butter into the dry mixture in her bowl.
Between us, Tessa’s expression relaxed, and she crossed her arms. After a moment of quiet, she leaned into my peripheral.
“How are you sure Kit doesn’t fancy women?”
My mouth went dry.
Holding my tongue, watching my temper, and keeping the secret about my relationship with Kit was all becoming burdensome. I had slept with him the night before. Wrapped my arms around him and laid my head on his chest andfelthim beneath me. I woke that morning with his heat warming me through and his smell in my nose. If I told Tessa that, she would know how sure I was.
