With a gentle nudge, Kit goaded us into motion, headed for the edge of the square. As we departed, Thoma cast a fleeting glance at Reimond’s heart discarded in the snow. He let out another broken wail and turned into Kit’s side, opposite me. Sorrow made my chest tight all over again, and I forced my breaths to stay even as I glimpsed Kit’s face in stony profile.
I love you.I silently willed the words into his brain.Don’t leave me.
Shuffling through the snow, I tried not to see the cheery faces of people resuming business at the nearby stalls. It was too normal, too mundane in the wake of what had just occurred. I felt like I’d been cut open, too, only to leak tears instead of blood.
After dropping Thoma off at Reimond’s family’s home, we returned to our cottage. Kit opened the door and ushered me inside, pausing to kiss my cheek before pulling his cloak from overtop us both.
“Let’s get you into something clean.” His eyes flicked toward my shirt smeared with browning splotches of Tessa’s blood.
I shuddered at the reminder, then nodded, making slow progress to my bedroom. Once there, Kit knelt beside the hearth to build a fire. Stripping down to my undergarments exposed me to the chill in the house, and my teeth chattered while I rifled the dresser drawers for the warmest clothes I could find.
The fire caught with a quiet crackle and hiss, and orange light filled the room. I didn’t feel it yet, but my bare back warmed as Kit crowded in behind me, wrapping his arms around my torso and hanging his head over my shoulder. His face was beside mine then, his stubbled jaw slightly scratchy as he nuzzled against my ear.
I remembered my parting thoughts in the square, and I’d hardly forgotten Thoma’s grief in the face of such a devastating loss. I stopped my search and grabbed Kit’s arms, hanging onto him as we stood in quiet for a long moment.
“I’m here, sweetheart,” he murmured, then kissed my cheek again. “We’re okay.”
A smile ghosted across my lips. “Sweetheart?”
“Darling?”
I nodded and grinned a little wider. “You are my darling, Kit.”
Another kiss, then Kit reached past me for a wool tunic in the corner of the drawer I’d left open. He pulled away from me, and I turned, then raised my arms to let him pull the garment on over my head.
I grabbed some fresh trousers and stepped into them, a bit wobbly until Kit steadied me with a guiding hand on my shoulder. The bed beckoned as I became aware of how tired I was. It shouldn’t have been possible after having spent so much of the past few days asleep, but my body was stillweak, and now my heart was heavy, too. All of it dragged me down as Kit led me to the bed.
Tugging back the blankets, he eased me to sitting. “I need to visit with Levitt,” he said.
“Can’t it wait?” I asked, but what I meant wasplease, stay.
The plea resounded, though I didn’t speak it aloud. I’d seen too much loss and felt too much grief for one day. I didn’t want to endure it alone.
Kit stood beside me, considering. He didn’t think long before his head dipped in a nod. “For a while.” He motioned for me to lie back and scoot against the wall so he could climb in behind.
With the covers tugged up over us both, I sighed contentedly. I shifted and snugged my body against Kit’s, relishing the rush of his breath on the nape of my neck and his arms catching me up and cradling me to his chest. I took one of his hands and brought it to my lips to kiss his knuckles.
“I’ll stay until you fall asleep, and be back before you wake,” he murmured. Already, his voice sounded drowsy.
The fire cast the chill from the room, and Kit’s breathing grew deeper, slower. He relaxed into me, succumbing to sleep and leaving me to revel in the knowledge that I was his sweetheart, and he was my darling, and we were here together. We were okay.
33
Kit
My grumbling stomach woke me. I didn’t remember falling asleep, and for several moments, I wasn’t sure where I was. My entire right side was warm and that arm was mostly numb, but my left hand hung off the edge of the bed and felt like ice out from under the covers.
As awareness slowly crept in, I turned my head to bury my cold nose in Penny’s hair. He was sprawled beside me, draped halfway across my body with his head on my shoulder and one leg stretched over my own. We barely fit on the mattress, taking up every inch of space even squeezed up against each other. I didn’t mind the excuse to be so close, but eventually, we would need to find a better solution.
The room at the end of the hall beckoned in the back of my mind. It felt less ominous than it had when we first arrived, but still made me feel uneasy. Maybe a few more mornings waking up cramped and stiff in this tiny bed would change my mind.
Judging by the light peeking in beneath the curtains, itwas either late evening or early morning. Either way, I’d fallen asleep without meaning to, and slept longer than I had in days, finally too exhausted for nightmares. That also meant I’d left Levitt waiting, but I couldn’t find it in myself to feel bad. Penny needed me, and that was more important.
WhatIneeded, though, was a bath. I hadn’t even had a chance to get my hair wet before my dip in the tub with Penny had been interrupted, and I was starting to itch. So, I spent several minutes carefully extricating myself from his grip without waking him, and slipped out of the room.
The rest of the house was frigid. I stopped in the bathroom to light the firebox and get the water heating, then moved on to the living room for some clean clothes. A check out the window by the door revealed it to be not long after sunrise, which explained my hunger. But breakfast would have to wait because getting clean took precedence, and we were overdue a trip to the market. Before long, I was sinking below the surface of the steaming bathwater and scrubbing days’ worth of grime and sweat from my skin and hair.
Freshly shaven and mostly dry, I returned to Penny’s room and resisted the urge to crawl back into bed with him. I hated to wake him. I imagined he was as exhausted as I still was, but neither of us had eaten much since the third Oath, and I needed to keep him fed if I wanted him to recover.
