“I don’t suppose you would help me finish with the wallpaper?”
“I would, but I’m so tired. I need to rest—the babe, ye see.”
I hummed, unimpressed, before pushing off the settee to my feet. The wallpapering called to me, with its slightly offset pattern. It was going to drive me to insanity. Sorcha’s skirts rustled as she slipped away before I could ask again her for assistance.
The dismay was rising when I felt a warm hand on my lower back. I turned in Tom’s arms and wrapped mine around his neck. “Thank you for working on this.”
His lips tipped into that upside down smile I loved so much. “I’ve done it wrong, haven’t I?”
“No, it’s perfect,” I rushed to assure him.
“Xander,” he growled. “Tell me.”
My head hinged back, eyes squeezing tight to restrain the unreasonable complaints.
Tom squeezed my waist, pressing me, forcing me to meet his gaze.
“All right, yes. It’s wrong. And when things are wrong and I cannot see them or do not know what it looks like when they’re done properly, it’s perfectly fine. But wallpapering should be seamless. I know that and I can see it. And every single seam is visible because the patterns aren’t matched. I know I should be grateful because I’ve already learned how absolutely wretched it is to put up. But it’s wrong, and it makes my brain itch.”
I watched as he bit the seam of his lips before freeing them, swollen and red. “Do you feel better?” He reached up and tucked a piece of damp hair behind my ear with a tender look in his eyes.
For a moment, I simply took stock. Some of the anxious tightness in my chest and head had abated but not all. The rest was entirely occupied with thoughts of Sorcha’s child—possibly my child—and where Tom fit into that entire mess.
“A little. Not entirely. But I’m not ready to discuss it yet.”
“Later?”
“Yes.”
“I can do that. Do you want to direct me while I try to fix it? Or do you want something to eat?”
“Do you suppose Murray can fix it? Or Kenna?”
“You don’t trust me to do it?”
“It’s more that I rather think I will drive you from the house, all the way back to London, never to be seen again if you have to listen to me while you hang it.”
He dipped to press a kiss to my temple. “Impossible. But I appreciate the sentiment. You’re overpaying them, they can hang it.”
“I am?”
“Oh yes.”
I couldn’t bring myself to be too irritated about it. They’d done far more than Tom and I would have managed in several lifetimes.
“Something to eat?” he pressed again.
My stomach answered for me with an angry grumble. Tom’s laugh mingled with my own as I trailed him out of the room and down the hall.
I already knew what answer I would give Sorcha. If she was certain, I would agree to her scheme. But Tom, so young and carefree, hadn’t chased me from London to play at father to an infant. Would that be the thing that was too much? I could only pray it would not be.
Thirty-Five
KILMARNOCK ABBEY, EDINBURGH - SEPTEMBER 15, 1816
TOM
This wasmy favorite place in the entire world. Sunk deep into the feather mattress of Xander’s bed with him curled along my side as our sweat cooled in the firelight. I used the opportunity to run my fingers through the hair he would never allow me to muss during the light of day. Every so often, a shudder would run through me when my body remembered the things he did to me, the way he spoke.
